Wish upon the Stars chapter 849

I woke up feeling pretty good. I’d worked through a lot of the excess data, and I set a parallel to work on the form while I took a much needed break. I’d been overclocking myself non stop since we got to the dungeon, and with everyone safe and nearby, I finally felt comfortable taking a bit of a breather before we got involved in whatever horrible mess awaited us before we could get OUT of this place.

In that vein, I decided to do something I hadn’t done in far too long. I decided to cook dinner for my wife. I stockpiled my scrolls when I woke up (three for emergencies and twenty eight on hand after subtracting the one I’d used to lock Argaunt into his contract) and then ordered a few things for the meal before telling Callie to clear her schedule. I was planning to spend all day getting ready.

The look on her face when I told her what we were doing warmed my heart. It wasn’t hunger or anything as base as that. Callie loved my cooking, but more than that, i could feel through the bond that she missed me. We didn’t spend as much time together since the wedding, and it was far from ideal. The last real date night we’d had like this was the night I proposed to her, and that had been months ago and seemed like even longer.

I changed out of my armor and into a nice suit (though I did put an apron over it so I didn’t get anything on it while cooking) and got started on dinner. I decided I was going to make braised short ribs in a red wine sauce with mashed potatoes and asparagus.

It was nothing fancy, but I thought she would appreciate the effort. I also decided to make puff pastry for dessert, and I hand rolled the dough, layering it as many times as possible to create a buttery delight. Once everything was either cooked or in to cook, I got rid of my apron and set the table to prepare for Callie’s arrival.

My mask was in my ring, and my face wouldn’t stop smiling as I felt her nervousness at the thought of a night with just the two of us. Not bad nervousness, but the kind of excited, fluttery feeling I could feel echoed in my own gut, and one that I’d heard a lot of people lost after getting married. It felt…right. The two us together, enjoying an evening between the bombshells, it felt like how things were supposed to be.

It was funny, I’d thought the lack of time together would erode our relationship. It did with some people. But Callie and I were connected on a deeper level than most. We always felt what the other was feeling, caught every little instance every day where the other person was thinking of us. Those little reminders or flashes of fondness that most people never say aloud or draw attention to, we got in surround sound.

Neither of us were ever alone, ever absent from the other’s life. So these moments we got to just BE together between the craziness, they were built on the foundation of a million little affectionate thoughts and reminders of how much we cared.

I finished setting out the plates, then retrieved the ribs from the kitchen and served them, setting the sauce to the side to be used as gravy for the potatoes if she felt like doing so. Then I served the asparagus and sat down across from the empty chair where her plate was waiting and took a few deep breaths.

This was where I found peace. No matter how insane things got, not matter how dangerous or painful or violent. This was where my heart lived. That single moment of stillness between beats where all the pain and hurt just melted away. It felt strange, letting go of all the stress and exhaustion I’d been carrying for so long. I’d gotten so used to it that the loss left me genuinely reeling and off balance, but in a good way.

Which left me completely unprepared for seeing my wife walk into the room in her new dress. It was long and black, clinging to her form while still giving her room to move. Her mask was gone, just like mine, and her wine red lips were quirked up in a smile, her bright blue eyes shimmering like sunlight through a mountain spring below cascading, gently curling hair the consistency of black silk.

She stared back at me, her eyes locked with mine, and I felt an echo of the unrelenting adoration that swirled inside my chest every day as I remembered how grateful I was to have found the love of my life so early on. She glided across the room, sitting across from me gracefully, and my mouth went dry, my tongue fumbling over itself just like it did when we were first starting out. All this time, all these adventures, and I was still poleaxed by how breathtaking she was.

“Love you too, handsome,” she said warmly. “And you were right. I needed this. I didn’t even realize how fucking exhausted I was. The changes we go through, the shifts in mindset, it’s easy to forget we’re still people at our core. At least for now.”

I chuckled. “I want a refund. I was promised implacable inhuman resolve. My resolve is totally placable, and it’s like…human plus, at best.”

She giggled, cutting a piece of short rib and popping it in her mouth. Her face brightened even more. “Oh damn, that’s really good. I mean, the meat is great, but where did you get the wine for the sauce?”

“It was some super old bottle I found in the wine cellar,” I shrugged. “Want a glass? I think it’s supposed to be really expensive or something. Veldran DID say I could use whatever I wanted.”

I summoned the bottle, pouring a glass for each of us. I didn’t drink much, but a glass of wine with my wife at dinner wasn’t going to be enough to do much to me. She picked hers up, sniffed deeply, and then closed her eyes with a happy groan. “Oh wow, that smells amazing.”

“It’s the tannins,” I said wisely. “It has…more of them. Or less. Or they’re stronger. Or weaker. I don’t know anything about wine. I just heard that word somewhere. I’d ask Veldran, but I’m like…90% sure that this is an absurdly expensive bottle of wine and I just used it to cook beef, so I’m kind of afraid to run into him right now.”

She smiled, taking a sip, then set down her glass. “So…you’re really not worried about all this? At all?”

“No shop talk,” I groaned exaggeratedly. “And no. Don’t forget, I still have that defensive token. You’ll be fine, even if I have to burn a god level protection technique to make sure of it. I’m not going to let the void take you, and neither will my grandparents. You’re family, and that might be a pain in the ass sometimes, but it comes with some security. Nobody messes with a Wyndham.”

Her eyes moistened, but she blinked away the tears, sniffing loudly. “See, how do you always know what to say to make me feel better? That’s half the reason I married you, you know.”

She leaned over the table, going up on her tip toes to peck me on the lips lightly before sitting back down. I shrugged. “I figure given all the dumb shit I do, you deserve a guy who can at least be supportive.”

“You’ve gotten a lot better about doing dumb shit,” she reassured me. Then she paused, frowning slightly. “Or I’ve gotten a lot worse at noticing when you’re doing dumb shit. I honestly can’t tell at this point. It’s highly possible that you’ve just got me so acclimated to your nonsense it seems normal now.”

I shrugged. “Close enough. I trust you to know when something is TOO dumb.”

“I used to worry about that, you know,” she sighed. “How upset and worried I got. I was afraid you’d resent me for calling you on things I thought were a bad idea.”

“Resented it?” I asked incredulously. “I counted on it. I can’t tell which way is up most of the time through my recursion. You’re my litmus test for when something is Shane crazy or just regular crazy. Besides, you’re connected to me so deeply. Of course it would hurt you if my soul is injured or if my mind is about to collapse from pain. The last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

She shrugged self-consciously. “I know that. But it’s a hard line to walk. Knowing when to call you on something I think is dangerous and when that crosses the line into not being supportive enough. At least before I had the luxury of knowing I was stronger than you and could help protect you if things got bad. Now…well, let’s just say I can’t wait for this new racial trait. It’s terrifying being married to you and feeling like you’re leaving me behind.”

I reached out and grabbed her hand across the table, squeezing it tightly. “Never,” I told her emphatically. “I will NEVER leave you behind. Even if I became a god tomorrow, I would only be a little bit ahead. I’d make sure you caught up eventually, no matter what I had to do. We’re going to see the top of the mountain, and we’re going to do it together. I don’t care if I have to carve domain seeds out of every Vanished God and stack them all up to help you reach divinity.”

She scoffed, her lips twitching as she tried to hide a smile. “Please, everyone knows I'm the talent in this family. I’ll definitely become a god first, and then I’ll help YOU reach divinity.”

I beamed at her, and we went back to our meal. We didn’t speak anymore, just ate in comfortable silence. When you can feel someone in your soul, you don’t need words to fill the moments. Just being together and enjoying each other’s company was more than enough.

When we finished, I cleared the dishes and went to get the puff pastry, which had finished cooling. I’d piped apple filling inside and sprinkled it with small crystals of rock sugar, and Callie lit up like a supernova when she bit into it. She pulled me in for another kiss, this one tasting of apples, and we just smiled at each other for a moment before we returned to eating, savoring the soft, flaky pastry.

After dinner, we went for a walk outside. Without my mask or hers, we just looked like a regular couple. No one on this planet knew my real face beyond a very dead abyssal priest. But just in case, we walked under Bael, the stealth form hiding us from view as we strolled through Bonehook hand in hand.

It was late, and the city was gloomy, but the green flame lamps on the light poles released a warm and comforting light, giving everything a sad, otherworldly air rather than the morbidity one would expect from such a dark world.

Beyond that, people were just people. Walking the streets, talking, buying, selling, screaming, laughing. It was a riot of humanity, and it further solidified the feeling of relaxation and peace as I returned to my roots. I felt…whole. Like I was finally catching my breath after years of non stop running.

It wasn’t exactly what I’d expected, but it was a small taste of the honeymoon we hadn’t gotten, and would hopefully still make time for, and it was priceless to me. When we returned to the complex, we retired to our room, and the two of us curled up together, peaceful and happy, and drifted off to sleep. It had been an amazing day.