24 Halvalt and Odeti

I ponder whether I could use this new transparent shadow of mine to expand around me but it only stretched up for a centimeter to two at most. Shaking off the small sense of defeat, I fill myself with more determination to practice it like I had done with my dark shadow. For the time being, I decide to use sound to navigate my surroundings.

If Mother was here, she would have extravagantly called this sound waves, similar to that of waves in the ocean yet they are unseen. I smile at the memory of her excited face at the mere mention liquid molecules and the faster propagation of sound over these tightly packed things compared to air molecules. A part of me doubts something I have yet to see though, thus I can't help but not understand what Mother said, but I think I grasp what she meant about using sound to navigate.

An inaudible sigh escapes me as I trek on forwards to the door of the room. Muffled voices come from a room across a small hallway. Although nervous, I head towards the sound, almost stumbling a couple times as I slowly adjust to my state of blindness.

"…understand but…should've seen it yourself…angry that…not what a child supposed to look like. That deeply instilled fear in his eyes—", the woman abruptly stops talking as she and the other person—a man—turns to look at my direction as well.

A tense atmosphere arises as I lean on the wall with a hand, while using the last bits of echo from their voices to scan the room. There were two doors at the opposite side, and I am unsure which one would lead me outside the house, so I stay quiet and gauge their reaction.

"Salutari. You must be Videre", the cold voice of the man says after a period of tense silence. He adds, "How was the fruit? Do you want to eat something else?"

I shake my head a little before asking, "Ob—Obrecht?" My voice cracks a bit, and I stammer.

"Ah", the woman answers as she makes eye contact with the man. "He, uh, he'll be back by tomorrow. You'll be in our care in the meantime. How about you sit down and have a talk with us?" She tried to make the thought very appealing but failed.

Perhaps having anticipated that I would silently decline the offer, no one makes a move. I stay standing by the hallway, just as the woman stays standing beside a large table where the man sat.

I turn to the sound of the man sighing. Later on, he says, "I'll be frank. My name is Halvalt and this is my wife, Odeti. We are Obrecht's parents." He pauses to gauge my reaction but given my mask, perhaps he barely sees one, and so he continues, "Obrecht's in the Batrani's custody. He's being punished for failing to inform his elders about your…existence. You're the first human to have entered Inferis for a long while." He emphasizes on the word "long".

My hands clench at the thought of Obrecht getting punished because of me. A minor punishment in the Lycan dungeons meant ten whips, but I can't imagine this sort of rule-breaking incident to be a minor one. I suck on my lower lip, head bent down.

"I… I'm sorry", I apologize in a small voice, swallowing the lump of guilt stuck on my throat. Obrecht's parents must be blaming me for what I got their son into. It wouldn't be weird at all if they were angry at me.

Paradoxically, instead of shouting at me, Halvalt eases up and speaks in a much gentler tone of voice. "It might not be as bad as you think. He'll be released tomorrow by a fellow of mine. Besides, if you have the time to worry about my son, then you should worry more about yourself."

I look up at him in utter confusion.

"The Batrani wants to hold a public trial to test your innocence and character. We'll be deciding then whether we allow you to stay inside of Lumea or banish you to the farther side of Inferis' wild forest", Halvalt seriously tells me. "Obrecht might have testified for you but a trial is a trial and it is within the rights of all Lumeans to know that there is someone like you here. That is the law that we go by."

I knew that there might be a backlash for telling Obrecht about myself and everything, but to know and to feel are two different things. A part of chest aches at the thought of Obrecht betraying me. I realize that I had already started seeing Obrecht as my friend. Sure, I had friends like Evelyn but to have someone my age and of the same gender… I might have invested more on a stranger than I should have.

"I don't know what you're thinking about or doubting", Halvalt unassertively starts to say. "But if you're thinking that Obrecht meant you harm by telling us about you without your knowledge, then I believe your wrong." He sighs and looks to Odeti for help.

Odeti complies with an explanation that went, "Obrecht came to us yesterday morning. He didn't want to tell us about you at first, but I think he didn't have a choice. If it weren't for you not waking up for five days, he wouldn't have come to us with you in his arms in panic." Odeti sighs. "Yesterday was the first time I saw such worry etched on my son's face." She palms her cheek.

I… slept for five days?

"Fi—Five…", I mumble.

"Judging by how shocked you are, I'm guessing that it's probably not a usual occurrence for you. But you need not worry. A Healer checked your vitals and you seem fine, she said."

"How… How do you know…"

"How do I know what? The Healer?" Halvalt's cold impression cracked when his brows crinkled in the middle.

"… How do you know what I'm trying to say or how I feel?" Thinking about how Obrecht had done so before, I begin to genuinely get curious about how they could tell my feelings.

"Oh, body language", Halvalt replies as if it's the most common thing, completely uninterested.

Was body language always that perceptive? But I barely moved an inch since I got here? Was there some of body language that I didn't know?

Astonishingly, Halvalt laughs, the cold impression, that I had previously attached to him, now completely broken beyond repair. His laugh reminds me of Obrecht; him with his loud voice that none could compare with.

"I guess it wouldn't be a bad thing to tell you", he says to himself. "It's the miniscule things you show that we percept. As part of our Hunter-kind lineage, we have a talent for people-reading. It could be a small twitch on a vein on your finger, or the smallest bead of sweat on your palm; perhaps the slight tension on your shoulder or neck muscle. We can see all that, and apply our natural intuitions to interpret. We know exactly what you could be thinking of doing before you could even start thinking about it. It's the unconscious actions that give a person away." A gleam escapes Halvalt's eyes. "Right now, you're even doubting what I say."

My breath gets stuck. Odeti hits the back of Halvalt's head.

"Don't scare him", she scolds her husband. She turns to me, her arms crossing over her chest. "Well, we did doubt your character in the beginning", she pauses awhile and continues, "but having conversed and interacted with you for a while now, I don't see why you have to stay away from Obrecht." She smiles kindly. Suddenly, she frowns. "If ever, I think it's my son that needs to stay away from you. That reckless little fool", she disses Obrecht the way most parents do their children, shaking her head in worry. "He might just accidentally break you in half one day." She eyes my figure.

I choose to ignore her implication. I am not a stick figure. Obrecht is not a balloon of muscles. More importantly: I. Am. Not. A. Stick. Figure.

"In any ways, the trial tomorrow is more or less just a formality. It's a chance to let the others see for themselves your character." Halvalt breathes out before standing up.

"The trials will happen tomorrow morning. It was initially supposed to be just for Obrecht but having consulted a Healer, we decided to hold both your trials at the same time, since she said you'd wake up any time today. I hope you don't mind?"

I nod a little. Odeti walks over to me and this time I ease a bit, reminding myself that if they meant me harm, they would have done so from the start. Yet this kind of reasoning, makes it all the more apparent to me to keep my other powers a secret. It doesn't matter whether I live in darkness forever. If I can be free this way, I don't mind.

Odeti raises up two hands in front of me to as if to say she would be using them. I like her thoughtfulness. I watch her hands as she places them on my shoulders and I tense a bit but do not move away. Odeti's smile broadens and she turns me over and pushes me back to where I came from.

"So I hear from Obrecht that your mask is important to you", she says as we enter the room. "Is there a particular reason why you wear it?"

"… Unmarried Wraiths can't show their face to others", I politely answer her query in a quiet voice.

"Oh", she monotonously answers. "So you're single I assume."

My head turns to look at her and she looked as if contemplating but then smiles at me cheerily when she notices my attention. An eruption of goosebumps suddenly takes over me; my gut telling me never to cross this person.

I think I know from whom Obrecht inherited the most.

I was about to bow at her and proceed to rest when she suddenly asked a question that made me rethink my three views of the world.

"So what do you think of my son?"

Was a kind smile always this scary?