The Endless Solvent

She put him in the kitchen. Or more specifically, she put him in the pantry where he shared the space with a couple bunches of dried herbs.

It wasn’t like there was anyone who went there anymore besides herself. Her mother could barely get out of bed without her help and everyone else was gone. She searched around in the old servant’s closets and managed to find a few clean sheets and even a pillow. Lining the floor with some old, empty burlap sacks, she thought the space seemed halfway passable for a fugitive.

The fugitive in question had grown increasingly fatigued as they approached the Lokah estate. Rakel had hoped he would do some explaining when she settled him into a hiding spot but instead he simply collapsed into the makeshift bed she made him and closed his liquid green eyes. He’d removed his tinted glasses and left them on an empty shelf next to him.

It was strange: she thought it would be a lot more stressful having a fugitive in her house. But minutes after he passed out, she found herself simply staring at him so she had to go keep herself busy. Rakel went back upstairs to check on her mother who had pulled herself out of bed and was reading by the window. Lady Lokah was still pointedly ignoring her, so Rakel went back downstairs to clean and prepare dinner. It was so much like any other day, she nearly forgot about the strange man.

By evening, she had a pot of root stew going (one of the few things she’s able to cook) and she peeked into the pantry while dinner simmered in the pot. Green glowing orbs peeked back at her.

“Water?” he croaked.

She filled a metal goblet with water from a pitcher and handed it cautiously to him. Rakel lit a small lantern to give the pantry some light, then pulled a small stool over to the entrance of the pantry, several paces away from the stranger’s reach, and sat down to observe the man greedily drink down the water.

“Dinner will be ready in an hour or so,” she said. She gave an awkward pause. “You can eat, right?”

The man snorted and she flushed. “Yes, I can eat,” he said.

“Well, I wouldn’t know,” she said hotly. “You won’t tell me what you are. Maybe you’re a kind of being that doesn’t eat. Not my fault I’m asking stupid questions if you’re not telling me anything.”

He stared at her for a bit, then threw his head back and laughed. It was a strange sound - she hadn’t heard it within the walls of her house for so long. She shook herself and quickly shushed him, hoping her mother didn’t hear. He obliged but his shoulders still shook with quiet chuckles.

“Apologies, I shouldn’t laugh at someone who saved me,” he said, wiping at a liquid green eye. She half expected his tears to be the same strange green color, but they looked to be normal tears on his finger. “What did you want to know about me?”

“Well, I should at least know your name,” she said.

“Hmm, a name,” the stranger looked thoughtful. “I suppose I should have one of those.”

“W-what - are you still making fun of me?” Rakel stood up, hands on hips. “How can you not have a name?”

The man looked up at her, green eyes amused. “I’m not making fun of you. And it’s common in some places to not have a name, like your kingdom’s neighbor.”

“Oh, so now you’re Caelisian royalty?” Rakel said. “That’s not common at all, only people in the ruling family are unnamed.” She might not know much about Caelis, but she knew that much at least. Not that people had anything else to say about their so-called neighbors. Their borders were several day’s ride apart and their capitals were practically separated by the Nossan mountains. Caelis was also much too close to Yscian borders, their people frequently accused of 'laying with the savages'. Their foreign culture simply wasn’t something a respectful Kuvan noblewoman knew too much about.

“I apologize again,” the stranger said finally. “My name is Doran.”

“Okay, Doran. Can you tell me why those men locked you up like some animal?”

Doran scooted back, wincing at the movement. He propped himself up against the wall of the pantry. “They wanted me to fulfill a wish,” he said, eyes glowing slightly in the dark pantry.

“What kind of wish?”

“I don’t know, they were trying to find a way to… convince me when you promptly rescued me.”

Rakel thought about the runes he etched into the lock. It must have been something related to that. However runeology was strictly forbidden in Kuvan as proclaimed by their king. Even convincing someone else to use runes to cast a spell for you made you guilty of blasphemy. It sounded like Doran’s captors were not afraid of anything like that, or the benefit would outweigh the risk. “It would be best to refrain from casting spells,” Rakel said. “Regardless of what those men could offer you. If the royal guard or the chantry caught you, you could be executed on the spot.”

“You’re not going to report me?” Doran asked. “Despite having proof that I practice runeology?”

“Do I look like the royal guard or a member of the chantry?” Rakel folded her arms and sat back down on the stool.

“Hmm, you were quite upset about me holding your hand.”

“You were grabbing my wrist and throwing me around like a brute. Any self respecting woman wouldn’t like that,” she said hastily, face heating again. “Do you even know what the chantry looks like - ”

She snapped her mouth shut when she noticed his shoulders shaking in mirth again. Infuriating. She’d never spoken to a man who was so rude, so annoying. But then again, she hadn’t spoken to many men in her life. The indignation disappeared, replaced with the sobering thought that she probably didn’t have any idea how to act around men. She had no idea how to be a ‘normal’ noblewoman.

The depressing thought made her mood deflate. Why was she here getting all worked up about how to talk to men properly when the person in front of her probably wasn’t even Gaian? She clearly should be more concerned about other things, like how dangerous he could be. There was definitely something wrong with her.

She felt his strange green eyes on her as she suddenly stood again and stalked over to the pot. “Never mind, I apologize for asking stupid questions. Just… promise me you won’t wreck my house or hurt me or my mother,” she said without looking at him. “And stay out of sight. You can stay as long as you need to.”

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but she shoved the bowl of stew in his hands and left with the portions for herself and her mother. She spent the evening in the library, eating her meal with her mother as she usually did. They conversed about the weather, as they usually did, and then Rakel returned the used dishes to the kitchen, pointedly ignoring the pantry door.

But after fixing some tea for her mother, she couldn’t help but ease the door open to see what the green eyed fugitive was doing. He was curled up on his makeshift bed, breathing softly in sleep. Rakel quietly collected his empty bowl left on the floor, put out the lantern still on an empty shelf, and closed the door behind her.

After also putting her mother to bed, she washed up and crawled into her own bed in her night clothes. As she stared up at the dark ceiling of her bedroom, she wondered just what in Part’s name she was doing. No one in their right mind would willingly keep a stranger like that in their own house. What if he cast his spells and brought the house crumbling around them? What if he demanded them to hand over what few valuables they had left?

Yet she still helped him. She closed her eyes in exhausted realization: she no longer cared if misfortune fell upon House Lokah.

—

As a child, Rakel’s family held parties frequently. They were all spearheaded by her mother, but everyone credited her father as the organizer. He was the Head of House Lokah, everyone and everything existed under his name. Besides, it was inappropriate for women to host parties.

That bothered her mother more than she could ever admit. Lady Lokah was someone who needed to observe results - if she strained to push a boulder off a cliff, she wanted to see it crash down the side. But often she would tell Rakel that life didn’t work that way, and sometimes it meant that you push but only other people get to see the boulder fall. That was the way things were for the average, respectful Kuvanian woman.

Rakel watched her mother push and push and push, only to be disappointed every time when few acknowledged her presence. Eventually Rakel learned that it wasn’t even how her father would take credit for everything she did, but how it simply didn’t matter. Other Houses would host better parties - Lady Lokah was simply average at best no matter how hard she tried.

Despite that, the lack of parties and the absence of wifely duties that affected Lady Lokah the most after the House’s financial crisis. It wasn’t that Lady Lokah was particularly vain or power hungry, but rather it was something she accepted into her identity. It was her place in her very small world, even if it brought her no joy. Rakel had to watch the fact of which torment her mother every day for years.

“I told you that corner of the room has to be scrubbed, how many times do I have to remind you?” Rakel recognized the pattern every time. The raise in volume, the strain in tone, the anger in pitch - it meant her mother would throw another tantrum. They used to only happen once a week, but now she was lucky if they only happened every other day. “Do you want your father to think this house has been completely abandoned? Don’t you understand we still need him in our good graces? Why don’t you ever fucking understand?”

It was a debate every time how to approach her mother when something like that happened. Should Rakel confront anger with anger, or point out how stupid her tantrums were? Or should she stand there and listen to the harsh words and accept her mother’s unhappiness to share the burden?

Or rather, should she just leave?

Every time, Rakel ends up doing a combination of all three: in her mind, she endlessly berates her mother while her body stands and blankly waits until the shouting ceases. When her mother starts throwing things, Rakel leaves. The way it never fixes anything, the way that Lady Lokah doesn’t change, made Rakel sick to her stomach.

Lady Lokah’s temper only grew worse. Rakel only had herself to blame, since she was the only other person who ever interacted with her mother. Her mother began to think angry vulgarities didn’t hit their mark and so often insulted Rakel.

“You’re fat and lazy, it’s why no man would ever want you,” she would commonly spit, even as Rakel cleaned the floors of her room. “Why weren’t you a son? A son would be so much more useful. A son wouldn’t let this House fall.”

Just as Rakel steeled herself from the words, her mother started throwing more things at her. The anger festered when Rakel refused to react to it and the heat of it often frightened her. Her mother threw things, sharp things, at her frequently to make her bleed. It was as if Lady Lokah needed an open wound to believe her toxic words could seep in.

“How dare you look at me like that!” It was one of those days. The day the monster growing inside her mother was released and its fury rocked the empty halls of House Lokah. Porcelain plates were hurled at her, crashing on the floor, the sound punctuated by coughing. “I am your mother, don’t look at me like that!”

A knife was flung and Rakel quickly tried to dodge it. Her mother was quite weak from being bedridden in her illness so she didn’t throw things that hard, but Rakel didn’t want to find out if the knife was thrown hard enough to pierce her. The motion of dodging infuriated her mother more and she surged out of bed to try and push Rakel.

“I’ll rip your eyes out. I’ll dig them out you fucking bitch - ”

Lady Lokah scrambled on the floor for a broken piece of plate and reached to Rakel’s face with gnarled fingers. Rakel was much stronger than her frail mother, but the wild struggle of limbs gave her a painful scratch from the jagged piece of porcelain.

The door to her mother’s bedroom slammed open and both women froze as Doran appeared. His posture still hunched over slightly from his broken ribs, but his face was twisted in fury that shocked Rakel. She had only ever seen him with annoyingly pleasant expressions. But at that moment his face scrunched to make him look almost feral and his liquid green eyes glowed so brightly they almost cast the room into an emerald sheen.

Rakel’s mother turned pale. “An… An Unseeing…”

“Let her go,” Doran snarled. He approached them and snatched Lady Lokah by the hair, then flung her onto the ground next to her bed.

“Don’t hurt her,” Rakel shouted at him, immediately getting up to hold him back.

“Demons…” Lady Lokah’s eyes rolled back and she fell limp on the floor. Rakel froze, staring at her mother’s motionless body on the floor.

Was she…?

She caught the slight rise of her mother’s chest and she let out the breath she was holding. Fainted.

When she gathered her wits, she turned to Doran, hands on her hips. “What in Part’s name were you thinking?” she demanded.

He looked completely confused. Long fingers reached out to touch her cheek, the gash on her face burning at the contact. “She did this to you,” he said, frowning.

“You promised not to hurt me or my mother,” Rakel pushed his hand away, making him wince as the movement jostled his ribs. “And that’s my mother. Why did you throw her on the floor?”

“I was trying to save you - ”

“I don’t need saving from a frail old lady, thank you,” she snapped.

“Her anger was real, woman. She would have tried to kill you,” Doran said, sounding annoyed.

The words shouldn’t have surprised her, but they did. For some reason, Rakel had made herself believe that perhaps her mother was simply mistaken in all of her tantrums, that the anger was like some external spirit that temporarily overtook her will.

“Are you able to ‘see’ feelings now?” Rakel muttered. She considered making Doran help her drag her mother back into bed, but decided he was useless with his broken ribs. Her mother was unceremoniously hoisted by the armpits back under her sheets. She would deal with her dirtied nightgown later.

“I can see many things,” Doran said.

“Are you just saying that out of spite because my mother called you an Unseeing?”

He stared at her wordlessly for a few moments as she moved around the room to clean up the mess. Broken plates were gathered onto a handkerchief so she could carry the pieces easily. “I am not an Unseeing,” he finally said.

“How could you prove that?” she said, then jokingly added. “Sounds like something an Unseeing would say.”

“If I was an Unseeing, you would already be dead,” Doran said gravely.

When she finished gathering most of the mess, Rakel also collected the thrown knife and cutlery, then left her mother’s room, closing the door behind her. She still needed to figure out what to tell her mother after she woke up, but perhaps Lady Lokah will think it was all a bad dream.

Sighing, she threw out the broken plates then washed the dirtied cutlery in the sink. If her mother didn’t think it was a dream, perhaps she could be convinced they were hallucinations; would that worsen her condition?

“Why do you put up with it?” Doran followed her to the kitchen and drew up a chair for himself to sit on to watch her.

“Put up with what?”

“The way your mother treats you.”

Rakel gave him a long look before returning to the dishes. “She’s sick. It makes her behave that way, she can’t help it.”

“A sickness of the mind?”

“She has a breathing illness,” Rakel admitted. “It stops her from being able to do anything. It changes her mood.”

“Do you believe that if you let her hurt you, she’ll go back to the way she was before her illness?”

“I believe that she’s my mother and I need to take care of her because she’s ill,” Rakel said sharply.

It had nothing to do with wishing her mother would return to the way she used to be. In a way, Rakel didn’t want her mother to return to that life. Day after day, doing something simply because she thought she was expected to, not because she wanted to.

Rakel’s hands stilled in the bucket of dirty dish water at the realization: wasn’t she doing the same thing right now? She turned to see Doran’s liquid eyes glow slightly as they stared at her. She cursed under her breath - perhaps the infuriating man could actually ‘see’ things like feelings.

“What else am I supposed to do?” she demanded. She hated how her voice sounded defensive. “Am I supposed to just abandon her?”

“People rarely have things they are ‘supposed’ to do, they just convince themselves of that,” Doran said. “You have things you could do.”

She immediately understood what he meant because she had endlessly thought of things she could do. She could sell off baubles and try to attend college at the Heart. She could try to escape to the Academy, even when not many women go there. She could just leave. She swallowed a lump of emotion in her throat and shook her head. “No, you’re asking me to kill my own mother,” she said. “If I do anything other than what I’ve been doing, she’ll die.”

“Are you waiting for it to balance out?” Doran pressed.

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you waiting for a time for her to treat you poor enough, frequently enough to justify you leaving her to her death?”

Rakel stared at the stranger with liquid green eyes, the depths of which were churning and glowing as he waited for her answer. He never seemed more alien than he did that moment. “Of course not.”

“Then is it the guilt?” he continued. “The fact that you don’t want to be liable for her death?”

“What are you saying?” she said. “Why are you trying to twist this into some ethics debate? I don’t want my mother to die. I don’t need any reason!”

“If you don’t want your mother to die, why were you hoping she had passed away earlier?”

Her palms felt hot at the accusation as she rolled her hands into fists. Her mouth twisted down, chin thrust out - Rakel Lokah had lost everything over the course of two years and nobody would even begin to understand how she felt. “Think what you want,” she said, voice stiff with anger. “It doesn’t matter. What I want doesn’t matter, I’ll still wake up tomorrow with my own mother yelling and throwing things at me. She’ll still be my mother. I will still be responsible for the House. Nothing will change.”

“But what if I can help you change something?” Doran’s green eyes glowed, the strange liquid consistency swirling slowly, like green honey. “As payment for saving my life.”