The Partisan Chronicles [Dystopia | Supernatural | Mystery]

Feargus

Days Until Rhian Arrives: -1

So, I missed their arrival.

When I got to Oskari the next morning—no, let's be real: it was more like early afternoon—I spotted Michael and Strauss outside the church. I spied on them for a while, but after fifty-seven minutes of that, where was Rhian? I didn't get much from their conversation other than Michael saying he was happy to be home in Amalia again, and that he thought the innkeeper was a bit plain but cute, and that she hadn't been very friendly.

Ivana. I darted over to the Widow's Peak and knocked the special knock—twice—on the back door. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.

The door swung open and I busted inside.

"Have you seen her?"

"Whoa—relax. Rhian, right?"

I nodded.

"Yeah, she and that annoying warrior stayed here last night. This morning, I talked a bit about the case, did my part for Zelda. And I gave her some free breakfast that she paid me for anyway. You told me she was fun, but, fuck she's a trip."

Aye, I knew everything about Rhian already. "Where did she go?"

"I don't know, Jack. Did you want to sit down?"

I'd almost forgotten V still thought my name was Jack, too.

My life, mates. My life.

"No, I just need to find Rhian."

"Wait, did something happen?"

"Did it seem like she was going somewhere, was she in a hurry?"

"Look, why don't you just go ask your friends?"

"Because I don't feel like lying to them."

Ivana sighed. "Okay, well—maybe she went to the city?"

It had crossed my mind that at some point Rhian would end up in Jaska, and I wanted her to be reminded to go see Vivienne when she did. I didn't know if we'd be in direct contact then or not, and that's why I left her the knife message at the pawn stall. But I didn't think she'd be heading that way so soon. Why would she be?

I gave V a quick kiss, thanked her, and barreled out the door.

The run to Jaska was uneventful until it randomly started pouring rain. By the time I arrived, the rain had stopped, but I was already soaked through. I'd deal with that later, though. For now, I popped in at The Steel Needle. The bell dinged, and behind the counter, Vivienne looked up from stitching the hem on a pair of trousers.

"Have you seen her?" I asked.

"Darling, you look a mess. But yes—I sent a courier over to the Gander for you. I told her you would be at the Three Drinks at dusk."

I saluted and dipped out the door.

Hurrying back to the brothel, I collected the letter from Vivienne that had been left for me at reception, and then I had to choose between two viable sets of clothing: my debauchery party attire, or the red Petitioner's robes Strauss had made for me.

I felt I could more easily explain the robes, so I laid my wet clothes out and changed into those. The other employees sure had questions in their eyes when I walked by.

At least it was my day off.

I arrived at the Three Drinks before Rhian did, and I spent the early evening entertaining the patrons, as I did, but this time as Petitioner Finnegan. There were a few who knew me from the brothel but couldn't say so, and they just smirked to themselves. A few others knew me as random Partisan number five or whatnot, from the game of True or False, for example. When they asked about the robes, I told them I'd recently found god.

The brothel clients chuckled again.

I knew enough about Strachan religion to know there was only one tenet important to Partisans and it was simple: Win, or run. I made a bunch of others up, like, "No shoes allowed on weekends," and, "We can only wear yellow if we're also wearing green."

We then got to talking about Rhian—I really don't know why, it's not like I'd been thinking about her at all. I told them the story about when we were kids, we needed to make some quick money to fund our runaway operation, so we filled some empty beer bottles with pee-pee water, re-corked them, and sold them to the tavern. That whole story is how Rhian chipped her tooth, by the by. For another time, though.

Anyhow, when I finally saw her walk through the door, I—

Look, I love Rhian more than I've ever loved anyone, including a few people that I really, really love. Maybe there's something wrong with that, I don't know—but as far as I'm concerned, she's the best person in the world. I grinned to myself, hunched down a bit, and pulled my hood up.

She didn't even notice me—one track to the shittiest ale.

So, as you might remember from The First One, I waited for the most opportune moment, for example, while she was mid-sip, to leap from the chair and clobber her from behind. Honestly, I'm shocked she didn't knife me.

Now, in her account of the story, she said we only hugged for a minute, but you know Rhian—a minute, six hours, what's the difference. But I can tell you it was two minutes and twenty-three seconds. After which everybody cheered, wanted to know more about her, to which she responded: Go away, all you Bobs and Not-Bobs. We grabbed a free table where she then proceeded to complain about the wobbly leg on her chair.

We spent some time catching up, though she knew I couldn't tell her much about my work, it seemed she'd been through a fair bit herself back at Palisade. She'd even made a new friend in Councilwoman Blanchett's daughter. And then, the shocker:

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"What have you got on Delestade these days?"

Oh, you know, just that he's Sebastian Vonsinfonie, and that I'm supposed to be finding him for… who? I still couldn't remember. (It was Delilah, in case you'd forgotten, too.)

"Vincent Delestade?" I asked. "As in Delestade, Delestade? Wait—what's Delestade got to do with Captain Kavelin?"

"Nothing, but if you say Delestade one more time, I'm gonna punch you in Delenose."

"Delestade."

Rhian didn't punch me, and that's because she loves me more than anyone, too—well, there might be one exception, but it's forgivable.

Anyhow, my sister explained that in order to get information about their missing person's case, they had to track down Vincent Delestade. He'd apparently worked a similar case prior to defecting. That sent my head for a bit of a spin. Why was Sebastian Vonsinfonie out here pretending to be a Partisan solving a case? It didn't make sense, unless Sebastian Vonsinfonie only assumed Vincent's name some time afterward. Whatever—her request for me to arrange transport to Delphia was working in my favour.

Following that, she showed me the mysterious letter.

I recognized Alexander's handwriting straightaway and I just about died.

"What does it say?"

"Well." I took a sip of her shittiest ale. "It says, 'Cursed we roam, but our regret weakens our resolve.'" WHAT?

"…and we're off to a creepy start."

"The next line's even better, 'Soon we'll have our introduction.'"

Stracha's Steed.

"Brilliant, I love meeting new people. Now read the next bit in a mysterious voice."

What Rhian wants, Rhian gets: "'FeAr nOt tHe sHaDoW aT yOuR bAcK.'"

She flashed me a smile, and everything was right again.

"What's next?" she asked.

"'Pleasant dreams,' and it isn't signed."

All right—again: WHAT?

Every now and then on the Isle of Pantomime in Delphia, they'd host these dinner theatre events where, while you eat, you mingle with professional performers and help solve a fictional crime. I'd never been to one, but you see where I'm going with this? Alexander sent my sister some creepy letter instead of just, I don't know, introducing himself. Now, I reckoned it was all part of Faust's test, or whatever it was she thought she was doing, but this was Rhian we were talking about.

Then again, this was Rhian we were talking about.

She didn't give half a pee-pee bottle about the creepy letter.

In The First One, Rhian wrote all about our time at the Three Drinks—at least, she wrote all about our time downstairs at the Three Drinks. Now see, there were a good few hours missing in that time after she finished her shittiest ale and we finally left for Oskari. This one, folks, is an exclusive, and I'm going to commit this crime comfortably knowing that asking for forgiveness instead of permission is probably my safest route.

After finishing her ale, we paid for a room and locked ourselves inside.

We sat down on the edge of the bed, and just stared at each other for a while, like—I don't know, whatever we couldn't say could still be heard somewhere in the silence. It made us feel connected, because I always had to keep so much from her, and because Rhian wasn't great at talking about feelings.

But somehow, we always knew how the other was doing immediately after one of these staring sessions. And, mates, I wasn't doing very well.

So, first thing's first, we took off our boots.

Then we climbed into bed, and we got under the covers.

Rhian put her arms around me, gently at first, and then she slowly began to squeeze. Tighter and tighter, I closed my eyes and melted into her, and for the next twenty minutes or so, I sobbed in her arms.

So, now why would this vulnerable little Feargus Alistair Finlay moment require Rhian's forgiveness to tell? No, that was the part of the night she omitted to save my dignity. Besides, how much sense would it have made to tell you that at the time?

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Basically zero.
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But I cried in That One Time in Delphia, too, as you might recall, after spending a whole day being tortured by telepaths. Right, so—nothing new. And that's why it's not the exclusive. The exclusive is coming right up.

Once I'd finished crying, and I was feeling infinitely better, we sat back on the edge of the bed, punched each other in the arm, and then we laughed.

Rhian patted my leg. "Bone anyone interesting since you've been here, mate?"

"One or two."

She wasn't buying it. "One or two, or…"

"Well." I counted in my head: V, I reckon her name was Elizabeth? A customer from the bar, in any case. The lass I gave the flowers to on the street—I may have gone back to cash in on that and forgotten to mention. And then Derek and Della.

"Five." But actually, it was six because I'd forgotten about Delilah since being wiped by the Trio.

Rhian chuckled and ruffled my hair. "I leave you alone for ten bloody minutes."

"You have no idea."

Rhian laughed again, cracking her flask of Hocks open. She took a sip and handed it over.

I was itching to talk about V, but I couldn't. Rhian would be too close to V—they'd already met that morning. And if I talked about V, it would only open up a whole host of other questions. Not to mention, she seemed in on Faust and Alexander's dinner theatre game, and I wasn't about to touch that. Derek, though—

"There's this one lad I've been with. He's different, but nice. I actually like him."

"No kidding?"

I shook my head.

"Mate, that's the worst."

"What's the point, right?"

"Right."

"What about you? How was it seeing Strauss again?" I asked.

"I don't know. It's always weird."

"You know what would make it less weird? If you two just did it. Like, whip off your clothes and straddle that fine man's face. I don't even understand why you haven't yet."

Rhian rolled her eyes. "It's called having self control. Try it sometime."

"No, thank you."

Rhian knocked back another sip of Hocks. "Tell me about your new lad. What's he do?"

"He's a sex legend, and a drug dealer."

Rhian about fell over from laughter. She knew I was serious, too. "All right, mate. Well, try not to die for a bit of pipe."

"Doing my best," I replied. "Speaking of—" I dug around in the over-sized pocket of my robes, and then I held a closed fist out toward Rhian.

She raised her eyebrows.

I flipped my fist over and opened my hand.

"Is that—?"

"Aye, it sure is."

"Are we—?"

"I don't know," I said. "Are we?"

Rhian yoinked the Ambiance tablet from my hand, tossed it in her mouth, and washed it back with a sip of Hocks. Not a single second later, I did the same.

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On the other hand, fuck self control.
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As you know, we didn't die. But for forty minutes or so, it seemed to me our room had been knit with sheep's wool, and Rhian's fingers looked like sunflowers.

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Seriously.
Ritual crying, sex, and drugs.
What would you have thought of us?
We barely knew you.
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