What We Do to Survive

It took Camille twenty minutes––approximately the time it took to walk from the private meeting room where she’d met with Orion down to his academy room––to realize that she had just made a huge mistake.

“Oh,” Camille whispered weakly, “I fucked up, didn’t I.” Orion’s hand on her shoulder, which had felt so very comforting and reassuring as he’d ushered her through the door, suddenly felt like a leaden straightjacket dragging her down into the depths of the ocean.

She thought back to the oath she’d sworn barely half an hour ago. At the time it had felt so much more innocent. Of course she would keep his secrets and follow the rules he set. He was helping her, saving her. And really, it was not so different from what any apprentice outside of Avalon would swear to their mentor.

She’d been so overjoyed, so full of life and hope for the first time in months, that she hadn’t even thought twice. Orion had said yes. He was going to help her. On her own she stood no chance, but with Orion by her side, graduation––survival––felt like more than a pipedream. What were a few restrictions compared to her life? Potentially hundreds of years of it even! The lifespan of eighth-circle mages was measured in centuries, not measly decades. Right now even a few extra years had felt like a blissful eternity.

She looked around the room, her heart sinking with every passing moment. There was a lump in her throat and her lungs felt impossibly heavy. Her mind raced, looking back at every word and interaction they’d shared. She thought she’d had a pretty good understanding of who Orion was. She thought they were friends. Was it all a lie?

Orion turned to her and smiled as though Camille’s world wasn’t falling down around her. “Maybe a little,” he agreed easily. “I certainly never would have agreed to such a broad oath in your place, but truthfully this has saved both of us a lot of pain and effort, so perhaps it's for the best.”

His words, his voice, he sounded exactly like he always did! Camille’s knees felt weak and she would have fallen if not for Orion tightening his grip on her shoulder. Her eyes flickered around the room, taking in her frie––Orion’s collection of horrors. In one corner was a neatly stacked pile of familiar corpses, the bodies of the mages that had ambushed the two of them two weeks earlier. They were eerily stiff and looked perfectly preserved––some sort of stasis spell probably.

Hanging on the wall beside them was an unfamiliar young woman, probably about their age if not a year or two younger. She was slender and fine-boned, with delicate, noble features. Her long brown hair hung in a limp curtain, half covering her face but doing nothing to preserve her modesty. She was completely naked except for a plain metal collar around her neck, and her body was littered with bruises and angry red marks.

Kneeling a few feet away from the hanging brunette was another unfamiliar girl, this one clearly one of the natives from Port Anangala. She was dressed in a short, nearly translucent white sundress that did absolutely nothing to conceal her body or lack of undergarments. She’d heard that many had taken the tragic attack on the port city as an opportunity to loot and take slaves, but she had not expected Orion to be one of them.

Of course all of that was just a distraction from the awful centerpiece that Camille was doing her utmost to avoid looking at. Two very familiar young women were stretched out obscenely in the middle of the room, their bodies bound with cruel-looking metal restraints covered in dense webs of runic markings. Both were gagged, blindfolded, and their bare, dangling teats were connected to translucent tubes through which flowed a trickle of white-gold fluid.

She recognized both of them of course. How could she not? She’d attended nearly a dozen classes with Mistletoe before the poor girl had vanished. Everyone had said it was only a matter of time, that elves never lasted long at Avalon, but she’d held out hope that maybe Mistletoe would be different. The much older girl had always been nice to her, condescending sure, but never actively antagonistic. Her disappearance had caused Camille several sleepless, teary nights as she mourned the likely death of another friend.

To find out that it had been Orion, innocent, gentle Orion that had done it… It was a shock, almost as much a shock as seeing what he’d done to her. The two had always had a good rivalry between them, competitive but never violent the way so many Avalon rivalries were. If not for Orion’s obvious relationship with Brenda and general… Orionness, Camille might have thought that the two were secretly in a relationship.

The identity of the other bound and displayed elf made Camille suddenly remember a conversation she’d had with Orion earlier in the year. “You should be careful,” she’d said, “if this monster is willing to attack a bunch of second-year girls, they won’t think anything of ambushing a lone third year in the hallways.”

Her mouth was as dry as a desert. She’d literally called him a monster to his face. Warned him about himself. His later words suddenly took on a much darker tone as well. “Let me know if you hear anything else about these rumors. It’s always good to be forewarned.” Not forewarned about the identity of the attacker, but about whether or not anyone was onto him.

Another realization suddenly pushed its way into the forefront of her mind. Those other two girls. Virdan, Briella, and Cayla. Virdan was right here, a promising student and from all accounts a loyal, dependable friend reduced to a literal head of cattle. And everyone knew that Briella and Cayla were getting private tutoring from Orion in exchange for something. That relationship suddenly didn’t look nearly as transactional as everyone thought it was.

Gods above, she’d litterally used them as an example when she’d approached Orion earlier in the week. Was that what had happened to them? Had Orion kidnapped them and then tricked them into the same sort of oath that she had just sworn herself like the gullible, trusting fool that she was?

Or perhaps there had been no coercion and kidnapping at all, and the two girls had sold their friend out to Orion in exchange for help? Both ideas were too horrible to consider and Camille really didn’t know which was more likely, nor which version she preferred.

Camille’s breaths were coming in short, painful gasps, each one feeling like it was pushing through a brick lodged in her throat. Her heart was racing, rapid staccato beats filling her ears like the pounding of drums and unshed tears were starting to pool in the corners of her eyes.

How quickly things changed, she mused, feeling oddly hollow and disconnected from her panicking body. An hour ago, she’d been scared and hopeful. Thirty minutes ago she’d been overjoyed and filled with optimistic joy for the future. Things had looked bright for the first time in years. And now she had plunged back down, falling further than she had ever risen.

Her, Verdan, Mistletoe, Cayla, Briella, and who knows how many more. Miranda probably. Maybe Brenda too. She thought back to their first two years at Avalon, at the many hundreds of students who had vanished without a trace. Most of them probably hadn’t been Orion’s fault, but it was impossible to know for sure. She thought she’d had a pretty good read on him, but apparently that had all been a lie. A lie, a lie, a lie, a lie… The words echoed painfully in her head.

A few of the deaths and disappearances stood out to her. Adara Warbringer––Orion and her had had a very public, very loud confrontation, and weeks later she’d died horribly in an equally public and very, very painful magical accident. Was that something Orion had done? It was possible. She had barely known the boy at the time and there had been a lot of people with a grudge against Adara, but it was possible.

What about Reya Roype? Camille vaguely remembered that the outgoing girl had shared several classes with Orion during their first year. She’d been a horrible fit for Avalon, but had survived her first year on the back of a very well practiced flamethrower spell. Her luck had run out two weeks into their second year and she’d simply disappeared one day, never to be seen again.

Camille still had her spare set of glasses tucked away somewhere in her room, kept in the forlorn hope that maybe Reya was somehow still alive and might need them again someday. For a moment, Camille imagined that it was Reya hanging up on the wall, her pale, freckled skin covered in a sea of bloody bruises.

Camille had just barely begun to settle herself down when the bathroom door swung open and Miranda stepped out wrapped in a fluffy white towel. Her skin was flushed a bright red and the towel was barely large enough to hide her chest and did nothing to conceal her from the belly down. “Welcome back, master. I see the meeting with Camille went well.”

Oh gods, oh fuck, oh fuck fuck fuck fuck she had been right. Master. She’d called Orion master. Of course Orion’s closest friend was actually his slave. If she’d been right about that, what else had she been right about? The portal was moving today. Moving to the Gulivine Republic. To her home.

She’d so been looking forward to seeing her mother again. It had been over a year since she’d managed to visit home––the portal hadn’t been close enough in either of the previous two breaks to make the trip. Now that anticipation was overwhelmed by fear. Was Orion expecting her to bring her mother to him? If so, there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop him, and that utterly terrified her.

“Something like that, though she doesn’t seem to be taking things very well.”

Miranda gave Camille a pitying look. “I can see that.”

The purple-skinned girl took a step forward and grabbed a long, slender knife from a small table Camille hadn’t initially noticed standing beside the two bound elves. “This slave would be happy to take care of her if she is causing you problems, Master!”

Camille didn’t miss Miranda’s tiny flinch at her words, and the enthusiasm and devotion in her voice were terrifying enough without the huge knife in her hands.

“I don’t think that will be necessary, Rea. Camille is a friend, she just needs a little time to adjust I think. Miranda, could you––”

But Camille was no longer listening. Orion’s words were simply too much. “Camille is a friend”. Four simple words but they made her chest burn and the tears she’d been holding back finally began to flow freely down her cheeks. How could he call her a friend? Had she unwittingly helped him somehow? Had it not been a lie? No, that was impossible.

This time her legs failed her completely and her shoulder simply slipped out of her sleeveless blouse as she toppled to the floor, leaving Orion holding nothing but torn green fabric. Darkness was a welcome reprieve. Maybe things would make sense when she woke up. If she woke up.

Orion, Miranda, and Rea stood in silence for several long moments.

“Uh…” Orion began, looking between the scrap of apparently rather flimsy green cloth in his hand and Camille’s prone body. He’d managed to catch her with a tendril of telekinetic force before she slammed her head into the ground, but hadn’t reacted fast enough to keep her upright.

Miranda sighed loudly. “Did you explain anything before you brought her here, master?” she asked softly.

“I did not.” Orion’s eyes slowly followed the same path as Camilles had minutes earlier. The stack of bodies that Briella had retrieved for him after he’d gone to get lunch with Camille and Miranda. Nettle Shieldlight’s prone form hanging from the wall by her wrists and ankles. Rea. The elves. Miranda.

Orion sighed loudly.

“In hindsight, perhaps I overestimated Camille’s fortitude.”

Miranda sighed loudly.

Rea took a step forward and wordlessly hefted the large bucket she typically used to wash the elves and wake up sleeping soon-to-be slaves, the ice cold water within sloshing dangerously close to the rim.

Orion sighed again. “Not this time, Rea.” He paused and tilted his head to the side. “Though perhaps Nettle has gotten enough sleep for today.”

Rea nodded enthusiastically. “This slave hears and obeys, Master!”

Hours later, Orion concluded that in hindsight, Nettle’s panicked screaming wasn’t really a much better way of waking up an unconscious Camille than the bucket itself would have been. Still, everything worked out fine in the end.