There were memories, tucked away in a remote corner of Samantha Cromwell’s mind. Memories of a childhood she could not remember, and of which she always thought little. Save for the vague recollection of having had a loving father, a missing mother, and some sparse friends, she always thought her childhood had been normal enough, like so many other children who had to grow up in not so normal homes, and who managed to carve out a life of normalcy for themselves.

Most of these memories were, a psychologist would tell her should she choose to reveal her secrets to them, fabricated. Not quite literally made up from scratch, but the reality of facts had been distorted to fit a narrative. A narrative to compensate for the lack of genuine memories, constantly avoiding the meta-cognitive awareness that something didn’t add up.

All this eventually culminating in the lack of identity, in the deep chasm that threatened to tear Samantha Cromwell in two.

But, and she could never had predicted it would ever happen until it eventually happened, all it would take for some of the memories to resurface like a dam had burst was one simple conversation. The first, perhaps ever, genuine and heart to heart conversation she had with her own father.

She had gone to him after the whole fiasco with her son. He did the deliver as promised, of course, but now he was off to Elvenhome to… do what? Clear his head, he said. But what was he really doing there?

After she told Lloyd of all these things, she expected him to tell her something like: “What a monumental fuckup.” But no. That’s not at all how the conversation went.

“You need to more careful with him.” Her father said, looking sad and staring more at the floor than at her. “You can’t just… do what I did to you. You understand? He’s fragile. His friend Marc is not replying to his texts, the rest of the friend group is a no-go either after the whole situation at the café. He has no one else. He doesn’t have a father, or other family. Just you and me. Listen, Sam. He’s dealing with a lot. He’s never going to have a normal life now that he has magic, and he feels alone and isolated. Now… even his mother turns away from him.”

Samantha looked at her father, and where she always saw the dignified figure of someone who had accomplished a lot in his life, now she only saw a man. A frail, weak old man with a face full of regret. She refused to believe her eyes.

“But dad. You made me into the woman I am today. I need to do the same with him. Even more now that he has magic. He will understand.”

“He won’t understand. He’s not you, for fuck’s sake!” He paused, almost regretting his words. “Sam… I did things to you. I wouldn’t say they were good. I honestly don’t reckon how on earth you turned out to be okay. Perhaps you aren’t okay. Mind-control and torture might not be something an okay person does to others, even if it’s to save the world. Look at me, Sam. Are you happy? Look at me.”

“I am!” Samantha yelled, blinking away some bothersome tears that for some reason were clouding her vision.

“Are you? Look at me in the eye, Sam.”

Her cheeks twitched, her face burned and the tears in her eyes stung and were so painful.

“That’s what I thought.” He said defeated, sad.

“I just got something in my eyes, that’s all.”

Lloyd smiled a soft, sad smile. “Don’t do that to him.”

“But you told me to not be soft with him! To train him!”

“Yeah. Never told you to be a monster like the man I was, Sam. Perhaps I was wrong to even tell you to not be soft on him. But… There’s a middle ground there, there’s gotta be. Right in the middle, you just need to find it. You need to take up my role as his mentor, while I gradually become his sweet grandpa who spoils him and helps him win arguments against you. That’s how it should be.”

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“…It’s hard.”

“Having children is hard, Sam. Making sure they grow up happy and fulfilled is hard as fuck. Make sure they have no regrets. Magic just makes all the problems more evident, but they are fundamentally the same problems. You will need to give him space to grow and learn to be a responsible adult, hold his hand when he needs it and spank his ass when he fucks up. But, most importantly, you need to be his reference point. You can’t swing from one side to the other, sometimes being strict and cold, sometimes pampering him and showering him with love. That would only confuse him.”

Silence. Only the soft whimpering of a broken woman who had never known how much she was suffering until now. Lloyd slowly walked over to her, pulling her into his arms. She let herself be wrapped in those thin, bony arms she always remembered as strong and indestructible. For a moment the sight of her father in the hospital flashed in her mind.

She sobbed.

“I don’t know… I don’t know who I am anymore, dad.”

“I know. I know… That’s on me, sweetie. That’s on me. I know that. That’s why I am here to help you, to hopefully fix what I’ve done to you.”

At least now Samantha could explain why, up to the point when her father fell down the stairs and looked like he was about to die, she felt nothing. No desire to connect with him. No emotions towards the average childhood she was sure she had lived. How long had it been, prior to Albert, how long since the last time she had called her father? Now she knew why, at least.

And she felt enraged. But the rage, she had read somewhere in a book about trauma, was therapeutic. She was so mad and angry at her father. How dared the man rob her of her own life. Of her agency. She never wanted to become the woman she is today. She came to accept it. But the pain it cost her.

Perhaps this was not even her thinking those thoughts. They felt so silly and out of character. But what even was her actual self? How could she tell?

One thing she knew: she needed to do everything in her power to avoid repeating the same mistakes, not prolonging the suffering through the generations, and passing the trauma onto her child. That was an imperative for her.

***

Albert appeared in the central square of Elvenhome, clutching the Core in one hand and the crate of iron in the other. He had not even bothered putting them into his inventory, and immediately he slumped to the ground, resting his back against the box full of ore.

It was a pleasant evening in Elvenhome. The soft sound of rushing water from the fountain was soothing to his ears. A notification had appeared, but he dismissed it and just spent a few minutes staring at the clouds. They ran across the vast sky, which he knew was only a speck of blue in a planet of devastation. But they were so beautiful, reflecting the colors of the sunset, making shapes, forming and reforming as the wind changed them.

The elves had noticed him, of course, and they were aware of his strange mental state. They were a deeply empathetic species, not only when it came to nature but when it came to people too. And so they gave him space, to think, to calm himself down. Knowing that it was here that he felt safe, and that it was enough.

“Hey!”

All of them except for a particular young elf.

“Oh, hi Elle. How are you?” Albert asked, wiping away some stuff that got in his eye as he was watching the clouds.

“I am doing very well, thank you!” The young girl said in a sing-song voice. She was jumping around, looking at the crate and the core next to the lying Albert. “What are you doing here?”

Albert shrugged. “Got some business to do. Eurus said I can set up base on the other side of the valley.” He pointed at the core. “I’m going to use that to do it.”

Elle smiled, cocking her head. Then she held up a finger and looked at it for a moment. “I get it! Then… what are you doing here on the ground? You should be going!”

“I was just… resting for a moment. The sky is beautiful today.”

Elle looked up, and lost her balance in doing so. Albert caught her, after which she sprawled herself on the soft grass near him and looked up.

“Boring.” She said.

Albert chuckled. “Are you really an elf?”

She frowned. “I am. I am not ugly like you!”

“Right. I might be ugly, but I’m also strong, remember?”

“Oh.” Her eyes went wide, and her ears drooped down low. “Right! Then I want to be ugly too!”

Albert laughed. Elle didn’t know why he laughed, but she too found herself giggling as she stared at the clouds go by. In the distance, Eurus watched, a complicated expression on his face. Then he smiled, and went to do his things, knowing that soon his village was going to get much busier than it was now.