Fuck, Eres thought, both of the women in the family crying in one day. Good going, asshole.

He went to apologise further, but she interrupted him before he could.

“Eres, my son, if anyone needs to apologise it is me. I am truly sorry for how you have been raised, and I want you to know that your sister's engagement was something I fought against as best I could,” her voice was almost scratchy and he could hear the tears clawing at her throat as she spoke, “I am sure you know that woman of our station don’t get to marry for love. I wish it was different, but that is not how fate has decided things to be. I know you must hate me, for how coldly I have treated you, but I hope I have enough trust from you, if not as your mother then just as another person, that when I tell you it was for your protection and what I believed is best for you, you will believe me.

“I want you to know that it breaks my heart to act as aloof and above you as I do. The only reason I am telling you this, even now, is because I know that without this conversation any bond is irreparable. Your concern for your sister and the way you speak to me now speak of intelligence and emotional understanding that I would not have credited to a ten-year-old boy. Perhaps that is my short-sightedness or perhaps you have had to grow up too fast because of me, I genuinely don’t know. All I know, as your mother, is that I needed to explain this to you and beg for any forgiveness you were willing to give me.

“I knew it when you apologised to me in the garden, but I didn’t even know where to start, and when you spoke about leaving with a piece of my tree… I realised I didn’t have a lifetime to repair our relationship. We both know that the second you are an adult your father will insist on you leaving the household, either to start your own branch family or forgoing your title entirely, and I don’t want you to think I don’t care about you.

“So Eres, I am sorry. I am sure you can guess at many reasons as to why I would have to act this way, and once you are older maybe I can tell you. I just want you to know that it isn’t real, and if you would let me, maybe, in private, I can try and treat you as a mother should treat her son.”

Eres sat there stunned. Not only was it the most he had ever heard his mother speak at once, but the usual schooling of her expressions was nowhere to be seen. She looked genuinely pained as she explained herself, and he could see that she meant every word.

Truthfully he didn’t know how he felt about it. Part of him just wanted to accept everything she had said at face value and trust her, and let himself have a mother who cared about him, even if not in public. The other part though… that part told him it was too good to be true. Told him that there was more to the story. Gods, she even admitted as much, that she couldn’t tell him more until he was older.

Still, she thinks I am a normal kid, so I suppose she is trusting me a lot with this, he thought, fidgeting a little, and the fact she looks so damn nervous certainly lends some credence to her words.

“I accept your apology, Mother,” he said after a moment, “as for changing the relationship we have in private… I would be happy to try, but we would need to start small. I won’t pretend I understand everything you have done over the years, but I will try to forget it so we can start again, how is that?”

“Yes, that is more than enough,” she slumped slightly, her breath running out of her, “more than I expected and more than I deserve. Let me call someone to get us some tea, and we can just… talk for a while? Would that be alright?”

“Of course, Mother, that sounds great.”

* * *

After nearly an hour of talking, Eres had calmed somewhat. The woman in front of him was so hard for him to reconcile with his mental picture of his mother, but he certainly preferred her. She asked after his life, about his day, advised him on difficult topics, laughed at jokes and gossiped about all sorts of little facts. It was night and day from the woman who sent him to get the maids to patch him up so that she could meet with the Baron.

“I apologise for keeping you so long, I should let you get back to your research,” he said eventually, eyes scanning the desk.

“Ah, I suppose you are right. It’s just… I have wanted to talk to you like this for a long time, and I have a lot I want to know,” she spoke somewhat regretfully, “but you are right. However, we should do this again. Rather than walk in the garden you can come here and we can just… talk. If you like?”

“That sounds good to me, mother,” Eres smiled, “though you should do the same with Ellsa. She is… struggling right now. She needs someone who knows more than me to lean on, and she needs to know that someone is on her side. You should give her that.”

Adalia looked at him for a few moments before nodding, “You are right. Honestly, I shouldn’t need you to tell me that, I should have thought of it. I have spent far too long invested only in the games of the nobility. My two youngest children still need a mother, and I will step up for them as best I can. Thank you, Eres.”

“You don’t need to thank me, Mother. Just looking out for both you and her,” he smiled, ears flushing red a little at the thanks, “though it reminds me, I know she is marrying into the Hillcost family, but do you know their name? I didn’t hear it.”

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“Ah, yes, the first son in fact,” Adalia said, face still somewhat stricken, “Aaron von Hillcost, he's only two years her senior, so it is a better match than many, I suppose.”

She might have said more. Eres wasn’t really sure. For him, everything went dark for a second. Then he wasn’t there anymore, he was somewhere else. Just like when the goblin attacked, he felt like a passenger, though this time it didn’t quite seem like his body, but it did feel… familiar.

The person he was a passenger in was reclining in a chair staring out an open window. There was a pipe sitting on the windowsill, a small curl of smoke rising up and out into the open air. Wide-brimmed, comfortable boots were on the feet that were crossed on the same sill. His clothing seemed to be of fine make, all in black. Eres could just see what looked like some sort of chainmail piled off to one side with a pair of daggers lying around it.

The person was fidgeting with a large silver coin, rolling it along the back of their knuckles to drop into their palm, and then starting the cycle again. It was a familiar tic, a habit Eres was sure he had seen someone else have but he just wasn’t sure who.

It wasn’t until they dropped the coin, and had to turn to pick it up that Eres realised what the hell was going on, or even began to have any ideas. As they stood from the chair and strode across the small room to where it had rolled, Eres got a look at them in the mirror. At himself in the mirror.

He was much older, in his mid-twenties at least. His silvery-white hair was long, nearly to the centre of his back, and the top half was tied up in various plaits and braids, some of which had beads and other curios woven through them. His eyes were the same deep blue, but the nearly black bruises underneath them spoke of a bone weariness that Eres hadn’t ever experienced. Or hadn’t experienced yet.

Somewhere along the line, he had picked up a collection of scars, one thick and knotted across the right side of his jaw and three that looked like claw marks that crossed through his left eyebrow and onto his cheekbone. The older Eres picked the coin back up and wandered back to the window, picking up the pipe and taking a long inhale, letting it out with a sigh as he looked up at the night sky.

The door on the other side of the room creaked open, but he didn’t move, still staring out into the darkness. Judging by the street below, this was an attic room. Maybe an inn? Eres wasn’t sure, but his mind was spinning with all the implications and possibilities about what this was.

“Don’t worry, Eres. We will kill the bastard, burn the place to the fucking ground and salt the earth,” came a low voice from behind him. It was almost husky in register. As the older Eres turned around, Eres could feel the body's heart rate start to increase, his skin start to flush. And considering the sight in front of him, he really couldn’t blame his older counterpart.

The woman had clearly just climbed out of bed, wrapping the sheets around herself for some modesty. She had long black hair tied into a high ponytail and it shimmered in the light from the lanterns around them. Her skin was darker than his, nearly nut-brown and her eyes were a green so bright it would have been the most striking part about her if not for two other key features.

First were her tattoos. They were mostly done in whites and blues and they trailed across her collarbones and down both arms, winding around her arms and onto the backs of her hands, even trailing onto her fingers. Eres didn’t recognise the designs from either of his lifetimes, but they felt important.

The second feature were her ears. Much longer than his and scalloping to a point, they marked her as obviously other. Her left one had an array of silver rings and chains piercing through it. She stared at him with a strange mixture of respect and fury in her eyes, but there was a hint of worry bleeding through.

“I know, Pyrae,” the older Eres finally spoke, and his voice was low and raspy, but oh so very tired, “they will pay, noble or not, I swear it on my blood.”

The woman, Pyrae apparently, gripped his hand and began to drag him back towards the bed on the other side of the door, and the man slowly followed, his boots scuffing along the floor. As they passed the threshold he stopped, reaching down to pick up what looked like a newspaper that had been thrown onto a table.

The sight of the headline caused Eres' head to spin even faster, even as he felt the rage build in the body of his older self, his Core spinning to life. The ridiculous amount of Mana at the command of this older version of himself didn’t even cause Eres a moment’s pause as he was still too focused on the single line of text.

“Ellsa von Hillcost was found hanged in her bedroom. Her Husband was unavailable for comment, but is currently under investigation” read the words in bold, black ink, and before Eres could read any more, his older self turned with a frustrated sigh and walked towards the bed.

“Sorry Ell’s, all I can offer is revenge,” he muttered as his sight went blurry and eventually disappeared.

Eres found himself looking at his mother's worried face instead of at the bed containing the beautiful elf or the window with its pipe.

“Are you okay, Eres? You seemed to space out for a second there. I didn’t mean to keep you too long,” She murmured, hands wringing at her dress in worry.

“I’m sorry I just… it was just a second? Sorry, I guess I went into my head for a second there, apologies Mother,” Eres stumbled through an excuse, head spinning, “I will head back to my study. Thank you, Mother, and I will see you soon?”

“Of course. Honestly, I am in here almost every day around this time, feel free to visit when you like, and I will send someone to get you whenever it is time for our more official conversations. Look after yourself okay? I know you have been training hard, maybe you need a break.”

Eres nodded politely and wandered out of her study and into the halls, heading back towards his own. What the fuck had he just seen. Was it the future? No, if anything it was a potential future. It was like with the goblin, he stopped it from happening, or maybe it was just the worst-case scenario, what could happen if everything went horribly wrong?

He wasn’t sure, but he knew he couldn’t do anything about the engagement. What he could do was go and check on her long before he was that old. Hells, maybe he would go and check on her as soon as they kicked him out of here. That would put his mind at ease at least.

As he slipped back into the study, he saw a still steaming pot of tea on his desk, next to the last book he was reading. Clearly Freya had been here recently.

I really must thank her when she gets back, Eres thought as he settled into the chair and poured himself a cup, getting ready to continue reading about ice magic.

And then, time did what time does, and it passed.