A Short Story

The Threadbound Journals

FLF Prompt 92: The One Behind Me

Niko and Mr. Catastrophe by the Author and DALL-E

Suddenly, I felt a presence behind me.

I turned to find myself in Mr. Catastrophe’s shadow. Those mismatched eyes stared me down. Blue-white and hunter green with that burnished gold halo around the pupil. His dark hair, woven into gold-threaded dreads, was off his face. His pointed ears pierced, his expression as calm as the snow falling around us.

Yet his attention was on me. Despite the hares hanging from lines over one shoulder, his spear in hand, this man was staring me down. And I will tell you this, as I write in the comfort of my shack, Lysa curled up on her pallet by the fire, that he was looking into me.

His magic coiled through the air. I could feel it ghosting through the area, my internal network alive with an awareness that had my skin crawling. In that moment, in the snow outside Bellview, in the hours after the first hint of mounting difficulties and an early winter, I knew he knew I was avoiding him. I had been since the first day, whether I did so consciously or not.

Lysa and the other girls watched, the elven females standing closer together, their ears twitching backward towards their heads. Uneasy. Frightened. I tightened my grip on the bundle of sticks I had plucked from the snow as he regarded me wordlessly.

He dipped his head in greeting. “May I walk with you?”

The question was spoken clearly, with no inflection on any given word. Civil, by all appearances. I would have believed it harmless if not for the whisper of magic grazing me, slipping beneath my skin. To be honest, I don’t know if people in this world are capable of feeling magic like I can. One thing I’ve noticed on all my trips beyond Bellview into these woodlands is how clear the air is. How the air thrums with power. It isn’t thick, like it is in town. The fewer people, the clearer the air. I haven’t really thought to put that to paper, just another little thing I’ve noticed between the shortages, ruin, and rebuilding since my arrival.

Between heartbeats, I know he isn’t actually asking. He’s telling, but in a socially acceptable way. I nodded stiffly. He stepped up beside me, his boots making deep imprints in the snow. God, I keep forgetting how fucking tall this man is. My head doesn’t reach his shoulder.

For a bit, there was silence between us. A hushed quiet.

Then, as we stepped into a clearing within the woods, he finally talked. “You avoid me.”

I glanced at him. He was staring down at me. His magic probed deep. I dug my fingertips into the bark, mind working overtime. He noticed. Of course, he noticed. I looked forward, taking a moment to gather myself, and then I answered. “I tend to avoid people with a lot of power.”

“Yet you have no issues throwing insults at one,” Mr. Catastrophe commented easily, voice low and calm. He wasn’t wrong. After the monsters appeared a few days ago, I had insulted Sir Douche-a-Lot. After he had saved me from getting skewered, at that. He’s a racist asshat, so the insult was out before I could stop it. The elven man next to me continued evenly, “You side with elves and humans alike, free from the generational burdens of inherited history. You work in the kitchens, yet also venture out here to forage…”

I was panicking. It’s hard to figure out answers in the moment, but in the hours after it has happened, in the comfort of my small home along the topmost shelf of Bellview, I can see he was probing. He has been watching me much in the same way the Spymaster watches everyone.

But what was I supposed to say in that moment? When we first crossed paths, my mind split in two, and all I saw was death, destruction, and ruin in my mind. And he was in the middle of it. Even Muse was quiet, his presence at the back of my mind, his touch upon the threads of my network. Keeping it still. Keeping me from reacting to Mr. Catastrophe’s unseen investigation, I now realize.

In those moments as he gathered resources, we were like two animals circling one another. A predator and its prey. But the question was if I was prey in the sense that I was a threat he hadn’t figured out, or just a strange woman who was telling social norms to fuck off.

Then he turned to me and asked, “Have I done something to offend you?”

I stared at him for a long moment. Had he done something to offend me? How the hell was I supposed to answer that damn question? Especially, as I said (without thinking, how stupid of me) that he hadn’t. And his head cocked to the side, those vibrant eyes narrowing on me.

He stepped closer, voice lower as he asked, “If I hadn’t done something to frighten you, why avoid me?”

And holy fuck, this man knows how to wield his body to loom and intimidate without even trying. I’m short compared to him, and having him regard me so passively, yet his magic sharpening…

I realized that fleeing like I had that first time had left an impression. Like waving a bone in front of a dog, he caught my scent. Now, in the woodlands outside the settlement, it was easier to confront me. People were spread out. Not piled on top of each other like they were in Bellview, where privacy was nearly nonexistent.

He stepped closer. His shadow swallowed me whole. I found myself locked within his gaze, the gold halo around his pupil contracting before expanding. A flare of heat spiked in my mind, then melted down my spine into my limbs. I couldn’t move. God, I tried, but I couldn’t. He tipped his head closer as he said, “Tell me why you’re afraid of me, little one.”

Muse reacted violently. Sharp, angry lines snapped from somewhere in me, pushed up through the liquid heat, and slammed into the invasive power holding me still. Mr. Catastrophe’s eyes widened as he jerked back a step. I stumbled backward, panting, flushed, every nerve singing.

I fled. Whatever the fuck he had done, my first instinct was to get away from it. He didn’t try to stop me, but his gaze was sharp on my back. Now I’m home. Now I’m inside Bellview, back in a settlement still in the process of rebuilding after being torn asunder, and all I know now is this.

I can’t let my guard down around him. And being alone?

Hell no. That’s just asking for trouble.

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One point of interest is that this prompt actually fit into a story I am in the process of writing. It has three chapters that come out each week, written in a journal format from the perspective of a normie being dumped into a frying pan that is another world in the dawn of total collapse. It is written like a diary, detailing bits and pieces of her day. The parts that stand out.

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