[Fsh] Chapter 49: Reconciliation

“I’m sorry for abandoning you.”

Vale’s eyes widened at Caledon’s words. The first ones to escape the lordling’s mouth after Shiver’s departure.

That girl, when I get my hands on her I’m going to strangle her-

Vale’s outwardly demeanour was one of a paragon of calm and understanding, as she nodded to Caledon.

“N-not to worry about it. Lord Quietus told me that your hallucinations took you away. Besides, Solastra sent a rose explaining everything.”

For a moment, silence fell between the pair. Struggling to address all that happened between them. Caledon felt a quiet dread settle in his stomach, even as they sat in silence, safe within the walls of Viridian.

For he never knew when his Fear would rear its ugly head again. He knew, that it was biding its time. That much was certain, from the words he had last heard, when felling the Thundermare.

“Vale… I’m sorry. I should have seen through my hallucinations.”

“Hush, you.”

His eyes widened, as a degree of steel entered the girl’s voice.

“I’ve always thought, that you’ve had the most terrifying Fear of us all. Shiver might beat you, in the sheer force that her Fear levies against her, but twisting your reality? All that you, ahem, love?”

Vale shook her head.

“Frankly, I couldn’t imagine anything worse.”

“Well said, young Vale. Now-“

Vale swiped her guide from her shoulder with the precision and speed of a nightviper.

“In any case… you have nothing to apologise for. I was curious though… What were the hallucinations that appeared before you?”

Caledon’s face twitched, as he stared at Vale. Then he watched as the girl’s cheeks began to colour slightly, as the silence drew on.

“I.. uh… they’re kind of hard to explain.”

Caledon let out a sigh.

I hate being a Fearshaper of corruption.

“Do feel free to end yourself then. Dunce.”

“To tell you the truth Vale, I saw you as a monster.”

Vale’s eyes widened at Caledon’s words.

“You appeared to me like you were… undead. Zel stopped me from… hurting you, with my Phobia. That was the first hallucination.”

Vale recovered quickly, nodding along.

“Of course, turning you against your companions would be exactly the type of cheap tactics I would expect from a Fear of corruption. What was the second? What drew you away?”

“It was you.”

Vale stared, and she looked like she was about to faint.

He continued.

“I told the you that I saw, that I was… repulsed by you.”

Vale started, with a soft gasp. The colour from her cheeks gone. She stared at him, and as her shoulders shrunk in quiet understanding, it tore across Caledon like a deathstalker’s claws.

“No… I’m not finished. I also told you, that it was an irrational feeling. That I needed time to work through it. I know that you aren’t your father, your brother or even… your sister. You were the one that kept Shiver’s blades from my throat in the Archcity of Fear. You’ve shown nothing but kindness to me.”

Caledon drew his Phobia into reality. This time, he ignited it, completely within his control.

“I have… this anger within me. I know that it corrupts me. It did, all those days ago, back in Brimstone Manor.”

Caledon’s gaze fell on Triol’s black skeleton, standing in the corner.

Then, Vale snorted, and let out a laugh of relief.

“For a moment, Highlord, I thought you were going to confess your love for me. That would be…”

Caledon raised an eyebrow, as despite her words, a blush still rose to her pale cheeks.

“Impracticable.”

“Impracticable?”

“Impracticable.”

Caledon stared at Vale, as she fidgeted with her hands.

Great. She’s malfunctioning.

“I want your friendship.”

She stared at him in surprise.

“You do?”

Caledon nodded, this time, with an easy smile.

“Asking to be friends? I’ve seen five-year-olds with better social skills than the pair of you. Perhaps... if Solastra has a nursery around, you could find yourselves a role model.”

Caledon ignored Zel’s words as he continued.

“Let me work through this Fear of mine. You’re working through yours as well. I mean… we’re right in the middle of defining the dimensions to them. Still, Vale, I mean it when I say that I want to be your friend. Please, allow me to work through my rage. And... I’m sorry for abandoning you.”

The terror, of exposing his ugly feelings for a second time, reared its head. His hallucination, had of course, accepted him wholeheartedly. Setting an unrealistic expectation, for how any reasonable person would react.

Indeed, Caledon could see, a measure of sadness in Vale’s expression, even given his efforts to reassure her. But the girl nodded, with her own resolve.

“Of course, honestly, this is better than I deserve. If we’re going to be friends, I won’t go easy on you, just because my family has committed atrocities against yours.”

Caledon snorted.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

The wounds still remained. Grief, did not disappear so easily. This was nothing like his encounter with his Fear-shade in the Dreadwood.

Sale had once told him, that anger, in the wake of death, was the measure of your love for a person. How much you treasured them. Perhaps, coming from a being of eternal immolation, it had been a reasonable world view. It was what helped him understood Shiver’s vitriol, the ends she had gone to achieve the impossible.

On the other hand, grief waned, and he would temper his rage. Given time, he would heal, and he was sure…

His eyes lingered on Vale Revenant, who gave him a kind smile, even as she concealed the hurt that his words had inflicted. Unlike the encounter with his Fear-shade that took her form, the rift between them would not be healed so easily. Still, even with the hurt lingering in the girl’s lavender eyes, he recognised that she had found the bravery to surmount it – if it meant working towards their eventual reconciliation.

Perhaps one day, grief and resentment would give way to other, kinder things.

---

Shiver peaked her head into the room.

“Aw… you aren’t sucking one another’s faces.”

“Bladey, get her.”

“How many times have I told you not to threaten me with a good time, princess.”

Vale glowered at her, but she gave Shiver a small smile, after meeting Caledon’s gaze. Shiver nodded in satisfaction, a look of sure smugness outpouring from her expression.

Her goal achieved.

“There we go, it was suffocating being around you two. I thought I was going to awaken a Fear of asphyxiation-“

“Don’t tell me, that’s a good time to you,” Caledon snorted. Shiver just stared at Caledon with a look of incredulity, and as the silence drew on, he felt his cheeks heat up.

“Don’t impose your nasty preferences on me, lordling. Nobles are Insane. Be careful around this one, Vale.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

Vale grinned at him, and Caledon wished he could disappear from their very eyes.

Which was of course, before he realised… that he could.

Feardamn… once you get around the whole unspeakable atrocity of corrupting people’s minds, Fearshaping is pretty… convenient.

“Now, it’s my turn for story time.”

Caledon and Vale stared blankly at Shiver.

“You know how I’ve been struggling to recall my memories?”

Vale’s eyes widened. She considered, what they had just been subjected to.

The Tranquillity withdrawals. Highlady Solastra, ridding them of the effects of it.

“Don’t get your hopes up. Clearly, they’re still buried deep. But when I was fighting the anglerwhale, it returned some of my memories to me.”

They stared at Shiver, as she drew her Phobia into reality.

Then Vale gasped.

“Shiver… the blade.”

“How nostalgic.”

Caledon’s eyes widened, as his guide… spoke to the group, for the very first time. Shiver, and Vale stared at the eyeball the size of his head, that flew on draconic wings. They had no doubt glimpsed him before, but he had never chosen to dignify them with his presence.

“Coworker! It is a pleasure to properly meet you. I am-“

“Lord Quietus Vingrave. Yes, yes. I am well appraised of your status, as you constantly make very clear.”

For a moment, Quietus wordlessly exercised his undead jaw, unable to confront the fact, that Zel’s silence had not been unintended. The floating eyeball had every intention in avoiding his honoured self.

“Why do you say you’re nostalgic, Zel?”

“It reminds me of blades of my race. Crafted by masters.”

That, they could collectively agree upon, as they stared into Shiver’s Phobia.

The surface had had been marred by cracks, giving the impression that it would fall apart at the slightest touch, had finally healed. Giving way, to untarnished frost that gleamed a shade, darker than Shiver’s own cerulean gaze. A fine mist peeled off its surface, that Caledon was sure that he could get lost in.

“I remembered my mother. And my name. It was-“

“NAH uh, uh. Shiver. You’re not going to get away that easily.”

Shiver gaped at Vale’s interruption, even as the girl gestured to Caledon and the guides around her.

“C’mon. Any guesses. We all had some in mind.”

Caledon smirked, and there was one option– so painfully obvious that it could never have been the case. So much so, that he was willing to sacrifice it, so that they might prolong Shiver’s suffering.

“Let me guess, it’s Dalaria. Named after the founder of the Academy of Fear.”

Shiver stared wordlessly at him, as Vale erupted into demonic giggles.

“Dalaria! Good one, Caledon. Let’s get the most obvious, and boring, one out of the way.”

Then Vale paused, as Shiver began to look at her with a glimmer of…

Hurt.

“NO…. it can’t be.”

“Did you really have to call it boring-“

“Shiver… are you actually the Academy’s founder? Maybe you were chucked into one of those preservation boxes that kept the food fresh in the Academy?”

Caledon stared at her, beginning to question whether that would have been possible.

“No, no you idiots. I can remember the Rampage. When your daddy Reveanant’s-”

“Please don’t call him that. I’ll succumb to my Fear, right here and now.”

“When Vetrian Revenant’s undead flooded into Anhedonia.”

“I CALLED IT, SHIVER!”

Vale yelled in triumph, as Quietus shouted her praise. Shiver and Caledon stared at her, until she eventually relented. Blushing a deep crimson.

“For a lady, you’ve certainly taken leave of your manners. Now, as I saying, my parents deposited me in that cave, as they returned to save our home… which must have been Anhedonia. My mother… was also a Fearshaper of ice. I’m not sure about my father.”

They listened, enraptured at the revelations Shiver had been struck with in the course of her fight.

“Then Shiver… isn’t there a chance that she’s still-“

“What I said, all those days ago still stands now. I couldn’t give a Feardamn about them. Or my stupid, boring, name. I’m going to focus on getting our favourite, annoying Popsicle back, then go live the rest of my life with Marta, Pov and Blaze. Oh… right. Lordling?”

“Yes?”

“Marta and Pov became Fearshapers, so they could live with me without being threatened by my Fear.”

Caledon stared at her.

“That was my reaction as well. They’re Feardamned Insane.”

“Coming from you, that’s high praise.”

Shiver and Caledon exchanged a grin.

Their worries, trials and tribulations lay forgotten, in a brief moment of reprieve. Even though they had not completed their descent, and there were Inheritances that still lay before them…

They had been imbued with a sense of resolve, from wrongs righted, and truths discovered.

“You know, Shiver… we should throw a party for her, once the Popsicle returns.”

Shiver grinned, ruffling Vale’s dark blonde hair with a yelp.

“You are full of great ideas, princess. I happen to know just the chef that could cater for it.”