Underground Encounter

A scream caught in Calliope’s throat as she turned the corner and was met with a sword in her face. She jumped back and the armored figure quickly advanced, herding her back against the damp cave wall. In a panic, Calliope transformed. Morphing quickly down into the shape of a rabbit with two curious corkscrew horns, her clothing and accouterments melded with her fur as she took off at a dash, splashing through the shallow mucky puddles of the underground.

“Woah! Hey! Wait a minute!” The figure called after her, but Calliope didn’t stop. She heard him clanking after her as she skidded around a corner, running blindly through the darkness, fueled only by terror and the desire to escape. He couldn’t outrun her like this!

After several turns through the caves Calliope was almost certain she’d lost him. But before she could regain her bearings and find a crevice to tuck herself in for a while, she ran smack into a meaty leg. Calliope stumbled back, feeling dazed, as a hulking figure grunted, then bent down and looked at her.

Before she could turn and run again the troll kicked her hard against the wall. Calliope squeaked in shock as she felt something snap in her chest and along her hip. She fell to the cave floor with a thud, the troll strolled over, proclaiming something in a language she didn’t understand as she gasped on the floor. It picked her up roughly by her ears, yanking her up to eye level and showing a single large eye. Not a troll, a cyclops. Calliope’s heart was racing, her breathing more difficult. She’d broken a rib or more, and she could feel it pressing uncomfortably against her lungs. She kicked her legs haplessly in the air, still squeaking in terror.

Suddenly a knife embedded itself in the cyclops’ shoulder, causing it to shout and recoil, throwing Calliope onto the floor. Calliope felt all the wind get knocked out of her as she hit the stone floor with surprising force. Force enough to kill a little rabbit. She felt a wave of blinding pain across her whole body, her small rabbit form rejecting her. As her vision cleared and pain faded Calliope found herself lying curled up on the cold, damp cave floor, her dress scuffed and soiled and body sore. She heard a bark as the cyclops roared again and she jerked her head up, worried what other monster had come to join the problem. She would have a whole lot harder time getting out of this one with her rabbit form down for the count.

-

Aurelius barked again at the cyclops, trying again to draw its attention away from the jackalope damsel he’d accidentally scared earlier himself. Swinging his sword in a wide arc up from the ground and toward the monster, he bellowed, driving the sword hard into the hulking figure’s arm. It sliced up through its tricep and into its shoulder, nearly cutting the whole arm off. The cyclops screamed - a raw, shrill sound, unexpected from such a large creature. Aurelius struggled to pull his sword free, but finally managed as the cyclops yanked away. It screamed at him in an unfamiliar language, spewing a string of words - some of which Aurelius recognized as common curses. Aurelius roared back at it, readying his sword again, but the cyclops stumbled away.

It looked like it was going to run away. Aurelius wasn’t sure he could risk that. What if it came back with backup? He was strong, but he didn’t think he could fight too many cyclops unscathed. Especially if he was going to help that jackalope out. The cyclops looked between him and the way behind him, and stalled only a moment before taking off at a run. But as it passed him Aurelius swung his sword around again, clipping the back of its heels and causing it to stumble and fall hard on its face. It cried out again, and Aurelius didn’t hesitate. Jumping up onto its back Aurelius took his sword in both hands and angled it to strike. It tried to squirm away before he did, and nearly lost him his balance. But not quick enough. Moving quicker, Aurelius plunged his sword through the back of the beast’s head. And like that, it was finished.

-

Upon seeing the figure who had previously chased her now attacking, Calliope had scrambled back against the wall. Breathing heavily and still in shock she watched the figure - one she could now make out as a finely armored dogfolk - with wide eyes. She jumped again and recoiled at the sudden gore as he sliced his way through the cyclops’ arm. She pressed her back further against the wall and squeezed her eyes shut, then covered her ears and clenched her jaw as she listened to the horrible scream of the cyclops.

This was awful. She felt sick. And scared. She wanted to be home, oh why did she have to come out here on her own, it was so stupid of her. Now she was going to die out here, or worse! Calliope curled into a ball, feeling close to retching as she heard the cyclops cry in pain again.

-

Aurelius huffed as the cyclops grew still. He sat down on its back for a moment as he caught his breath. He reached for the loose loincloth the monster had been wearing and used it to wipe its own blood and gore off his sword. As he panted, his attention returned to the jackalope he’d rescued. She’d startled him earlier, and so his instinct had been to go on the defensive. But then she’d run before he could have done anything. She looked familiar, he’d become more and more certain of that as he’d chased after her. Which made him want to catch up with her even more, to set things straight and talk.

But now she was curled up on herself against the far wall, her eyes were squeezed shut and she was… shaking. Aurelius leapt to his feet, dashing over to her and getting down on his knees next to her. He reached a hand out to her but stopped short from touching her shoulder.

“Hello? Are you alright!?” He asked anxiously. The jackalope’s eyes opened wide, the terror evident in them as she took him in. “Woah, hey. Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you.” He soothed as she started to shake more violently. He placed his hovering hand on her shoulder, gripping it so she didn’t run away again.

She did not look prepared to be exploring the underworld at all, what was she doing down here? It was a good thing he’d been here to take care of that cyclops. She really did look familiar, too.

Her eyes flicked to the dead cyclops behind him and her breathing grew a little quicker again. “Hey, heey, shh. No need to get worked up, it's dead. Are you alright? Are you hurt?” Aurelius rubbed her shoulder with his thumb, trying to bring her back to looking at him. And hopefully to calm her down a little. She was pretty, he noticed.

The jackalope looked between him and the corpse a few times, her breathing uneven. She choked out a few stammering words. “I- Um- Er- Uh- Oh-” Aurelius raised his eyebrows at her, urging her to continue. “I-- I’m okay.” She weakly squeaked. Aurelius relaxed. Then offered a hand to her, and pulled her to her shaky feet.

“Good. I’m Aurelius. Sorry about earlier, you startled me." He smiled at her. "What are you doing down here? This doesn't seem like the best place for you.”

“I… Erm….” She seemed like she was still in shock, so Aurelius took her other hand in his as well. She blinked at him. "I'm…. Calliope."

That name sounded familiar too. Aurelius felt a memory tingling in his brain, trying to resurface. He'd been young, it had been some festival with Uncle Aloysius. But if she was who he recalled, she didn't seem to recognize him.

-

Calliope stared dumbly at the Shiba - Aurelius was his name - as he smiled absently at her. If she'd had a train of thought it'd been abruptly halted when he'd clasped both of her hands in his. She twitched as she felt herself blush. Aurelius looked at her expectantly. Then all at once she was brought back into the moment. He'd asked her a question. And- oooggh - and this was the same person that had just gored the cyclops still lying dead on the stone a few places away.

"I was-- uh." Calliope's eyes wandered back and fixed themselves on the pooling blood, leading her view back to the broken body. Leaving her again feeling sick, and dizzy. She pulled her hands away from Aurelius, not wanting the person who'd just done that touching her.

Aurelius followed her eyes and at the very least understood the gore was making her uncomfortable. It would be better if the two of them put some distance between them and the hulking corpse. He nodded. Again putting on his best calming smile, he gingerly guided her around the bloody cyclops with a hand to her shoulders. "Let's walk and talk." He suggested, angling her away from it.

Calliope swallowed, but let him guide her along until the corpse was out of sight. She took a few deep breaths, she needed to pull herself together. This was embarrassing. She shrugged off his hand again, but kept walking.

"I-" She swallowed again. "I came down to get hornwort and phillis- uh… fungus, it’s a fungus. Because they grow close to the surface. There's- there's usually less trouble near the surface." She tried to banish the ridiculous stammer from her voice. She still didn’t know what this guy’s intentions were, showing this much weakness was a bad idea.

“Phillis? You mean phillis fingers?” Aurelius asked. Calliope cocked her head.

“Yes, actually.” She hadn’t expected him to know what she was talking about. Most adventure types, like he seemed to be, didn’t know a thing about alchemic ingredients. “I usually hire out people in Maeri to gather it for me, and I have to use different terms so they know what they’re looking for.”

“Well phillis fingers seem like a fine name to me.” Aurelius said. “They’re… Somewhat finger-like.” He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “But why didn’t you do that this time?”

“What?”

“Why didn’t you hire anyone this time? You don’t seem very equipped for the underworld.”

“Well I’d have been fine if you didn’t shove a sword in my face.” Calliope scowled.

“I didn’t mean it!” He held his hands up innocently. “Like I said, you startled me.”

“Yeah! What about me! You almost KILLED me!” Calliope huffed.

“I said I was sorry…” He pouted. “But I came back and saved you too, didn’t I?” He added modestly.

Calliope flattened her ears, looking down sheepishly. “...Yes. Thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome!” He lifted his head and smiled. “But you didn’t answer my question. Why not hire people again? Were they not gathering the right materials? Or enough of them or something? Why not just hire a guard?” He peaked around a corner, gesturing for her to wait before indicating the way was clear.

“Oh… I… We can’t afford it anymore.” Calliope looked at her feet. “And I can’t really make the money to afford it again if I don’t have ingredients.”

“Oh. Um…” Aurelius cocked his head, unsure how to respond to that. “I’m… sorry?” They walked in awkward silence for a few moments. “I could help you gather some, if you’d like.” Aurelius piped up quietly.

“What? Oh, you don’t need to do that!”

“No no, I insist. Look! There’s some foxfire right here! Could you use some of that?” Aurelius pointed and jogged over to a rotten log that had somehow been dragged down here, lying in a shallow puddle. A faint green glow came from the foxfire growing on the underside. Calliope stammered as he took out his knife and began to shave it off the soggy wood.

“I- well. Yes, I’m sure I could, but-”

“I bet that cyclops has plenty of great properties too. If nothing else you could probably make a good profit off its eye. And if you grind the nails into a powder - that makes a great base for-”

“Urk.” Calliope grimaced. “No… Thank you.” It was easy to not think too hard about where biotic ingredients came from when she didn’t have to harvest it herself. But the idea of- of ‘harvesting’ that corpse- well, she might just lose her lunch thinking about it too hard.

Aurelius looked up and saw her nauseated expression and paused. “Ah. Hm. I could go and you could stay here- wait, no. No I shouldn’t leave you, in case something else comes by. Do you have anything to put this in?” Aurelius proffered the harvested foxfire in Calliope’s direction.

“Oh! Oh, yeah. Here.” She fished in her satchel and pulled out a small empty burlap cloth and piece of twine, then hurried over to him and took the foxfire.

Resolved not to go back to the cyclops, the two of them wandered in the underworld’s shallow caves for a while. Gathering the desired materials and anything else useful they found. In the end Calliope’s satchel was a whole lot fuller than she had ever expected it to be.

“So, are you an alchemist too? I guess I never asked why you’re down here.” Calliope said. The longer they wandered together the more comfortable she became, and for some reason, the more familiar Aurelius seemed. Had she met him somewhere before?

“Eh, not really. At least not in practice. But I think it’s interesting.” Aurelius said, pulling aside a damp growth of something hanging down from the cave ceiling, the sun pouring in after it and revealing the greenery of the forested surface. “I know plenty, but I’ve never really done any of it myself. Never quite had the opportunity to. I don’t feel comfortable going to the castle’s alchemists most of the time, since Chloranthy always has her ear to the ground there. I don’t like her very much.”

“Uh… Castle? I mean, who’s Chloranthy?” Calliope asked hesitantly. He had access to a castle? A castle in Neatheim, she assumed.

“She and my oldest sister are good friends.” He sighed. “I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m stupid. She’s basically said as much, anyway. She thinks just because Beatrice is making her her advisor that she’s queen of the castle, or something. Well I think Beatrice should be more careful, I don’t think Chloranthy is going to get off her high horse any more once Beatrice is queen.”

Calliope blinked at him. A light breeze ruffled their fur along with the forest canopy around them.

“...Sorry.” Aurelius sighed again. “I probably shouldn’t be sharing that. Maybe… keep that one to yourself, alright?”

“...Queen…?” Calliope stared.

“...Oh!” Aurelius pulled to a stop, then a moment later turned to face her. He dipped into a graceful bow, lifting a hand off to the side in an elegant gesture. “Prince Aurelius of Neatheim. At your service.”

Calliope turned and gawked at him. “......Huh???”

Aurelius however didn’t miss a beat, rising back up and grinning at her. “And you’re Calliope… Sav- No- Stav…" He snapped his fingers, trying to recall. "Stavros! Right?” Calliope gaped at him again.

“How did you know that?” She demanded. Aurelius beamed at being right.

“I honestly can’t believe I remembered. Do you remember the summer solstice festival in Haberwind… ten years ago, I think? You made me keep saying Stavros until I could pronounce it right.”

Calliope cocked her head incredulously. What was he talking about? But the summer solstice in Haberwind sounded familiar… Then the memory came back suddenly to her. She’d spent the whole evening with a random shiba boy she’d run into and he’d given her his snacks. They’d talked for hours, then played with the fireworks the next day.

“By the goddesses…” Calliope remarked. Aurelius’s grin grew as he saw the recognition dawning on her face. Then she laughed. “How in the world did you remember me? Hold on- you’re the prince?” She recoiled in shock.

Aurelius laughed "I am! You had the same reaction as when I told you back then too, I think!"

Calliope had trouble believing that. But Aurelius seemed confident in his memory. The two of them walked for a long time, continuing to chat. They were a good ways off from her home in Maeri but Calliope found the time passing quickly in Aurelius’s company. He was peppy and curious, even if he dominated the conversation sometimes. More and more he reminded her of the puppies a breeder in Maeri had a few years ago. It made her laugh.

“I need to head North soon.” Aurelius commented. “There are some men expecting me, we’re going to run an inspection on the South-Eastern underworld outpost.”

“That sounds important.” Calliope noted.

“Yeah, it’s our primary defense against the underworld. There are smaller outposts, more local, you know. But the South-Eastern Outpost is situated over the biggest underworld entrance on the continent. Really, it’s hardly an ‘outpost’. It’s a fortress.”

Calliope nodded. She had heard about this all, but she decided to let Aurelius continue. He seemed to like to talk. Neatheim’s South-Eastern Outpost was a good distance from Maeri, a few days journey, maybe a week. Someone living in Neatheim likely thought nothing of it, if they knew it existed at all. But when you lived so near the Veil of Fangs, you knew the surrounding threats. And such a strong outpost from Neatheim was one of them.

Calliope stalled in a fork in the road, waiting for Aurelius to finish his peppy current tangent, then speaking up. “If you need to meet with those men in time, this would be a good place to part. I can get home fine from here, Maeri is really just down the road.”

Aurelius stopped and considered this point. “Are you sure? I’ve never seen Maeri before.”

“Where did you have to meet them? Cohorst? If you head north from here right now you’ll get there by nightfall. Leaving any later would be a bad idea.”

“Hm. You have a good point.” He sighed. “I suppose sightseeing can wait.” Then his demeanor shifted and he smiled brightly at her. “It was wonderful getting to meet and catch up with you again, Calliope!” His tail wagged.

Calliope laughed. “I agree. You’ll have to come visit again when you don’t have duties to worry about. …And thank you, again.”

He beamed and gave her an elegant bow. “Until we meet again!” Calliope giggled and returned the gesture with an admittedly poorly executed curtsy. But neither of them really minded.