1.20

“I have one con­di­tion before join­ing your group.”

Yaeno’s announce­ment came quite out of the blue dur­ing a lull in their intro­duc­tions. She said it casu­al­ly too--while accept­ing a steam­ing cup of tea from a wait­er.

Doro, of course, imme­di­ate­ly blew his top.

“What the eff do you mean, ‘join­ing our group’ Yaeno?’ Not five min­utes ago, I had to drag you in here kick­ing and scream­ing!”

He punc­tu­at­ed every sen­tence with a thrust of his fin­ger against the table. Mean­while, Yaeno offered the wait­er a polite nod and start­ed blow­ing some of the heat away from her drink.

hoo--“If I recall cor­rect­ly,” --hoo-- “you were doing most of the kick­ing and scream­ing.”

“Ha. Ha. Cute. Now how about you start talk­ing some sense before I real­ly lose my shit?”

Doro crossed his arms and wait­ed for an answer.

Final­ly sat­is­fied with the tem­per­a­ture of her tea, Yaeno tore open a pack­et of sug­ar and start­ed care­ful­ly pour­ing--then stir­ring--then pour­ing some more--then stir­ring-- the white pow­der into her drink. Doro near­ly over­turned the table when he saw her pick­ing up a sec­ond pack­et, but Car­nelia raised her hand. The calm, ratio­nal part of him was grate­ful, since he could­n’t def­i­nite­ly could­n’t afford to reim­burse the Cafe for break­ing their fur­ni­ture. The rest of him remained enraged.

“Um,” the girl said, hes­i­tant­ly, “shouldn’t we wait for the oth­ers any­way? They should be includ­ed too.”

The oth­ers. Doro had for­got­ten about them. He glanced around the cafe, hope­ful that some­one would res­cue him from this hell.

There was no one. Yaeno final­ly took a sip, then nod­ded in sat­is­fac­tion. A good brew, appar­ent­ly.

“That won’t be nec­es­sary,” she said idly, “It’s unlike­ly that any­one else will be com­ing.”

The banal cer­tain­ty in Yaeno’s voice turned his head back in her direc­tion. Her atten­tion was on her tea, still, but to his side, Car­nelia was look­ing at him con­fused. He could only give her a look as emp­ty as his bank account.

“What?” they both said.

Yaeno looked at them.

“This out­come is unex­pect­ed to you?”

“Of course!” Doro replied. “We spent a lot of time set­ting this up. Why would they not show up?”

“Mm. Let me explain.”

Yaeno took one of the cin­na­mon-raisin cook­ies Car­nelia had ordered for the table and placed it on her tea coast­er. 

“Rea­son one. This is a meet­ing between strangers on the inter­net that have nev­er seen each other’s faces and know few per­son­al details about each oth­er. It would be no sur­prise if some got cold feet.”

She took her spoon by the bowl and split off half the cook­ie and swept it away.

“Rea­son two. They meant to come, but trav­el plans fell through. Or they were late in arrang­ing things in the first place. Open seats and tick­ets are hard to come by come Chal­lenge sea­son, so they may have just missed out.”

She cut away anoth­er fourth and swept that away too.

“Rea­son three. They nev­er intend­ed to come in the first place, and they were sim­ply using us for infor­ma­tion all along. Not a pleas­ant expla­na­tion, but it wouldn’t be the first time the Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge brought out that side of peo­ple.”

She cut the remain­ing piece in half and stabbed one of those halves. She raised the sliv­er of eighths, and arched an eye­brow. 

“That leaves us, the des­per­ate and hope­ful. And ances­tors know, if they’re not here, they’re with­in a close vicin­i­ty.”

She flicked her fork towards the win­dow, which faced the city square. Suf­fice it to say, they had­n’t picked this loca­tion for its good cof­fee and cop­per cut­lery.

“Sure­ly they’re just late, or lost, or some­thing. Right, Doro?”

Well, maybe the kid had. Car­nelia had her cheek pressed against the win­dow, look­ing rather sad­ly hope­ful as she checked the street for any strag­glers or run­ners. Her every breath was mist­ing up the win­dow, before quick­ly fad­ing.

Doro ran his fin­gers through his tan­gled hair, unable to resist the sink­ing feel­ing in his stom­ach. Just the three of them. Giv­en that he’d imag­ined com­ing into the Chal­lenge with a whole gang of allies.

“There were more than a dozen of us in that thread. Are you sure?”

Yaeno mere­ly shrugged, and returned to sip­ping on her tea. Her unaf­fect­ed gaze--aimed towards the busy city cen­ter rather than her prospec­tive allies-- made Doro want to chunk his cof­fee in her face, if only to get a real reac­tion from her. But if their inter­ac­tion in the street taught him any­thing, it was that she did not respond well to threats. Or even the impli­ca­tion of threats.

“That still does­n’t explain why you’ve sud­den­ly changed your mind about us,” he said, just qui­et enough that Car­nelia could­n’t hear. “You called Car­nelia and I ‘dead weight’.”

He did­n’t even have to raise his voice. Just a quick flick of his eyes towards the bronze of Car­neli­a’s hair, and Yaeno’s eyes nar­rowed. Her fin­gers gripped the tiny pas­try fork like a weapon.

After a while, she placed it down, neat­ly, next to her plate. As anoth­er wait­er came by and picked up their plates, she straight­ened her dress with a sigh.

“Yes, that. I sup­pose you caught me in a lie back there. One told for my own ben­e­fit, rather than yours.”

Oh, is that how you’d put it? Rather than, say, a total effin’ insult to our faces?

Doro kept his tongue, the tri­fling chi­huahua that it was. 

“You were mere­ly right,” Yaeno con­tin­ued. “Cre­at­ing that thread was effec­tive­ly admit­ting that I don’t believe I can pass the Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge on my own. I sup­pose once you forced that truth into light, it only made sense to come sit down.”

“Uh-huh. Because who bet­ter to ally with than a tramp and a teenag­er.”

Doro grinned at his own joke, but his audi­ence did­n’t. Yaeno’s eyes were the grey of a cold, beau­ti­ful land­scape he’d nev­er seen.

“Do not mis­un­der­stand, Doro,” she said. “I do not see us as some ‘dream team,’. I cer­tain­ly do not trust you, nor do I imag­ine this paper-thin online bond will hold up to the temp­ta­tions and rig­ors of the Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge. But it is the best chance any of us have. Per­haps the only chance.”

On that, at least, we agree. Doro mut­tered the words to him­self while he looked down at his cof­fee. He scowled. It had gone cold. And Car­nelia had final­ly giv­en up on any­one com­ing into the cafe. She slumped into her seat, look­ing defeat­ed.

“So I sup­pose this is where you final­ly stop jerk­ing us around and tell us your super spe­cial con­di­tion to join the group?” she asked.

It was a line far more straight­for­ward and adult than he, and much to his delight, Yaeno, clear­ly expect­ed from her mouth. Doro had to hold back a laugh. The woman nod­ded, and straight­ened her back like she was deliv­er­ing court sum­mons.

“My one con­di­tion for join­ing this alliance is this: that you both share what your goals as Chal­lengers are.”

---

Doro sat back, the frown on his face a line in the sand. Yaeno met his dis­ap­prov­ing gaze cool­ly. Carnelia’s head swiveled between the two, wait­ing for either to speak. Nei­ther did.

Well. Things were pret­ty darn awk­ward, weren’t they?

Car­nelia had hoped that bring­ing togeth­er a whole bunch of aspir­ing can­di­dates would result in a gum­bo pot of cool­ness and friend­ship. But instead, it had turned into a gum­bo pot of antag­o­nism and suck. Could it even be called gum­bo with only three ingre­di­ents? Car­nelia did­n’t know.

Still. ‘Cook with the ingre­di­ents you got.’ That was what Aphan­taisa had taught her. So how could she bring togeth­er this bud­ding--life­long, she was sure--friend­ship?

She poked the bear first, with the dull end of her ladle.

“What’s the big deal?” she asked Doro. “Just tell her.”

“A Challenger’s goal is per­son­al, kid. I don’t like the idea of sub­mit­ting myself for her approval. You shouldn’t either.”

“Real­ly?”

“Yeah! Of course!”

“Well,” Car­nelia paused, then point­ed­ly turned to Yaeno. “I don’t mind shar­ing.”

Doro splut­tered as Car­nelia shot a glib wink over her shoul­der. But now came the wolf, hun­gry for meat.

Yaeno leaned for­ward and ges­tured to share. “Then by all means, Car­nelia. Why do you want to be a Chal­lenger?”

Car­nelia grinned as she felt both their eyes on her. Oh, hoh, hoh. The games she played. These bark­ing beasts would soon be chas­ing the same prey before they knew it. She was almost there, except--

Excep--

Sud­den­ly, the ques­tion hit her. Like real­ly, hit her. She looked out the win­dow, up at the sky. It was topaz blue, just like the day her grand­fa­ther had asked the same ques­tion. Only a few short weeks had passed since then, real­ly, only one day of liv­ing it, but it already felt like she had more to say. The answer swelled in her heart, ready to burst. The light of the morn­ing sun sparkled in her eyes, as she clasped her hand around the sil­ver Chal­lenger coin around her neck.

“Adven­ture. Glo­ry. And to say thanks to some­one I met a long, long time ago.”

Doro burst out laugh­ing. And when that wasn’t enough, he threw his head back and guf­fawed. He pound­ed the table with an open hand.

“What?” Car­nelia demand­ed, cheeks flushed with hon­est embar­rass­ment.

“Bwa­ha­ha! No won­der you didn’t mind shar­ing, kid. They ought to put you up on a poster!”

“I think that’s a fine moti­va­tion, Car­nelia,” Yaeno said with a gen­tle touch to her arm. But there was a faint red­ness in her cheeks. “Not many keep to such a… tra­di­tion­al inter­pre­ta­tion of the Guild these days.”

“Well, gee, thanks. I real­ly appre­cia--stop laugh­ing Doro!”

Doro clapped his hands over his mouth when she threat­ened to toss her cup in his face. His grin­ning mouth peeked through his fin­gers.

“Sor­ry! Sor­ry! I know I should­n’t laugh. It’s just-- Can you imag­ine the title of Chal­lenger Week­ly if she passed, Yaeno?” Doro struck a hero­ic pose for an imag­i­nary cam­era. “‘Becom­ing a Chal­lenger at age fif­teen? Here’s ten ways this young woman--’”

Car­nelia kicked Doro’s shin beneath the table. Before she could get him a sec­ond time, he scoot­ed back, chortling. She went for it any­way, crack­ing a grin as she whiffed wild­ly and thumped the under­side of the table with her knee.

“I would nev­er do that,” she said prim­ly. “If I were in a pho­to­shoot, it would look more like this.”

Doro cack­led as Car­nelia struck a pose of her own, turn­ing away just so she could look over her shoul­der. She squint­ed at him, chin held care­ful­ly between her fin­gers, like she’d invent­ed the Net her­self.

“Ehem.”

The two paused their play, turn­ing to see Yaeno wait­ing with a polite expres­sion on her face. Her fin­gers drummed a soft beat against the table.

“While I’m glad you two are get­ting along,” she said, “I believe fan­ta­siz­ing about inter­views is some­thing best left for after pass­ing the Chal­lenge, don’t you agree?”

The smile fad­ed from Carnelia’s face. As did it from Doro’s. He turned to Car­nelia with a sour look on his face.

“Well isn’t she just a ray of sun­shine. Tell me, kid. Why do we want her on our team, again?”

“Because,” Yaeno inter­ject­ed, “none of us stand a chance if we try to pass on our own. Do either of you know what the prob­a­bil­i­ty of pass­ing is for peo­ple who attempt the Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge for the first time?”

“Isn’t it like, one in ten thou­sand? I’ve seen worse rates on scratch-offs at the local gas sta­tion.”

“That num­ber includes can­di­dates with years of expe­ri­ence in their cho­sen field. For true rook­ies like us, it’s so rare they don’t even list a num­ber. In fact, I’m not even sure any­one ever has passed on their first try.”

“I know some­one who did.”

The words tum­bled out of Carnelia’s mouth with­out her real­iz­ing. She clapped her hands over her mouth as Doro and Yaeno’s heads swiveled in her direc­tion. A sil­ver Chal­lenger coin hung con­spic­u­ous­ly from her neck.

Just then, the clock on the cafe wall chimed noon, a tiny cop­per bell ring­ing inside a wood­en body. At the same time, thou­sands of bells start­ed tolling across the city. Cam­mec, City of Bells, liv­ing up its name­sake.

Yaeno tore her gaze away from Car­nelia and smiled for the first time since they’d met. She looked straight at Doro, who was caught, bewil­dered by the crowd that had seem­ing­ly appeared beyond their win­dow like mag­ic. A rush of peo­ple tak­ing off their masks of ordi­nary behav­ior, reveal­ing they had been here for a rea­son all along.

“Well, you’d bet­ter speak your part soon, Doro, because it’s about to begin.”

“The Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge.”