TWO SCENES OF SHADRACK

Meet Thera!

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“Look at her!”

“What does she think she’s doing?”

“Shh, she might hear you.”

A crowded had gathered at the end of the breezeway. A handful of students stood clustered around the end that opened to the courtyard, whispering loudly to themselves and sending excited and fearful glances toward something that stood just out of Shadrack’s point of view. He pushed through them, intent on using the courtyard as a shortcut to the library, only to stop dead when he realized what had caught his peers’ fascination.

Thera– dirty barefoot mountain girl Thera, now nearly a woman– was standing in the gazebo, reclined against its wall. She had been eyeing the students, who were very poorly hiding their ogling glances, with a certain wariness, but when she saw Shadrack her gaze gained a devilishly glint. She seemed to unfold before him, like a carnivorous flower opening itself to invite a fly in, straightening herself and sauntering toward him. Shadrack stood in absolute horror as the group of students behind him buzzed with exclamations.

“Shadrack,” Thera purred. He looked her straight in her strange black eyes, glared furiously, then shoved past her and stormed toward the library. She followed at a much more moderate pace.

The path to the library passed through several low hanging trees, and when he thought no one could see them, Shadrack stopped and turned to her.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

She cocked her head to the side and took her time looking his tense form up and down in great amusement.

“Are we getting along with the other boys and girls, Shadrack dearest?” she asked sweetly. Shadrack narrowed his eyes and mimicked her actions, openly assessing her appearance.

Her feet– though now sporting sandals– were still covered with scabs from the thistles that grew over graves, and the marks went all the way to the hem of her worn gray skirt. Her hands, laying casually on her hips, were covered in small little cuts, and her fingernails were still cracked and discolored from grave soil and blood and magic. Shadrack shuttered inwardly.

Her hair was darker and duller than it had been and hung in an unstyled veil around her shoulders. Her skin, like her hair, was discolored from too much time spent working under a magicking moon. It was so transparent that Shadrack could clearly make out the intricacies of the veins of her temple.

Yet, in the end, it was her face that always frightened him most, more than her fading shadow. She had the normal purplish circles around her pitch-colored eyes that marked one of Them, but it was the almost hungry, feline look they held that made him uneasy. And the twitching smiling, like he was an especially entertaining pet, irritated him to no end.

“If that’s all you’re here for,” he said, “then I should get going.” He turned to leave and she pursed her lips.

“Wait,” she called after he’d taken several carefully paced steps. “I need to talk to you.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “I’m getting along quite fine with the other boys and girls, thank you,” he said and made to leave again.

“Shadrack,” she answered, clearly annoyed. “I need to talk to head of research.”

Shadrack stopped and stared at her incredulously. “I’m sorry,” he replied, “I don’t think I heard you correctly. You need to talk to who?”

Thera bit her lip and suddenly looked unsure of herself. “The head of research. It’s important.”

“You do realize,” said Shadrack, “That our head of research is the head of research for the entire kingdom, right?”

Thera wrinkled her brows in such a way that clearly said, “So what?” Shadrack couldn’t help it. He began to laugh.

“You?” he managed to say. “You think you can get an audience with him?”

She tilted her head back haughtily, gazing coolly back at his mocking expression through hooded eyes. “And why couldn’t I?” she asked coldly.

“Thera,” answered Shadrack, bemused, “you are the witch living in the dark forest. You are the monster lurking in the woods that villagers warn their children. You are the thing that goes bump in the night. What would the head of research want with you?”

Thera arched her eyebrows, head still tilted back so that she looked at him over her pointed chin. “Society needs fuel to progress. I just inherited an entire estate full of fuel.”

Something deep within Shadrack turned very cold. It was true several forms of very powerful magic relied on that, but those rituals were not widely used. If it were employed more often, the practical uses of magic would increase substantially, and yet…

“You do realize that’s insane, right?” he said. “No one’s going to go along with that. It’d be easier on you to not even try.”

He expected those words to have some effect on her arrogant expression, but Thera’s face just broke into a wide smirk. “Are you saying you can’t get me an audience, Shadrack dearest?”

Shadrack scowled. “Of course I can. I’m just saying it’s not going to work out on your end.”

Her smirk didn’t change. “I’ll be the one to worry about that,” she said with a note of finality and then walked away the way they’d come. Shadrack watched her, dumbfounded, with the sense that underneath her moon-white skin, something was boiling.

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And here's a conversation ABOUT Thera.

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“You’re being ridiculous,” Shadrack chided, trying to hide his panic behind a mask of annoyance. “You know I’d spend more time with you if I could–”

“You mean if you weren’t spending so much time with that freak?” She hissed back, violently smashing away at the eye of newt with the flat of her knife. Shadrack considered pointing out that those were meant to be pulverized, not smashed, but thought better of it.

“I know, I hate talking to her too, but…” Shadrack edged around the table and put his arm around her shoulders. “We have the weekend, right?”

She shrugged his arm away and pulled some type of root toward herself and began chopping.

“That reacts poorly with iron,” Shadrack said quietly. “You need to use a bone–”

The sound of the knife against the granite slab become more resolute and she glared intensely down at her work. Shadrack backed away.

When she finished with the root, she calmly placed the knife on the table and turned to look at him with a stony face.

“This weekend,” she said, “You are taking me out somewhere nice.”

Shadrack brightened. “The park–”

“No,” she cut in firmly. “You are taking me somewhere that costs money. When you’re not studying, you’re working, and you say you need that job, but all you spend money on is fancy new tools and vanity items.”

“But I need those things!”

“No, Shadrack, you need some down time. With me.”

Shadrack squirmed under her harsh gaze for a few moments, rearranging vials of pickled vegetation on her workbench. “Are you sure the park isn’t–”

“SHADRACK!” She threw her arms up in defeat and picked the knife back up, cleaning it with her apron. “If you really need the money, maybe I should get a job too. Lord knows I don’t have anything better to do with you always out. Or maybe I should sell all my jewelry– you think it’s too gaudy anyway.” She stared down at the knife, her face reflected fuzzily in its blade. “Or maybe,” she continued, her tone gaining a hysterical note, “I should cut off a few of my fingers and sell them–”

“You want to talk to Thera?” Shadrack exclaimed, appalled. “But she’s so abrasive and rude! And she has horrid fingernails! In fact, she–”

“ARGH!” She screamed, throwing the knife at the ground. Shadrack gawked at her and she glared heatedly back at him.

After a long, tense minute, he said hesitantly, “But sweetie, Thera really is–”

“We’re over, Shadrack!” she bellowed, and left him standing quite confused in alchemy lab number six.