769 Privy Questions
It never got any better, any easier.
I thought it would, like slowly, surely, I’d just gradually become accustomed to whatever batshit insanity life had piping hot and ready to serve me today on a silver platter.
For whatever reason, however, Amelia was where my suspension of disbelief decided to finally put its foot down. Every step with her as company was like walking across a valley of the uncanny.
She never did answer my question, killing it, leaving it with only a trace of her wicked smile… filling my head with the buzz of intrigue, which I’m sure was what she had intended.
Mission accomplished.
“How senseless,” Amelia remarked, leering over at a game of horseshoe to the side in her usual air of snide. “Surely there must be less obtrusive and asinine ways for you people here to pay tribute to your traditions.”
“What? There’s no such thing as celebrations in Kronocia or something?”
“Oh, countless,” She huffed the word out. “But at the very least, Kronocian men had the common decency to not pester the entire province with their debauchery.”
“The entire province, or just you in particular?” I asked. “I think it’s just you in particular.”
.....
She scoffed at that, turning away from me in a way that seemed to regard me as beyond any sort of regard.
Supposed to be acting like a loving couple here, but if anything, I felt more like a dog tugged along on an invisible leash, and she as that posh, prim and proper princess taking her little poodle out for a walk.
Not exactly what you’d generally call a romantic relationship. Unless you’re into that kind of play. And I’m making it clear right now, I’m not into that sort of game.
We continued to just stroll along the path, speaking very little to each other while taking turns on whims without rhyme or reason. No need for caution, no need to steer away from hanging, blaring loudspeakers either. For once, a large group of people in our way didn’t mean having to find a detour instead.
Amelia marched onward just fine, all the laughter, all the noise, simply just annoying her instead of outright debilitating her.
And under the guise, swathed in the identity of her sister, I needed a pause, a second to process just what I was seeing… knowing there once used to be a time and memory when Adalia didn’t need help, comfort, doing what to everyone else was simply trivial… and wondering… still always wondering, if there’ll ever come a time when she’ll be able to again.
More judges came to pass their judgment on us too. Some brand new, while others familiar, and with every dilemma they threw at us to ponder through, I was beginning to notice that a lot of Amelia’s answers were kinda… pragmatic, I guess?
It’s like she was sorta detached from the moral quandary of the questions themselves.
She’d leave a relationship with me when she no longer had anything to gain from it.
A freak accident had her prioritizing her life over mine.
And worst of all – she absolutely refuses to share the last slice of pizza with me.
It was starting to feel like she was sabotaging more than she was helping, and when I called her out on it, explained how she just let those easy points slip from our grip, she just turned her nose to the air.
“Is it a vice to be honest?” She said to me. “I ask, what good is a relationship built upon a sham of pleasantries? If someone were to love me, then they would love me as I am, not as they desire me to be.”
“Yeah, okay, agreed,” I said, exasperated. “But newsflash: You’re not you right now! Don’t act like you, please. Seriously, Adalia was – ”
“My sister would have thought the same as I,” She quickly spoke over me. “Or are you still completely ignorant as to how she used to be before?”
I groaned. Not this again…
“Is that why you’re doing this? Really? You’re still gonna go on about that here? Right now? Look, I don’t need any reminding.”
“Watching from afar, however, it seems to me that you do. So long in her company, and yet not once have you truly asked her what you should.”
“It’s not about that. This is all just about getting points, alright? That’s it.”
“I ask you, what’s the point of these points, of professing your love to her this way, if you simply continue refusing to know all of her?”
“Look, you’re doing this to help your sister, aren’t you? How is harping on to me about this again supposed to be helping her?”
“And how awfully pragmatic of you to think allocating meaningless points in an inconsequential game is the only sole means I have in helping her,” Amelia crossed her arms, the muddied silver of her hair blowing, nearly obscuring the scowl in her gaze. “I’ll always help my sister in every way I am able—every way. And should you choose to refrain from asking her the question she must answer, then I shall help her with that too.”
“I am not afraid of getting an answer, alright?!” I snapped, hearing what was left unsaid in her derisiveness. “Look, it’s Christmas, it’s our date, it’s our special moment with each other. Why do you insist I ruin that by prying into her past? It’s not the right time.”
“On the contrary—a day commemorating one’s love and one another’s bonds. To love her, to know her…” Amelia blinked, her face resting, and in a passing mirage, I saw Adalia looking right at me through her once again, speaking to me. “...could there really be a righter time than now?”
“Um, excuse me.”
We both instantly spun forward, our attention diverted by the same noise, and just as abruptly, suddenly, I felt a kick from inside my lungs expelling all the air out of my system.
Three things.
The click of a pen.
The flutter of pages.
And most importantly, a slightly surly-looking Hayley in front of us carrying both.
“Oh, uh, hah,” my brain responded on autopilot still in the process of loading. “Hey, Hayley.”
“Surprised to see me?” She cocked her brow, forming a little smile that paled in comparison to the ones she usually wears. “I’m a judge, remember? I’m here to judge. Speaking of which, I was beginning to think I was gonna lose my chance to run into you two…”
And at the mention of us ‘two’, her gaze wandered over to Amelia on my right, and much like every other judge we had encountered in the past, Hayley squinted at my partner with an expression clearly sensing something amiss, but unlike everyone else, however, she wasn’t brushing it off as a trick of the light.
“Lost your eye contact, Adalia?” She asked her. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever once seen you without them.”
Almost as if sensing her astuteness, Amelia just slowly nodded in the same way Adalia would have.
“Different dress too,” Hayley continued to point out. “Thought I saw you wearing something different.”
“She changed. Changed a lot, ” I said, shedding light onto that mystery there. “You got a question for us, Ms. Judge? Otherwise, we’ll just be on our way.”
Seeing her slowly drift her eyes back over to me set off a feeling of unease stirring within me, and became all too aware of the little bump in my pocket brushing against my leg.
“How about two questions?” Hayley batted quaintly at me. “One for you, and one for your… other significant other.”
“Ask away,” I said, keen to get this over with as soon as possible.
She raised her pad, readied her pen, and in a single breath without pause, went ahead and rattled my head even more.
“You’re married, you have kids, and then suddenly one day, you decided to cheat on your wife,” her eyes were as cold as ice. “Do you think you deserve or should expect any sort of forgiveness from your daughter, or do you believe you should just rot in hell?”
It occurred to me to wait, stay silent, and see if the real question would pop up at any moment. Suffice it to say, it didn’t. This was a real question, and I was supposed to answer it.
Honestly, sincerely… speak exactly what I thought about it all.
“I’d rot,” I muttered, saying no more than that.
Hayley scribbled something on her board, wearing a blank look that conveyed absolutely nothing, before directing her focus back onto Amelia.
“Honestly, I can’t really think of a good question to ask you,” She admitted to her with a weary sort of chuckle. “So, instead… how about a bonus point to Team Wisdom, hm?”
Again, still knowing no context, Amelia just nodded and played along.
“Well, since you really do seem to know your Asterian lore so well, how about…” with a faint twinkle glimmering in her eye, Hayley asked. “In the wake of Leonardo’s return, a small warrior village, the very best of their kind, had devoted their numbers to the cause, only to ultimately amount to nothing. Why?”
It didn’t surprise me one bit that Amelia was unfazed by a question that hits too close to home. I’m sure Irene had already filled her in on what’s what. That there exists a game based closely off her world, that Jay had seen to its creation through reasons yet to be brought to light.
What did surprise me, however, was the answer to that question.
“That village was slain,” Amelia quietly said. “Gron, in the southern region of Astra. A massacre. No survivors.”
“Wow, you really did scour through every codex entry in the game, didn’t you?” Hayley said, impressed in spite of her somberness. “And what got them in the end?”
“An ambush by demons…” my eyes found hers again, and in a moment ever so fleeting, I managed to spot Adalia again. “... and a Matriarch hidden among them.”
“Yep, that’s full points, alright” Hayley proclaimed, her wrist twirling in a big fat circle. “Good answers, very good answers. The both of you.”
I didn’t get a chance to even react before I was once more blitzed by another surprise bombshell.
“By the way, it only just came in… but venue times have changed,” Hayley said. “The final event of the contest starts in exactly fifteen minutes.”
My eyes began blinking so fast it was like I was looking at snapshots of the world.
“What?”
“We all got radio-ed earlier to inform every participant we see, you see,” She said as she strolled away past me, “Not that I’d want you to, but I’d hurry over if I were you,” before parting away with an even moodier smile. “Gotta prove your love, right?”
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