"Realistically it will probably happen at some point in time, eventually. You - understand that you're not responsible for the artifact induced guilt, right? You're not torturing me, if I choose to go through it instead of doing the most efficient thing to tell you whatever the information or secret is, that's on me."

"G'night, Aldaras."



The next morning Annie has classes all day. Hopefully Aldaras will be able to wait on learning the Dean's snippet of information for the day and it won't turn out to be time-critical details about saving his sister. She trikes to school and attends Literature Survey, World History (she eats her bag lunch during this one), Statistics, and Jaillais.

Aldaras doesn't have any classes - he's still technically on break for his tracking expedition. There's - really nothing to do. He paces. He worries about his sister. He gets a call from the Dean's assistants saying that the Dean's discovered new things about his necklace. Because of his tracker status, they won't be telling him until his earliest convenience, for obvious reasons. He checks on where Annie is - class. The answer is class. He can't go learn new information without her easily accessible. There are curse words for this sort of thing, but he is polite enough to not say them over the phone.

He thanks the caller and hangs up, and then he paces some more. When he inevitably gets bored of that, he sits down and writes a letter. To Zevaia. She's unlikely to ever read it, but if he happens to die while still managing to free her, it's good to have a contingency. It's rewritten four times and then finally scrapped entirely. He doesn't know what to say, except for, 'I'm sorry, I'll do everything I can to save you.'

The apartment is getting tiresome, so he goes outside to check on the ad. There aren't any takers yet. He'll probably need to get something signed from the Dean himself for people to believe his assurances about an artifact that protects against the knife's mind control. Aldaras jots down some ideas for improving the ad, but without more information he can't really get people to jump on board with touching a strange artifact. Not yet, anyway. To mix it up a little, he does some more pacing. He realizes hours late that he's hungry, and has a light lunch, just a sandwich. He's not that hungry.

His only other option is brooding about Annie. He'd prefer not to, he's already put her in a precarious enough position and if he dwells on her too much he's bound to do something he'll regret. He decides that he's sick of waiting for her to be out of class, sick of being so completely bereft of projects. Sick of having nothing to do while his sister's slowly dying, while he tries desperately to not overstep bounds with the woman he accidentally fell in love with. Quite calmly, he decides to do something stupid. He'll be systematic and orderly about it, but it's still stupid.

He finds out which class Annie is in. Then he goes to the Dean's office, and he asks them very nicely for the information they've found out about his necklace.

No one at the Dean's office is likely to imagine that he would be this stupid.

"The Dean has found that it will tend inevitably towards reciprocal relationships - for example, if Annie touches it, at least while you're still alive, her object of affection will be you and not anyone else."

This is not the information that Aldaras wanted.

His first reaction is not thinking of how Annie really genuinely deserves to know this information, but: "... Is there any way you can steer it towards whether it can fix the cut or not? Please?"

"Thanks, anyway," he sighs. "I need to go, for obvious reasons."

He waves, and turns to exit the office.

Annie is still in class. Aldaras - genuinely doesn't want to interrupt. Not because he was stupid and impatient. He finds out where exactly her class is - briskly as is possible, to assuage the impending guilt. And then, quite deliberately, he sits outside instead of barging in.

He is a terrible person he should be telling her this information right this second-

(No, he shouldn't, it's not important enough to actually interrupt her over.)

She needs to know right now, right now, why is he so callous, he can go fix it and she can know things that are important, and this is very important-

(It is important. He's not denying it. But he was the idiot that learned about it on purpose before her class was over. She had nothing to do with it, she shouldn't have her life interrupted over it.)

He is an abomination upon the world.

(He sits. He stays sitting, head buried in his hands. He focuses on breathing. Breathing is good. Breathing is a thing he needs to keep doing while his artifact's effect is currently waging war on his head.)

The door opens!

It's not Annie; it's one of her classmates nipping out to go to the bathroom. He looks quizzically at Aldaras but doesn't address him.

Aldaras doesn't notice him. He's kind of busy right now.

It's amazing, how horrible guilt can feel. So bad that he'd almost want to do anything to make it stop. Except he wants to be better than that, better than some idiot animal ruled by emotions that aren't even his.

Quite frankly, fuck the guilt, he has made up his mind and he is sticking to it.

About twenty minutes later, the class actually lets out.

Annie's in a knot of other students and doesn't spot him right away.