Carneli
Lithiasaur

”I need a box off the top shelf,” Zia announced, interrupting whatever Chester was doing by resting her forehead on the side of his, demanding attention right off the bat. She had been busy staring at various things like she could will them into action with nothing but stern looks before she decided it was much easier to wrangle Chester into being her soundboard.

Too much time alone in her thoughts let doubt and worry creep in. About how they were just playing house here, and about how eventually the decaying society would reach them and they’d decay too.

But then there was Chester, and focusing on him suddenly made it okay, because they had carved out their small corner to protect and it was stupid to worry about how permanent or temporary that corner could be maintained. But in addition to reminding herself of that with his presence, she had ulterior motives she planned to sneakily broach with him.

She had been musing on the mayor’s announcement that energy donations required of civilians would increase as well as ‘security measures’. Her stomach turned. She had been feeling the ongoing grip of paranoia slowly cementing around her ever since. Now it was like she was looking to him to either confirm or break it as one thin hand reached around to run her fingers through his hair. “And… hey…” Casually. Smooooothly. “You’re staying in for a while, yeah?”

He didn’t go looking for trouble anymore, and she knew that, but it didn’t mean she was spared from waves of nauseating worry whenever trouble came to them.

Chester looked up when he heard her called for him, always on call for her when she needed his help. Or his company. Or whatever else she might need from him. If she needed someone to stand over her and shield the light from her eyes, like a human lamp shade, he would do that. He always would, regardless of the state of the world around them, or the way things were crumbling so miserably. He would be her rock, as he used her for much the same, though he never asked her for anything. Just having her in his life did the same thing for him as her asking him to do things did for her.

He looked at her when she spoke again and got the feeling that she was going to say something he likely would not want to hear. He knew how she worried, how she was scared. He could not blame her for that, especially with the way things were going, and the way the Negaverse kept moving. He shook his head slowly.

“You don’t want me to find out what their ‘security’ is, do you?” he asked, cutting to the point as he so often did.

Playing by the rules the Negaverse set was difficult enough, but there were some things that Luxor still had to do for himself, and he knew he could easily get himself killed by doing so. Protecting the Carnival, keeping it out of negaverse hands both as a knight and as a member of the public, was one of the most important things he had left in his life, second only to his existence with and around Zia. She made him whole, but the Carnival had always been his life’s work. He was not willing to see it used by the Negaverse, and would rather let it rot than let it be their play ground.

“I was going to check on the Carnival tonight.”

Zia deflated a little, and it was noticeable as he hand dropped away from his face. “I was hoping you wouldn’t,” She said when he cut to the chase about finding out what the ‘extra’ security measures were. Zia never cut to the chase, there was still some dancing around the issue to do, damn it. “At least not the hard way.”

She resolved herself to a flopped lean against him, threading one arm around his and working her lower lip with her teeth. “Maybe it would be smarter to hold off until there’s more intel on their plans,” She offered with a lilt that suggested she was compromising, although it was all just a sly suggestion to make sounding staying in and staying unpowered sound attractive and less passive.

Sometimes, she did her best to put on a plastic air of support and even offered to follow him around and put her cat senses and aura suppression to good use. It hadn’t always been plastic, it used to be enthusiastic, but as time went on and the world outside this small bubble became worse, enthusiasm was hard. Sincerity left next. Now it was all she could do not to ask him to stop. She had sworn once that she wouldn’t ever ask him to stop. That it was important to not be that person, the one who told the other to stop fighting. She always considered him a partner in every possible definition of the word, and good partners didn’t do that.

But tonight it was harder than ever.

Her face was twisted in blatant show of the struggle she was having with herself on top of the worry he’d be out and about. “I mean, we just don’t know what’s out there, so it’d probably better to wait,” She said, but it sounded like she was saying it more to herself, convincing herself she wasn’t crossing a line or asking for something as terrible as the internal voice in her head told her she was.

Chester watched her, his expression softer. If anything, he had become gentler in this long years, instead of harder like so many others had. He had something he needed to protect, and he bent his life to it, but he loved her with all his heart as well. That helped him, kept him sane, and even managed to mellow his attitude out a bit. He had not lost, not the way some others had, and that was something he knew he had to shelter and hold on to. There might come a time when he could no longer say that, and he was not willing to be broken like so many others.

He was not willing to lose.

“I don’t want them to take my lands away from me. There are offers, and people coming around poking at it. They want to take it for one of their promotions. I won’t let them have it, not as long as I’m alive and owner. Not as long as I can fight them, both ways.”

He was almost as passionate about his Carnival as he was about her, but how could he not be? It was the one thing he had found in his life that had given him a reason to wake up day after day, when nothing else could hold his attention, and nothing else held any meaning. Before Zia, he had nothing to feel like he contributed to, nothing that gave back to him what he put in to it. Not until he built his theme park, and he saw the fruits of his labors. He built something he was proud of, and he would not let that be taken away from him.

A man could be very funny about his pride.

Her worry, though, made him feel a sting of conflict. His two passions were at odds now. He could not protect her if he left her to protect his Carnival, and he did not want to hurt her by picking it over her. Likewise, the idea of losing it when he was not paying attention was kicking him in the back of the head.

“I know you’re scared, Zia,” he said gently, leaning close to her and kissing her on the temple affectionately. “I am too. If you don’t want me to go, I’ll wait. But we don’t know if we will get more intel… they’re not sharing.”

”Right,” Zia said in her flat tone that usually meant someone had a point she didn’t want to admit to. She could hear Dodge whine somewhere in response, since that tone usually didn’t mean good things when it was directed at the lumbering rottie mix.

“I’ll come with you,” Her voice rose at the end like it was a question but any experience with her moods and voices would clue anyone in to the reality that it wasn’t a question. She had been clingy in the years following Alfheim’s death, but recent events and small changes generated a rising urge to cling hard. Dig your nails in, a voice at the back of her head hissed constantly. It’s going to slip away soon if you don’t.

So rather than wait for his response to her statement she stood on her toes and nuzzled her nose under his jawline for more affectionate contact.

“I don’t know how they expect people to keep up with higher energy demands,” She murmured, half to herself. Zia showed up when it was her turn to donate, like a good citizen. She didn’t want to go off the grid, hide in camps, give up what property she had. There was pride and sentimentality wrapped in what she had built too, and that was part of the reason why she struggled against such a crushing sense of guilt when she asked him to stay in. She knew what she was asking. She knew it was hypocritical. But she had hardened herself to nearly everyone else, and she didn’t know how she would feasibly cope if something happened.

Chester know that the last thing Zia wanted to do was go out there with the risks high and with the unknown looming. She had already lost far more than he had, and he did not think he had it in him to ask her to go out there and risk more with him. For him. For his carnival. It might have been important to him, and he treated it like his baby, but by comparison it was nothing to Zia. He came to that conclusion much faster than he might have thought.

“You don’t want to come with me,” he pointed out smoothly. He knew her too well, maybe, but it was also pretty obvious. He did not mind her clinging to him, but he had no intentions of letting himself get taken from her.

He cuddled with her for a moment, sighing softly.

“We’ll be alright. We can keep giving them their energy if they want it, they won’t take more than they know we can afford. They need us alive for now, like the farm we are. We supply them with what they want, and in turn, we can at least live here and be safe. Comfortable. I know it’s not much, and I wanted to give you a lot more…” he sighed quietly.

“I’ll stay here for now… until we learn more.”

He would not go to his beloved home away from home, and that was a lot for him to risk. It was not easy, even with his love for her fueling his decision, but only because it was such a large part of him for so long. It was something he clung to, and maybe it was his own little way of pretending there were still good things. Or that they could claw their way back to how things used to be.

’You don’t want to come with me’ was mouthed in jest mimicry of his smooth tone, but she stopped, narrowed her eyes at him, and landed a quick kiss on his nose before a one shouldered shrug and flippant wave came with her admission, “I really don’t. But I’d rather come than sit around tearing up napkins while I wait for you.”

Not that she didn’t leave and creep around the city sometimes. There were things to find, mysteries to solve as there always were. The increase in Chaotic magic might’ve caused tragedies that embittered Zia to the world, but it didn’t damper her hunger. The paradigm shifted, there was still work to do and more secrets to turn up than ever.

But patrolling for safety was different. The thought of keeping people safe, saving people who didn’t want to be saved, or even being part of the fight made her angry. It just reminded her of the resentment that bubbled in a slow simmer at the pit of her stomach at all times. She would under strict circumstances and guidelines poke her head out of hiding for secrets and knowledge, but not for something that blamed so many losses on.

Even worse if he went out to secure the carnival and trouble landed on their doorstep.

“Hey,” She said, moving as if both hands would cup his face and hold it like she used to. But since her final fight with the negaverse she could lift one arm high enough and it rested on his bicep instead, shaking slightly from the effort. “Don’t say that. I have you, still, and you’re all I need. Everything else is disposable.”

There was a small pause, some thinking happened.

“We can go tomorrow night, after the changes have had a day to settle,” She said with a nod. Any immediate concerns would be out on the grapevine by then, and it was sooner rather than later. “Because I would rather go than sit around tearing up napkins waiting for you, and both are better than seeing you sit around here uneasy and wondering. It’s important to me too, I mean, it’s just...” Her hands slid down his arms, gripping one of his hands with both of hers. “You’re more important, you know?”

Chester very gently put one of his hands on her bad arm to support it and relieve the strain she was putting on it by trying to lift it higher than it wanted to go. He brought not attention to that, of course, as that was just part of who he was. He always did things to try and help her out, and never called attention to them. Sometimes that was safer, as he often made mistakes in what he thought would be good for her and what she thought was best, but at least he was still trying. Always trying.

“Tomorrow then,” he said with a gentle look. Like a puppy. He had mastered the look even better than Dodge had, though the dog had an unfair, natural advantage of him, considering it was an actual dog.

Chester had years more practice, though.

“I guess we both get wrapped up in that, don’t we,” he said blandly, holding her hand in his and looking down at it. He took a slow breath as he spoke, “caring about what the other wants to do, more than what we want to do ourselves…. I can compromise. If it is still not safe tomorrow, then we’ll wait some more. You’re right. We’re both more important than the Carnival is.”

He would not want to see anything happen to her, and now she had him wondering what the Negaverse was up to, anyway. If they were changing things up again it likely meant they were making things even more difficult and dangerous for the White Moon, and anyone associated with them.

That would just mean more to worry about, for both of them, and that was the very last thing he needed.

“Maybe we’ll be able to find someone who knows more,” his Carnival was outside the city, and thus a safer place than not, though he knew that there was interest in it and it was not completely safe. Still, it was not too far from one of the camps out in the forest, though it required being very careful while going out there, so no one followed them. So far, Luxor had only made the trip a couple of times, for information or to drop off some money he had subtly gathered out of his accounts for them. Thankfully, following his accounts was like walking through a labyrinth.

”Well if there’s anything unexpected and immediate it should turn up tonight,” Zia said with a stern nod. She was pragmatically thinking of traps and things that might not be immediately seen. If there were unfortunate souls caught in unexpected mix ups, she thought of them purely as sacrifices for the learning experience. The dead rats that warned against poisoned food.

She knew Luxor was not quite that detached from the resistance as she was, though, and so she didn’t say much in the way of her spinning gears and the plans and ideas that were conjuring. They were still people he could help to him, and she often lamented what a bitter and callous creature she had turned out to to people outside of her very short list. But she didn’t give up that bitterness either, only hid it when the mood struck her.

Right now she wasn’t sure if she was just being particularly brilliant at pushing it aside or if it had genuinely vanished for the time being, though, when she glanced up at his puppy face and promptly looked down with a shy laugh, face flushing. In rare moments that’s still happened sometimes. No matter how old they got, she still loved him in an awkwardly floundering first-teenage-love sort of way. “Come on,” She said, fiddling with the front of his shirt before tugging him along. “We’ll pass tonight doing something else.”

And for another twenty-four hours she could curl up in the illusion that everything was fine, and that sinking her nails in and clinging with all her strength was totally going to work.