Rystelle Member

It was morning and Sophia's phone was ringing. She jerked awake, picked it up, and stared at it groggily. The time said it wasn't long after seven. Then she focused on the caller ID to see who was calling. _Tim._ Still completely out of it she slid the icon on the phone to pick it up. Lifting it to her ear she answered in a sleepy voice, "Hello?" "Sophia, it's Tim," Tim said, sounding a little frantic. "I... I need you to come over here. I'm freaking out. I don't know what to do." Instantly Sophia was awake and she threw off her covers, turned to sit with her legs dangling off her bed. "Stay calm," she instructed him with a gentle firmness. "Breathe, Tim. Just breathe. What's going on?" Sophia heard Tim trying to breath, trying to stay calm. But he was having trouble keeping it together. "What's going on?" She repeated. "The tunnel," Tim finally gasped. "The tunnel. Like from the park. It's here. In my apartment. My living room." Sophia swore. Then she calmed down and said, "Alright, Tim. Stay calm. Don't go in it. Don't even touch it. I'll be there soon." "Ok. Ok. Just... please get here quickly, Sophia. Please." Then the call ended. Sophia didn't even bother to put on day clothes. She just threw a jacket over her pajamas and slipped on her tennis shoes, grabbed her keys and wallet. She hurried to the cafe and rushed up to Tim's apartment. Sophia didn't even need to knock. Tim had heard her coming and had pulled the door open for her. She slipped inside and they shut the door and locked it. Her eyes went wide in surprise as she saw the tunnel with its glittering jewels.

Lydia was less surprised that Ragna had divulged information about himself and more surprised that he had apologized for his short-comings. That and he felt at ease around her. It definitely made his human side more prominent. Lydia hesitated for a moment, then gently pat Ragna's back. "I don't mind your rambling," she said honestly. "Say whatever you want. And if you feel more at ease then that's good." She chuckled a little bit and added, "I never thought I'd make a demon--full or half--feel at ease." As they stepped into the cavern Lydia looked around in awe. It was beautiful and had a mysterious air to it. There almost seemed to be purposeful patterns in the lichen and moss. Lydia had begun wandering closer to the wall to further inspect the fungal growth when Ragna spoke again. She shrugged as she studied the cavern walls. "Who knows? It's a possibility. I would prefer not to come across them if that's the case. But as you wish we'll rest here." Then she turned back to Ragna and saw him scraping some of the fungus off the wall. At his question she shrugged again. "You can try it if you want to," she told him as she started to wander over to the other side of the cavern. "If it makes you sick I can heal you." While Lydia only knew a few general spells she was really good at healing. It was almost funny. She was good at both fighting and killing, but also good at healing. There had been plenty of times when she had saved someone's life by using her healing magic. She could even purge a body of poison so long as the poison wasn't too fast acting. For Ragna's sake, however, she hoped that the fungi wasn't poisonous.

"Well _we_ know we're not crazy," Sophia stated confidently. "We'll just keep this to ourselves then and see if we can find out more about the runes. Then maybe, just maybe we can go take a look at the cave again. But just the cave!" Sophia paused and grimaced a little before adding, "_If_ it's still there." Her smile returned again. "Anyway, how about for now we forget about that stuff and just relax?" Tim agreed and Sophia shut down her laptop, closed it and put it to the side. They resumed eating their dinner and watching The Mask on tv. After the movie had finished Tim was getting tired and was ready to go home. On the way there both were relatively silent, neither discussing much or mentioning the short instance earlier in which they had held hands. Finally they were at Tim's apartment. "Today was fun," Sophia said, putting on a smile. "I'll talk to you later, Tim. Just text me whenever you want to hang out again. Or... Or if something happens and you just need someone around." "It was... fun," Tim agreed. "I'll text you later. Night." "Good night," she replied, watching him get out of the car and disappear into his building. Sophia drove back to her apartment and instantly went and flopped down on her bed, all the while in a dream-like state. As she lay in bed she looked at her right hand, wondering why she had done what she did. And why Tim had let her.

Sophia refilled her glass one more time then head back into the living room looking calmer than she felt. She sat down on the couch, kind of close to Tim but not too close. Picking up her unfinished dinner and starting to eat again, Sophia said, "If you'd like I can email you copies of the pictures." She didn't know what else to say really and just ate in silence for a while. Eventually Sophia thought to ask, "Should we show these pictures to someone? Like someone at a museum? Or do you think we should keep this to ourselves?" She was trying not to talk about what had just happened, trying not to dwell on it too much. But she still felt her hand tingling where Tim's hand had been, still felt the warmth of his hand.

Tim had still not pulled his hand away from Sophia's. It gave her a sense of relief as it meant that Tim was getting more accustomed to her. But even more than that she was glad that he had not pulled away because that would have made things more awkward for them both. He might have thought her brazen, perhaps insane, and over stepping her boundaries. He surely would have pulled farther away from her emotionally and perhaps withdrawn from her all together. Closed off all chances of the friendship they had. The thought of a sudden and final rejection caused Sophia's heart to ache painfully, and a lump rose in her throat. Without really being aware of it Sophia gave Tim's hand a light squeeze as a look of worry crossed her face. Then in an instant she appeared to look calm again and she swallowed, forcing the lump back down her throat. "I think it has to be some sort of magic," Sophia said, her voice a little low. "As crazy as it seems it might be. But I can't think of any other explanation as to what it might be, considering everything was the same and yet... different. I think maybe we activated something when we touched the runes. Or maybe it was activated by the light from my camera flash. It could be anything, really." Sophia was still really conscious of her hand in Tim's. She wanted to say something about it, but she couldn't. She was too embarrassed. Clearing her throat she told Tim, "I'm going to get some more water. Let me know if you want something." She finally let her hand slide from his before standing up from the couch. She grabbed her empty glass and moved into the kitchen to get some water from the sink. Her back was to the living room so Tim could not see Sophia's face as it burned a bright red, nor see her hand shaking a bit as she raised the now full glass to her lips and downed it all in one go. _What the hell is wrong with me?_ She thought. _Why am I so nervous?_

For a half-demon of his size, Lydianna felt that Ragna could be incredibly poor with words at times. This wasn't the first time she had noticed him trailing off, leaving unfinished sentences and questions and instead turning to mumbling to himself. She started to simply wonder if he was bad at communicating with others on a personal level, perhaps due to whatever hell his father had put him through. Lydia almost wanted to ask him about it, but instead chose to stay silent. She had been doing that a lot on their trip. Staying silent and really only talking when Ragna prompted her to. It wasn't that she was bad with people, just that she was trying not to form an attachment to him. She had taken a liking to him, yes, but that was different. You could like someone and not be attached to them. For instance, there may be a particular market vendor that you always go to when you do your shopping. He's a nice fellow, always has a smile and friendly words. However, you don't know anything else about him besides what he does. He's not a friend or family or someone you care deeply about. One day he's just suddenly gone and you stop for a moment to tell yourself that you liked him and you'll miss him, but over time you'll just forget about him altogether because he didn't _really_ matter to you. That was how Lydia was trying to keep the relationship between her and Ragna. She might like him and get along with him, but she didn't want to become attached to him. Demons were bound by their oaths he had told her. He had promised to protect her on their journey to the demon king. He had not promised to protect her once there or at any time afterwards. Once Ragna was free of his oath he could try to kill her for his king or for his own reasons. If that happened and Lydia was attached to Ragna, she would feel betrayed. Of course if he or anyone else there tried to kill her she would try to defend herself, but her chances for survival while in the court of the demon king were slim. To take her mind off of these things, Lydia tried to focus her attention on their surroundings. The glowing fungi was beautiful, but she wondered if it might be deadly. She had not seen it before and had no knowledge of it. She did know, however, that this mine had once certainly been excavated by dwarves long ago. Focusing her hearing Lydia honed in on the scratching sounds. "Seems like bats," she quietly informed Ragna. "They appear to be restless. Probably because they can't go out with the storm. They're likely to usually go out through the mouth of the cave, but I bet there's somewhere else they leave too. Perhaps this tunnel exits somewhere on the other side of the hill."

Tim placing his hand over hers had been an accident. Sophia was sure of that. She hadn't thought anything of it because, hey, accidents happen. Knowing Tim, however, she had expected him to suddenly get flustered and pull his hand away as if it was on fire. But he didn't. That's what caught her attention. She looked at their hands for a moment and couldn't help but notice that his hand was bigger than hers, enveloping it almost completely. Yet Sophia was sure that if she were to turn her hand around and interlock their fingers their hands would fit together perfectly. The seconds ticked by and seemed to stretch on, feeling more like minutes. Still Tim did not move his hand. Sophia began to wonder if maybe he was in a state of shock and simply couldn't. She looked over to see his expression and he looked at her at the same moment. Tim's face was a bit red, but other than that he looked... calm. Really calm. He didn't say anything, nor did she. His hand remained where it was. Sophia felt her face heat up as a million different scenarios played out in her mind. She could directly ask Tim to move his hand, or indirectly bring his attention to it. She could move _her_ hand and simply direct him to the folder she had intended to bring up. Or... Or she could hold onto his hand. Just that thought alone sent Sophia's cheeks aflame with red. But why hold onto his hand? Help him get more used to physical contact and her in general so that he wouldn't be so nervous around her? Because she liked signs of human affection? Or simply because she had already taken an extreme liking to Tim and simply wanted to hold his hand? It was a mixture of all three, but if asked about it Sophia was likely only to tell Tim about the first reason. She made her decision. Without saying anything Sophia shifted her fingers a little until they were in the spaces between Tim's fingers. She pushed them through and turned them so that their fingers were kind of interlocked with Tim's hand still resting atop hers, then moved their hands from the track pad to rest them on the couch between them. She and Tim were still looking at each other and so far he had not pulled away yet, not freaked out. Neither of them said a word either. Sophia took that as a good sign and she shifted her fingers so that she had a better grasp on Tim's hand. Finally she looked away toward the laptop. Sophia moved a bit closer to Tim, adjusting their hands accordingly so that they still sat between them but were now closer to their own legs with a smaller gap in between their bodies. Leaning forward Sophia used her left hand to use the track pad, minimizing the previous folder and bringing up a new one labeled _Tunnel_. It was a single picture of the hole taken on accident, but you could still kind of see the jewels embedded into the tunnel glowing dimly. "This picture was a complete accident," Sophia finally said. "I didn't even know I had managed to capture this until I was looking through the photos again. But take a look at this! See those runes above the tunnel?" She pointed out the hieroglyphs that stood out on the wall. "They're the exact same ones as these right here--" she paused to pull up a picture of the runes from the previous folder, "--because that was the exact same spot. But look. No tunnel." Where the tunnel should have been in that photo was a blank spot of wall. She looked over at Tim, wondering what he thought of her discovery.

As Lydia felt Ragna pulling her against him she opened her mouth to protest and then closed it again. She didn't exactly know why, she just did. Perhaps it was because over the past few days she came to know that he wasn't that bad of a person and that he was doing his best to protect her and watch out for her. They both shared similar pasts too, and neither of them cared for their families. Lydia would be lying if she said she hadn't taking a liking to Ragna, not that she would really let him know it. And yet she allowed him to pull her close against him with his arm draped over her. "Thanks," Lydia mumbled, leaning into him a bit. Ragna was certainly warm, she found, and it helped to chase away the chill that tried to seep into her bones. They sat like that for hours even after their clothes were dry. Lydia had her knees drawn up to her chest and had her arms wrapped around them, her head resting on top. She was in a half-sleep, having decided to take the time to rest since they were going to be there until the rain let up. Suddenly the cave rumbled and startled her awake. Lydia squeezed her eyes shut pressed her face into her legs to cover her mouth and nose, her hands going over her ears in order to protect them from the noise. She felt Ragna's arm leaving her side and for a small moment felt a pang in her heart. She tried to shake it off, wondering what was wrong with her. Finally the rumbling had stopped and Lydia dared to look up, only to find that they had been caved in. "Wonderful," she sighed heavily when the dust had finally settled. Standing up she went over to inspect the rocks covering the cave of the mouth and the roof of the cave itself. "I don't think we can move these rocks," Lydia informed him grimly. "The roof is damaged and these rocks are the only thing holding them up now. We'll have to go deeper into the mine and find another way out."

"You were pretty freaked out after that," Sophia told him, not unkindly. "I can't blame you. Couldn't then either. I was just trying to be the calmer of the two of us at the time. Still had to drive, ya know?" At his question of if she had been able to discover anything she shook her head sadly. "I couldn't find out anything at all," she said with a note of disappointment in her voice. "But I still have all the pictures I took! I uploaded them to my laptop so they're in higher resolution. I can grab my laptop and show you." Tim agreed and Sophia went into her room and grabbed her laptop. She came back into the living room and moved her food over some so she could set the laptop on the coffee table. She opened it and then booted it up. Once her laptop was up and running she opened a folder labeled simple as _Cave_ that was saved to her desktop. Double-clicking on the first picture she brought it up to view. "Here," she said handing the laptop to Tim. "I tried to take pictures of everything that was there, but I might have missed some things."

"Don't worry, Tim," Sophia said and gently reached over to pat his shoulder. "If something is broken it can be replaced. Besides, most of my stuff is meant to be played with. It's all action figures and replicas. You can mess with anything you like." Still she turned on the tv and flipped through the channels until she found The Mask playing one station. "Cool," she said with a grin. "I like Jim Carrey. The Mask good with you, Tim?" She looked over to him to see how he was doing. He seemed extremely nervous, more so than he was at the mall. Sophia hoped that he might be able to relax and feel more at home. It would be nice, she thought, if he had a second place besides his own apartment where he felt comfortable and at ease. Suddenly Sophia remembered something. "I was looking into those runes," she informed Tim as she started to dig into her gyro. "A lot of the symbols are similar to various alphabets of different languages, but none of them match exactly. I've had no luck with translating anything. Not a word."