Chapter 120: Man With A Fire Ability

He flipped it high into the air, catching it with one hand in a smooth motion. Eleanor watched, her brow furrowing as what she was seeing was one of the strangest things she had come across.

"Heads," he said, holding the coin up for her to see, "you can stay."

Eleanor blinked. "That's it? You flip a coin and that's how you decide?"

"More or less." He flipped the coin again, then again, then a third time. He flipped it again and again, not because he was about to decide something again, but because it was something he just loved to do whenever he was idle.

It's bronze color caught the dim light, making it sparkle. Each time he flipped it, Eleanor couldn't help but feel dazzled by it.

It was almost hypnotic…

He slipped the coin back into his coat pocket. He did it without even taking his eyes off her, because this was something he had done so many times, it was as habitual as breathing at this point.

"Why?" He asked, "Does that bother you?"

"A little," she admitted. "Seems like a really strange way to decide who gets shelter and who doesn't."

Darian chuckled, settling back into his chair, before crossing his legs as he replied. "The coin doesn't care who stands in front of it. Doesn't care if you're a hardened fighter or a frightened kid on your first day in The Edge. It's impassive. Doesn't play favorites, doesn't hold grudges, doesn't second guess itself the way people do."

He unfolded his legs and leaned forward, his eyes locked on hers. "Which, I've found, makes it far more trustworthy than most of the decisions I'd make on my own."

Eleanor frowned slightly. "You let a coin decide who lives inside these walls?"

"I let it decide everything," Darian said, in a quiet tone. "That's basically the scope of of my ability. My ability deals with Probability, you see. I can see the odds, shift them, tilt the scales in whichever direction I please. Or I can simply let them fall exactly as they would have anyway, though there's a cost for attempting this. The coin at this point, is a reminder."

"A reminder of what?"

"That I don't actually care how any of it ends," he said, meeting her eyes with a calmness that was unsettling. "The result can be whatever it wants to be. Heads, tails, a stranger stays, a stranger's turned away—none of that particularly interests me. What I care about is the process. The tension of the moment before it lands. That's the part worth savoring." He smiled faintly.

"Everything after is just outcome. Outcomes are boring. It's the getting there that's exhilarating."

Eleanor studied him for a long moment, unsure whether to be unsettled or intrigued.

At this point, it was likely both…

Then Darian spoke as if he just remembered something. "Ah, yes." He said, "I'd like to know your ability as well. Go on, then."

She hesitated only briefly before letting a small flame flicker to life in her palm, followed by a thin curl of water lifting from a nearby basin, then a faint tremor along the floor as a small boulder erected there, and finally a small gust of wind that blew in his face.

Darian's eyebrows rose properly this time. "All four?"

"All four," Eleanor confirmed.

"Well." He sat back, looking thoroughly impressed. "That's not something I see often. Most people who wander through my doors carry a two abilities at most."

He tapped a finger idly against his chin. "The last person who stayed here had just the one, a fire ability if I remember correctly. Interesting fellow, though. Fought like every fight was the last one he'd ever get."

Something about that description pulled faintly at the back of Eleanor's mind, but she let it pass for now, to exhausted to let this conversation drag on.

"You should get yourself looked at," Darian continued, standing and gesturing toward the hall's far corridor. "Yor handles that sort of thing here. She's a Healer, and quite a good one, though she'll complain about it the entire time. Go on, I'll be here when you're finished and you need anything…

***

Yor's room smelled faintly of crushed herbs, and something that looked like medicine.

A young man, who had just been treated on bowed and left and the woman herself looked up from a table cluttered with bandages and vials the moment Eleanor stepped through the doorway.

She blinked, her face carrying visible surprise. "Oh. A woman this time."

"...This time?" Eleanor repeated, raising an eyebrow as she took the offered seat.

"Never mind that." Yor waved a dismissive hand, already reaching for Eleanor's arm to inspect the shallow claw marks along it, the bruising from the Bora's tail still darkening her sleeve with blood. "Honestly, does everyone who walks through that gate insist on getting themselves half killed before showing up here? You'd think people would learn to be careful once in a while."

Eleanor winced as gentle her fingers pressed against a particularly tender bruise. "In my experience, most people don't really do careful."

"Clearly not," Yor muttered, already dabbing something cool and faintly stinging across the wound before using her ability to close it up completely. "It's like everyone assumes because I can patch them back together, they're free to throw themselves at every dangerous thing they meet without a second thought. As if my ability comes with unlimited patience attached."

Eleanor huffed, finding what she said genuinely funny. "That, I can actually relate to. Both of my friends are like that. Reckless doesn't even begin to cover it, honestly. One of them just walks straight into things fists first without thinking, and the other one takes things too lightly. No matter what dangerous beast we face, he always has a joke for it."

"Sounds exhausting," Yor said.

"You have no idea. Even though they're are both insanely powerful, I spend half my time just making sure they don't get themselves killed doing something reckless."

Yor snorted, tying off a fresh bandage with gentle hands. "Sounds like you and I have similar jobs, then. Constantly cleaning up after people who can't be bothered to think before they act."

"Feels that way sometimes," Eleanor admitted, some of the tension in her shoulders finally easing at how smooth the conversation was goingmbIt had been a while since she'd talked to another woman who understood that particular version of exhaustion.

"There was someone like that here, actually," Yor said, almost idly, tucking away her supplies. "A while back. Before you came here, obviously. He had a fire ability, and easily the worst patient I've ever had the misfortune of stitching up."

Eleanor's eyes snapped towards her. "Oh?"

"Yeah. Wouldn't stay still after treatment. The moment we were attacked by an Avallion, he rushed out only to get folded." She laughed at that before continuing…

"He had dark hair, always looked like he hadn't slept properly in days but kept fighting while claiming that he was fine." Then after a short pause, she spoke with a soft smile. "I kinda miss him…"

Eleanor went still. Dark hair and tired eyes… there was only a handful of people she knew would fit that description. So obviously, it was too early to jump to any conclusions.

But then there was the fact that the person in question had a fire ability, and she knew only one person who had a fire ability…

"He didn't talk much about himself," Yor continued, oblivious to the shift in Eleanor's expression, "but you could tell there was something heavier sitting on him. The kind of look people get when they've survived something they'd rather not discuss." She tied off the last bandage and patted Eleanor's arm. "Anyway. You're patched up. Try not to push yourself so hard…"

"...Right," Eleanor said absently, already rising from her seat, her mind racing through the description, turning it over and refusing to let it pass as just a coincidence.

Darian had mentioned a person with a fire ability before, and now so did Yor. There was no way this had to be a coincidence.

At the very least, it would turn out to be a different person with a similar ability.

"Thank you, Yor." She said before leaving…

She found Darian back in the central hall exactly where he had been, the coin spinning idly between his fingers again, flipping it without any visibly purpose beyond the simple fact that it had become more of a habit itself.

"All patched up, I take it?" he asked without looking up.

"Yes." Eleanor's voice came out rougher than she intended, urgency bleeding through despite her attempt at staying composed. "Darian. The person who stayed here before me," she began, "The one with the fire ability."

Darian's hand paused mid flip, thw coin balanced on the edge of his fingers as he looked up at her with raised eyebrows.

"What about him?"

Tension hung in the air as silence fell over them. Eleanor swallowed hard before asking, her voice steady now. "What was his name?"