Gracia's Taboo

After emerging from the Polaris underground, Libarius decided that his current firepower is not yet great enough for a decisive victory. He and Gracia went their separate ways for the time being, Libarius returning home to get a hold of more magic tools if he can and Gracia wandering around unsure of what she ought to be doing with a fight just on the horizon.

Gracia walks around the winding streets of Polaris in a hurry without any destination in particular. As a mage, one of Gracia’s greatest talents is thinking, yet, suddenly, she would rather anything else. There was nothing about Libarius that seemed like he should be so different, and yet. She doesn’t know what caused that change.

He seemed the same as always for most of the day. Pushy, arrogant, expressionless, rushing around doing as he pleases, entirely sure of his own rightness. Or rather, that’s the root of it all: Libarius thinks of himself as the one who is right. In his own mind, he is the strongest, without a single doubt. Might makes right, without a single doubt. Of course he would take offense to the notion that he is weak. Even if he needs to rely on others, even if he can accept that there are things he cannot do, he knew he was not weak, without a single doubt.

In that way, Libarius truly is the archetypal mage. He believes in himself so strongly, or rather, he believes in the image of the world he holds. The image is the real thing to him. The world exists as he believes it to exist, without a single doubt. If Gracia saw him as weak, then that’s her own image, an image incongruent with Libarius’ truth. For a man like him, of course he would do all he can to correct it. That is his arrogance. That is who Libarius is.

And yet, that man told Gracia that she does not need to fight. The Libarius who told her that she had no excuse not to be able to had now told her she should not fight. The Libarius who even if he knew nothing else would know that he is right, who imposes his will on everyone with hardly a second thought, the man who thinks of his own sight as gospel, had decided that he had been wrong.

She doesn’t want to think about those implications. She doesn’t want to think about it, yet it is the only thing she can think about. The thought of Libarius denying his own rightness. The thought of his sudden earnestness, even without a reason he’d been made vulnerable. The thought of his true feelings slipping out of him. The thought of the look on his face as he spoke. The thought of the way he looked at her. The thought of how she could hardly look at him. The thought of him telling her that he’ll protect her. The thought of why he had changed his mind. The thought of why he would want to protect her. The thought of why she wanted to believe in him. She doesn’t want to think about it. She doesn’t want to think about any of those things.

Libarius has been an enigma from their first meeting. Anything he feels is unknown to her. Gracia can hardly understand him, in the end. His heart is a black box and his face shows nothing. All that she can see is his love of magic. Gracia can at least understand that: the fact that she cannot understand Libarius any further. And yet, he keeps showing her more and more. His past keeps growing more and more clear; she can see what lies in his heart better and better. It was obvious why he did anything when he was only the enigmatic and idiosyncratic mage who she had befriended. It was obvious where he came from and where he was going. Even in his impulsiveness, and in his being driven by emotion more than anything, it was simple enough when the root of everything was that he loves magic. Anything more and she no longer knows what he might be planning.

Gracia is scared of what lies beyond Libarius the mage. His humanity, his normalcy, is frightening to her. She is scared of his darkness and she is scared of his light. Scared of anything beyond their shared love for magic. No matter what, it is far too hard for her to breach it. It is far too hard for her to look at his heart. That black box is a shield for both of them. That he’s like an actor playing the part of the perfect mage protects both of them. She is scared of looking any deeper.

Or rather, she now understands far too well why Libarius hates his dreams. Why he would say that the dreams of a mage are a dangerous thing. She doesn’t want to speculate about him. She doesn’t want to be able to speculate about him. She can’t afford to be wrong. She can’t afford for this image to be a fake. She doesn’t know if she would be able to bear being mistaken about it. All she has is the vague feeling that these images, the image of Libarius who wants to protect her and the image of herself who believes in him, are far too precious to be shattered. She doesn’t want to be mistaken about them. And so she will not let herself be deluded by them, in fear that they are fake images, nothing more than a dream. She will not let herself believe in the image of a future that will not come to pass.

And so Gracia dashes around Polaris, weaving through the streets, weaving past its people, her face burning red and her chest beating fast. She has forgotten about Marisk for the moment, the only thing she can think of is her and Libarius. That Libarius looks at her with the hope to see her kind magic that he finds beautiful. That she believes in Libarius because his love of magic is so beautiful. This is the image she has decided on, the one image she has decided to stake herself on. She refuses to believe in any other until she is sure, until she can face Libarius.

Or rather, as she runs, Gracia has created one small taboo, just for herself. She has forbidden herself from falling in love.