Uncertain

“What, you didn’t kill him?” Azalea asked, incredulous.

A week after Bella tested the spell on William, her sister had followed through on her threat to visit again, and had found her despondent in a room that was somehow messier than last time. Now Azalea was pacing, kicking aside anything she found in her path, while Bella sat slumped at her desk, watching with a scowl, her ears pressed flat with irritation.

“I told you, I was low on Power.”

Her sister snorted. “Like that makes a difference. Didn’t you say he got knocked unconscious? You could’ve just stepped on his throat or something.”

“I didn’t feel like it, then,” Bella said, placing her forehead on the desk.

“Didn’t feel like it? Some human barges in, waves a sword in your face, and you just feel like letting him live? Why?”

“Because I’ve gone completely and utterly mad. Happy now?”

“Not especially, no.”

“Good.”

She turned her head to the side, away from Azalea. On the one hand, she knew what her sister was saying. Logically speaking, letting William go had been stupid. Her protective runes would be practically useless now; they could make the cottage unfindable, but only for those who had never been there before. Which meant that not only could William return, but he could also lead others to her. In other words, she’d all but invited an angry mob of humans to her door.

On the other hand, she’d seen his future. As such, she knew that when he did come back, he’d come back alone. And although he would find her cottage again, he’d find it cleaned out and empty.

Bella wasn’t sure what to feel about that little glimpse at her own future, but for now, at least, that wasn’t what troubled her.

What troubled her was that what she’d told Azalea was more or less the truth. She… hadn’t felt like it. She could make all the excuses she wanted, but at the end of the day, that was it.

She’d been agonizing over it for the past week, but the best explanation she’d been able to come up with was that denying William the future she’d seen hadn’t sat right with her. Like it was unfair of her, somehow. Which didn’t make any sense—yet here they were, all the same.

And of course she couldn’t simply say as much to Azalea. For one thing, her sister seemed agitated by something, appearing lost in thought as she paced and in a bad mood. For another, Bella had refrained from telling Azalea that she’d tested the spell at all. Her sister tended to be oddly touchy about such things, and she didn’t think she’d take kindly to the fact that—

“You used the spell on him, didn’t you?” Azalea suddenly said, interrupting her thoughts. “That foresight one you were working on.”

Bella stiffened. Her sister stopped pacing. A long silence filled the room.

“So you did, then. That’s why you’re like this, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not.”

She heard Azalea cross the room, and braced herself as her sister’s hands took a gentle yet insistent hold of her head, raising it and turning it toward her. Bella did her best to meet her gaze defiantly, though her tail twitched with discomfort as Azalea’s ruby eyes bored into hers, as if she were trying to catch a glimpse of her brain.

“It wasn’t that,” Bella said sullenly after a few seconds had passed. “The spell worked fine.”

“Why hide it from me, then?”

“Because you’re a pain to deal with when you get like this,” she said with feeling.

Her sister scowled at her, still not letting go of her head. “So you saw his future, then?”

“Yes.”

“Actually saw it?”

“Yes.”

“And that didn’t influence your decision to let him go? Not at all?”

She hesitated. “… He would have lived anyway.”

“Not if you’d just killed him,” Azalea said, eyeing her.

Bella finally pushed her hands away. “The point is, Az, the spell worked fine. So lay off.” Her sister opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, Bella interrupted, adding, “How’d you figure out I used the spell on him, anyway?”

“… You hadn’t tried to force it on me yet,” Azalea said, folding her arms at the obvious subject change, “so I figured you must have already tested it. That, and everything else.” She glowered at Bella for a moment longer, then sighed, turning away, perhaps realizing that her efforts were futile. So instead she settled on a new avenue of attack. “I honestly didn’t think this place could get any worse, though,” she said, kicking a discarded shirt across the room. “You could at least put in the bare minimum amount of effort.”

“I opened the window,” Bella pointed out, though in all honesty, she had simply never gotten around to closing it since a week ago. It had rained a couple days before, too, and even she had to admit that the area around the window probably needed some cleaning. Azalea gave her a look that was somewhere between revolted and unimpressed.

“So what all did you see, anyway?” her sister asked after a moment, running a hand through her feathers, the way she sometimes did when she was—

“Curious?” Bella asked, grinning.

Azalea glared. “I’ve a right to be, don’t I?”

“Yeah, well…” She hummed, considering, then said, “All of it.”

“… What?”

“That’s the long and short of it. I saw all of it. His entire future.”

“… All of it?”

“Yep. Right up until the day he died.”

“That’s… Huh.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Hmm. Maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t test it on me after all.”

“I’d say so. Can we just leave it at that, then?”

Azalea gave her a long look. “… Fine. Just promise me you won’t try to use that spell again.”

“I think I can live with that.”

“And figure out what you’re going to do about that human you let go.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

“And maybe clean up a little while you’re at it.”

“Shut up.”

~ ~ ~

It was a while later that Azalea finally left—or, rather, that Bella finally succeeded in forcing her out the door.

That said, with her gone, the silence felt heavier than ever. It had been building up over the past week, so gradual that Bella had largely been able to ignore it. But her sister’s visit had thrown it into stark contrast, leaving the room feeling hollow. It wasn’t that she’d been cheered up, per se—more that she’d been reawakened.

And now that things were quiet, she could feel herself drifting back into that sleep.

She’d rested her arms on her desk, her head on her arms, turned to one side so that she could see the open window.

Off to the side, propped against the wall, was a blade still red with flakes of dried blood. It was the one and only thing in the room, at this point, that spoke of deliberate placement. She’d moved it away from the window once it’d started to rain.

She didn’t know why she’d done that, but she suspected it was the same reason why she’d let William go, healed his wounds, even. Not that that helped in the slightest.

She stared at the sword for a while, her tail brushing lazily back and forth over the legs of the stool she sat on, her finger tapping idly on the desk every now and then. She wasn’t sure exactly how much time passed. She might have even fallen asleep at one point.

All the while, she hemmed and hawed, until finally—

Abruptly she sat up, stood, changed her clothes, looked herself over once in the mirror, took one last glance at the sword—

And, after only a moment’s hesitation, strolled out the door.

~ ~ ~

William stared at the practice sword in his hand.

It had been a week since he had confronted the Witch. A week since he’d lost pretty much immediately. A week since he’d, somehow, survived.

They were past the worst of the Witch scare; there’d been no more sightings, and so the panic had gradually eased into a tension. It still hung heavy in the air, but life went on nonetheless, so the townsfolk did their best to work around it. The local businesses were bound to take a blow, but it wouldn’t be anything they couldn’t pull through. All in all, there seemed a silent understanding that everything would, one day, be back to normal.

William hadn’t told anyone about the Witch he’d seen—not the winged one that everyone else was on the lookout for, but one with the ears and tail of a wolf. He still wasn’t sure that had been the right idea. Every time over the past week that he’d passed his father’s study, his footsteps had slowed—yet every time, he kept walking.

He just… wasn’t sure.

At first he’d thought it was the fact that he’d hit his head. Upon returning to the mansion that day, he’d made up some excuse to his father and Alphonse to explain his sorry state, and the estate’s physician had checked him over. The conclusion had been that William was tired and sore, and needed some rest. The next day, he’d felt perfectly fine. The physician agreed. And that was that.

But his confusion hadn’t left with the aching.

And it had only grown when he learned that, the day after his finding the Witch, the town guard had searched the forest and found nothing. He could have spoken up then, said something about the cottage he’d stumbled across, but something had stayed his tongue.

It didn’t help very much that he couldn’t stop thinking of the odd young woman he’d met that day, either. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something had been familiar about her, but whenever he tried to think what it was, he always came up blank.

It was all just too much for his brain to handle. He’d never been particularly quick-witted.

That said, there were some things that he could be absolutely certain of. After all, his defeat at the hands of the Witch had been nothing if not certain.

So, once he’d been fit enough to do so, he’d taken to training.

While the rest of Ellerdale was gradually calming down as time passed, the town guard was doing anything but. At first William had wondered if he wouldn’t be a nuisance, since he wasn’t actually a member of the guard, but Geralt, fortunately, seemed nothing short of relieved to have him present during practice.

Most of his time was spent sparring, with everyone from seasoned veterans to the same rookies he’d fought before. Vance, the Vice Captain, did the same; meanwhile Geralt made the rounds, shouting at anyone who was slacking off, occasionally disappearing for a time to meet with the Baron or such.

William had yet to lose a single match. Maybe that should have pleased him, but, frankly, it didn’t.

He’d experienced firsthand the difference in strength between him and the Witch. He had no doubt that training was the best thing he could do with his time—but at this rate, was it really helping?

Again with the uncertainty. Always with the uncertainty. Maybe it was just a part of him. If so, it was a part he felt he could live without.

He swung the practice sword around—he’d always liked the woosh sound weapons made when you moved them fast enough. Like he was cutting the air itself. He grinned at the childishness of the thought.

Standing in the shade of the courtyard’s west wall, he was technically supposed to be resting, but he felt too… well, restless for that.

He flipped the wooden sword a few times, then noticed Alphonse watching him. The old attendant had been going to see William’s father almost as often as Geralt had, it seemed. Most of the time, William didn’t even notice Alphonse leave or return—he’d just glance over, and the attendant would be standing there, or he wouldn’t, and then a while later he’d look again and the reverse would be true. Still, when Alphonse was there he seemed pleased (or at least as pleased as he ever seemed) that William was finally putting time and effort into something. He also often looked contemplative, something William only caught onto because he’d known Alphonse for so long. He wondered what might be on the old man’s mind, but didn’t bother asking.

“Hey, Will!”

William glanced over his shoulder as Vance jogged over. A tall man with black hair, he almost looked like Geralt’s opposite. He was sweating, but otherwise showed no signs of fatigue, though he’d been doing practice bouts nonstop for near an hour. He nodded to Alphonse, then spoke to William.

“I was just thinkin’—you wanna go a round or two? I’m all fired up, but my squads are startin’ to look a little red in the face, and Captain’ll yell at me if I run ‘em too ragged. You up for it?”

He smiled. “Absolutely.”

They drew a bit of a crowd as they approached the sandy area; Geralt had left the courtyard a short time earlier, so even some of the folks who weren’t meant to be taking a break came over. Vance probably noticed, but didn’t call them out on it—he was the Captain’s opposite in more than just appearance.

They squared off with each other as one of the onlookers called the start of the match, then immediately started trading blows. Sharp claks of wood against wood rang out in the courtyard. It was a fairly close match—at least, it was closer than any of the others William had fought in the past few days. Still… he could tell. The one who had the upper hand was—

Bella?

At first he wondered if he might be hallucinating, since she’d been on his mind so much lately. After all, it made no sense for her to just be standing there amidst the onlookers, watching the fight with interest. But apparently it wasn’t just his imagination, because now the people around her were beginning to notice her, too—

Distracted as he was, he was too slow to react to Vance’s incoming attack and received a solid blow to the arm. It threw him off balance, and he stumbled and fell, getting a faceful of sand.

Ow.

And there was his first loss of the week. Not that anyone else seemed to notice.

“Er… Hello there, Miss,” he heard Vance say. “Not to be rude or anythin’, but… who might you be?”

William lifted his head and stared. What on earth was Bella doing here, of all places? For her part, she was looking around as if realizing she’d made a mistake. She opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a loud shout that made everyone jump.

“For the love of Eris, what are you all standing around for?!” William got quickly to his feet as Geralt pushed his way through the crowd of people, scowling. “We’ve got—…” Noticing Bella, the scolding abruptly died in his throat. “… Who the blazes are you?”

“She’s, um…” William spoke up before he’d thought about it; suddenly everyone’s attention turned to him, and his words got caught in his throat. He noticed Bella eyeing him with an unreadable expression. What had he been about to say, anyway? “… An acquaintance. Of mine,” he finished lamely.

Bella tilted her head, as if considering that.

“… I see,” Geralt said, frowning. “Well, Miss—”

“Bella,” she interrupted.

“Miss Bella, then. How—”

“And you?”

“… Me?”

“Your name.”

“Er… Geralt.”

“Nice to meet you, Geralt.”

“Right,” the Captain said, clearing his throat. “I wish I could say the same, but I’ve got to ask, Miss Bella: how the hell did you get in here?”

It wasn’t necessarily the case that people outside of the town guard couldn’t enter the courtyard during practice—William and Alphonse were testimony of that, after all. That said, it also wasn’t necessarily the case that just anyone could waltz onto the mansion grounds as they pleased. Bella didn’t appear particularly dangerous, which was probably why everyone was still holding practice swords rather than their real ones.

“I came in that way,” Bella said, pointing at the entrance to the courtyard, as if that explained everything.

“And no one… tried to stop you? Called out to you or anything?”

“Huh…? Oh, you mean guards. There were a couple, but, um… they were asleep. So I just let myself in.”

“Asleep?! Those—” Geralt stormed off toward the courtyard entrance, letting out a steady stream of curses. William winced. Someone was about to have a very bad day.

Vance looked like he was having similar thoughts as he watched the Captain go. “Of all the days to risk a nap… May Eris have mercy on their souls.” Shaking his head, he turned back to Bella. “Well then, Miss Bella, what might’ve brought you here today, if you don’t mind me askin’?”

She glanced at William, then shrugged. “Wanted to watch you guys train. That’s all.”

“That’s all, eh?” Vance scratched his head. “Well, that’s fine by me… but you’d be better off askin’ the Captain, I reckon. Or, actually…” He, too, glanced over at William, giving him a questioning look.

“It’s fine with me,” he said quickly.

“Right,” the Vice Captain said, “that’s good enough for now. Well, Miss Bella, it ain’t much of a spectacle, but I hope you’ll find it interestin’ enough, I s’pose. And the rest of us,” he added, raising his voice, “ought to get back to it! Captain’ll likely be in a foul mood for a bit, so let's not test those waters, eh? Back to it!”

The crowd dispersed fairly quickly, with many casting glances at the courtyard entrance, where Geralt’s shouts could be heard even from a distance. Bella hesitated a moment, shooting William one more look, then retreated over to the shade of the west wall.

“You know each other, then?” Vance asked, making William realize that he’d been staring. The Vice Captain was watching him; he seemed vaguely amused.

“Kind of. I guess.”

“Hm. Well, not my business, I reckon.” He picked William’s discarded practice sword off the ground, handing it back to him. “Anyhow, you up for a rematch? I can go for a few more rounds, myself.”

William glanced once more at Bella; he could’ve sworn she was watching him. “… Absolutely.”