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“Did they really just…?”
Berdly looked toward Noelle. She was staring at the ground, hands trembling. Her fingertips were cold. So very cold. Little snowflakes still littered the ground around her, and her friend wouldn’t even step any closer to her. Still scared of her.
“It couldn’t have been… Could it?”
She glanced up toward him as he spoke, even her gaze shaking. The moment they made eye contact, it seemed as if the air shifted. Noelle bit her lip harshly, trying not to burst into a sob as tears slowly filled her eyes. One tear fell, freezing almost instantly, like a small crystal in her eyelash. Another fell, freezing again. What had she been doing all this time? Has she been hurting people? Was Kris trying to make her do the same thing to Berdly just then?
“I don’t–” She started to speak, but the words were immediately choked out by the sob she had been trying to fight back. Her body felt so cold. She couldn’t stop shaking. More tears fell from her eyes, freezing onto her fur as they fell, coating her in small icicles.
Berdly finally stepped forward, albeit hesitantly. He was looking around frantically, maybe a bit uncomfortable. Noelle could see his eyes darting about. It was understandable to see him react that way. She had nearly killed him just a moment ago, and now she was on the floor sobbing crystalline tears of ice, something he had never seen before. Noelle would have never let herself cry in front of Berdly of all people.
She watched him carefully, trying to bite back her sobs. He was fidgeting with the handle of his axe, likely still antsy from their battle.
“Wait!” Noelle shouted as Berdly took another step towards her, wrapping her arms tightly around herself, “Don’t come closer. Please.”
Berdly looked around, then just silently nodded his head and sat down. He set his axe next to him, causing it to disappear, rested his hands in his lap, and looked at Noelle again. She was broken down, fallen to her knees with the rough edge of her mage robe spilling out around her and almost glowing softly in the darkness of the alleyway. Every tear that still fell from her eyes froze to her fur. Her hands were covered in a thin layer of frost. Her eyes, so full of tears, were so devoid of life and color.
He kept his distance, still processing the fact that he really had almost died just then. Even if this was all a really crazy dream, that was still terrifying. Kris had almost made Noelle kill him. Why would they even do that? What would lead to that? Sure, Berdly knew he could be annoying at times, and maybe he hasn’t been the nicest monster to Kris, and yes maybe he did like to mock them and hold his own ever growing friendship with Noelle in front of them like a dollar on a fishline, and he did like to tease them about their grades being low, and sure he–
Okay, maybe there were a lot of reasons that Kris would be upset or dislike him, but them wanting to kill him was still crazy, right? Right?!?
Noelle was staring at him. Maybe he wasn’t the nicest friend to Noelle, either.
She had asked him to stay back, but something was compelling him to get closer. He could do better, surely. He could be better than he had been.
He slowly shifted a bit forward, reaching his hand forward to rest on Noelle’s shoulder. He flinched back almost immediately from how cold she was, but he pushed through it. He placed his hand on her shoulder again, bit back and swallowed the cold. This was the least he could do.
“You heard it… Didn’t you?” Noelle’s voice was weak, shaking. He was shocked she wasn’t stuttering on top of that. “Their voice… Tell me you heard it. Tell me I’m not crazy!”
Noelle lifted her head, looking at Berdly almost frantically. Desperate for him to validate whatever she heard.
“Yes, I heard it. Was there something wrong with their voice?”
The words didn’t help at all. Her head fell once again, her entire body drooping closer and closer to the ground. Maybe she had made it all up. Maybe it was all in her head. All the enemies she had frozen, was it her own choice? Almost killing Berdly, was that her own doing?
It all felt so vivid, though. She could hear their voice. The way they whispered into her ear, over and over as they walked the city. Proceed. Proceed. Proceed.
Had she really made it all up? Her hands were so cold. She was so cold. Everything was so cold.
Was any of it real?
Noelle reached for the ring on her finger, yanking it off with a wince and throwing it across the alley. She watched as blood dripped down from where the thorns had barbed their way into her skin.
“Surely, now… Now I can’t hurt anyone. Right?” Her entire body was trembling, even her gaze shaking as she tried to look at Berdly. Everything in her expression pleaded with him to confirm that she was now back to being a harmless deer.
Berdly looked around. He was nervous. She could tell that much. He was scared of her, wasn’t he?
“Well, I…” He stood up, not pulling his axe out now. There was a hesitation, but he stepped forward, his arms stretched out toward her. Berdly really wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he knew that Noelle needed proof that she wasn’t going to hurt him. This was not something he was used to doing, not something he ever had to do at all, really. He tried to think back on how his mom would comfort him in times of stress. Well, how she comforted him when he got a bad grade or lost at a video game. Which, in retrospect, was a very different level of distress from this situation.
He sat next to Noelle, not touching her, but not too far either. “I feel fine. Don’t you?”
Okay, maybe that was the wrong thing to say.
Noelle let out a choked laugh, looking up at the pitch black sky above them.
“Right. Do I feel fine? Should I feel fine? I could’ve been killing people for the past hour for all I know! I may have almost killed you! Is this even real? Is the pain in my hands real? The blood on my finger, the ice and frost on my fur, is any of that real?” Noelle started to fidget with her hands, picking at her nails and the skin around them mindlessly.
“If this is some dream, that means we’re asleep. We’re asleep in the computer lab. Shouldn’t we be working on our project? We’re going to fall behind. We need to wake up now. We need to get out of here. I need to get out of here. I want to go home now. We can work on the project tomorrow, right?”
Noelle kept rambling on as her thoughts came and went, her mind running far and wide. Berdly didn’t know what to say. He had never seen anything like this, especially from Noelle. She always seemed so put together, aside from when she was embarrassed about something. Was this a panic attack? Her breathing did seem heavy. How was he supposed to help with that? Should he grab her hands before she made them bleed more, but what if that made it worse? Maybe a distraction?
That was it. A distraction. Berdly was hilarious, he knew this about himself. He could easily make her laugh, and then she would feel much better!
“This is kinda like that scene from that one anime, don't you think?” He interrupted whatever it was she had been saying, grabbing her hands. That was something good to do during a time like this, right? Berdly looked at Noelle, who had completely stopped talking. Her expression was one of extreme bewilderment and confusion.
“I'm… Sorry? What are you talking about?”
Did he even have an anime in mind? He just said that on the spot. Surely one of the countless shows he was a complete expert on must have something relatable to this moment. “Oh, you know…” He had to think of something. He wasn't thinking of anything. How could he, of a people, draw a complete blank in such a crisis? “The Guy Who Was Reincarnated But Actually Wasn't Reincarnated At All, of course!”
Noelle pulled a hand away from him, slowly, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve for a moment. She didn't have the slightest clue what he was talking about. She wasn't sure if that was a show that even existed, but it sounded similar to something she read, so maybe it did exist.
She laughed a little at the ridiculousness of the title, wondering how Berdly could have possibly made the connection of… whatever this situation was, to a random anime he had watched. If he had watched it. If it was real.
If any of this was real.
There wasn't much she could do about it, though. Whether it was real or not, she had to get back to the library. She had to finish her homework.
“Let's just… go find where our homework is. I don't want to get a late notice. My mom will flip.”
“Of course not! We shall go now, brave mage!” Berdly stood up quickly, saluting briefly before starting to walk back down the alleyway.
Noelle could only follow after, wondering if he was still trying to play into that reincarnation anime he was talking about…