The Rubbish Realm

Chapter 19

Ermengarde limped through the house, furious at her affliction. The doctor was good at her sadness affinity, but already tired, so she could only stop the bleeding rather than fixing the whole mangled mess. It was all together, no tendons ripped or broken bones, but rather severe scars and bloody to an extent that it was painful to look at. "Accursed portals! Stupid flooring! And to make matters worse, dumb sadness affinities who are ALWAYS tired and never have time for anybody!" She raised her foot to stomp the floor in anger, winced from her learned lesson, and, frustrated to no end, screeched.
Isolde knew better than to answer. Ermengarde was never reasonable when in a mood like this, and arguing was useless. Had she even paid?
Ermengarde, needing to take her rage out on something, pulled a dagger from the kitchen counter and plunged it, tip first, into the table with all her (well, admittedly not much) strength. Surprisingly, as if the wood had been wounded by strikes before, it sank in all the way to the hilt, the razor-sharp blade cutting like butter.
"Wh- why?" Isolde stammered, perturbed by how weak the table was, how sharp the dagger was, how strong Ermengarde suddenly was, or all of the above. That dagger should not have done that!
Ermengarde pulled the dagger out, setting it back, gingerly, on the countertop - and in the windowlight, Isolde could see how it was strange - the blade was a glinting black, eerily refracting the light that struck it in every direction and no direction, as if somehow it didn't belong. "Is that-"
"I've wanted to do that for a long time now." Ermengarde fingered the scratch upon the table, the blade so sharp it hardly left a gash. "I never had a blade quite sharp enough."
Isolde peered at the table - there seemed to be nothing wrong with it, as if nothing had cut it at all. "Ermengarde, I thought you were an anticipation affinity, not a fear affinity. Only a fear affinity can-"
"Creativity affinity. Besides, it's not the affinity, it's the dagger." She picked it up, careful not to finger the edge. "I bet you can't guess where I got it from." She tossed it up in the air, catching it by the handle and nearly spiking herself with it. "Oops, don't do that."
Isolde shied away, worried about touching the ethereal blade. "That's not anything I've ever seen before, did you get a creativity boyfriend or something? Whoever it was ought to have kept that."
Ermengarde set down the knife, accidentally setting it through the wooden counter. "It's from the portal." She took some bread from the cupboard above the pump, then demonstrated how the knife could cut it just as easily as the table, as if there were nothing there at all, her hand hiting the counter as she realized she had cut too far, into the counter again. "It might be too sharp, to be honest. Cuts wood like butter."
If Isolde had been scared before, she was far more so now, visibly shaking, backing up further against the wall until she couldn't. "You said it was from the portal? Isn't that unsafe?" Her voice trembled as if she had a fever, breathing heavy.
"It seems to work, doesn't it?" Ermengarde had never been particularly cautious, a smug smile crossing her features. "Better than the steel knives we have around here." She cut the bread again, just to prove that she could, and once again it cut through, as if by magic... but what magic would it be? It didn't match any affinity she could think of... and? If it works it works.
"That's... more than a little worrying." Isolde chose her words carefully, trying to be sure to not provoke any sudden moves. Ermengarde did tend to be clumsy every so often. "Are you sure you should be using that?"
Ermengarde looked down at the blade, then up again. "Why not?" A sly grin seemed to be pasted onto her features, not about to be shaken off.
Isolde winced. "Don't hurt yourself..."
"Do you know how much money we could make off of this? We could corner the market, nobody has ever seen this before..." She sliced another slice of bread, as if to make sure it still worked. "It's sharper than anything I've ever seen, eerie black, it's a born market endeavor!' Ermengarde paced the room, heedless of her wounded leg. "We could get so rich!"
Isolde sighed. "Why would we want to? We have everything we need." Ermengarde started to speak, but Isolde cut her off. "And what about Evander?"
Ermengarde paused. "You really think we can help him?"
Isolde froze. As much as she hated to admit it, Ermengarde had a point. "...no..."
Ermengrade turned away back towards the portal. "If you'll excuse me, I have money to make."
Isolde shook in the corner, alone, terribly alone. "Be careful."
If Ermengarde could have seen her, she would have stopped, but the portal was right in front of her. And thus Ermengarde disappeared.