Existing

'What do we do now?' Kravoss asked.

'I think I'm rested enough to start digging in the Academy library again,' Fate said.

'I get why, but at the same time I don't,' Kravoss said. 'After all that time you've already spent, I think it's obvious that the library doesn't have anything on your Facet. You should be spending this time learning a skill or something. Let the progress come naturally.'

'That's the thing,' Fate sighed. 'With what I know now, I have to rely on sudden realizations or thousands of hours enchanting to move the needle. I never know when the first will come along, and if I rely on the second, I'll be a Journeyman forever.'

'Who said you had to wait for epiphanies?' Kravoss asked with a knowing look. 'Can't you seek them out yourself? From what I've heard, that's what all Mages do.'

'I…' Fate frowned. 'That's… actually a good idea.'

'What do you mean, 'actually?' I have good ideas all the time. Like seeing this play, for instance.'

'You know that's not what I meant.'

'I do,' Kravoss laughed, which sounded as one might expect a laughing rooster to, an odd mixture of clucking and crowing. The sound drew the attention of passersby, but none spared more than a glance. It wasn't their business.

'But how would I even go about something like that?' Fate asked. 'Meditation? Sightseeing?'

'We'll just have to try everything,' Kravoss said. 'After all, we have all the time in the – .'

"HEY!" they heard behind them.

Fate winced. He knew that voice. He had just spent the past three hours listening to it, how could he not?

He schooled his expression and turned around, finding Samantha Sedronol walking toward them.

'Ah, shit.'

She wasn't angry, so far as he could tell, but she was also an actress. She could easily be faking it.

'Good luck,' Kravoss laughed again, scampering off into town. 'You're gonna need it!'

'Coward!' Fate roared.

Samantha caught up to him, stopping a few feet away. The first thing she did was squint into his eyes to confirm they were, indeed, his iconic eyes with the dark sclera and blue pupils.

Fate didn't miss the slight, furious curl of her lip before it quickly vanished, replaced by a welcoming, if awkward, smile.

"Fate? Fate from Brergan? I knew it was you! How have you been?"

Fate affixed her with a placid stare. "What do you want? I thought you never wanted to see me again."

His original intentions were to play dumb as to her identity, but seeing that reaction out of her got on his nerves.

For eighteen long years, he was looked at with nothing but anger and fear by adults and children alike, all because of these eyes of his and Brergan's general dislike of him and his father.

Now the only woman he had ever cared for besides his own mother, the only person outside of his family that could look at him and just see HIM, and not some monster or freak, couldn't do so.

If her rejection all those years ago didn't make it obvious that she hated him now, that lip curl did.

But he didn't feel like running and hiding from such people anymore. He was a Mage, a Journeyman just like her. He didn't have to cower in the shadows or punch trees to keep himself safe anymore.

The respect he had for this woman was the only thing keeping his feet in place. But deep inside of himself, he could feel any lingering attachments to this woman vanish.

He suddenly regretted hiding his face from her during the play. Why should he feel guilty, exactly? She was the one who left him, not the other way around.

As often happened in these cases, Fate started to resent Samantha for the reaction she had to his eyes. She knew more than anyone how painful it was for him to see people look at him that way, and she still let such a reaction slip.

He was tired of being hated just for existing. Suddenly, he started to sympathize with Mitchell Manthrew in the play he had just finished watching.

But that resentment was buried not long later by indifference. So she hated him, so what? Just the fact his eyes worked on her was enough to tell him she was weaker than himself.

He had no need to fear an attack from such people anymore, not with his Skill.

He was sorely tempted to turn and walk away, but once again, his respect kept him from leaving.

Samantha's smile grew strained as she watched those emotions swirl inside Fate's eyes. Like Old Man Travis, she had experience 'reading' those pitch-black orbs.

She couldn't glean an exact one-for-one on what he felt since he had changed so much since she last saw him, but she still had some rudimentary skills, and he had made no efforts to hide what he felt.

"Perhaps we should go somewhere warm?" she asked, her singsong voice tense and anxious. "There's a great restaurant nearby."

"It's not that cold outside," Fate replied emotionlessly.

"Then let me treat you to a meal."

"I'm not hungry. Just say what you want to say and get it over with. We both know you don't want to be here."

"That's not –," She sighed deeply. "Fine. It's about my father."

"What about him?"

"Well, he found out about our engagement."

Fate raised an eyebrow. He had almost forgotten that they had agreed to marry when they first met. He didn't put much stock into it, and neither did Samantha from what he could tell, because their promise was just that: a promise between children.

Fate had never bothered to push the marriage onto her or get the other things he asked for, like seeing the world, and she never brought it up either, so their engagement had been shoved away to the back of his mind with other pointless information.

"And?" Fate asked. "I doubt an agreement between children is legally binding."

"It is when you have a father like mine," Samantha said with another sigh. "Please. I'll pay for your dinner, let's just talk somewhere else."