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Contingency(NEPHILA){
Focus.
The power of the sun—
Focus.
The edge of shadow blending with the dreams of reality—
Focus.
Cold, obsessive, the certainty of dark binds the between of that which has and hasn’t wished—
Focus.
| The lines the lines what do they MEAN—
> “Turneth back, Thy doth not belongest here.”
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wake up.
“...What?” I say blinkilingly. ‘Did I black out for a moment?’ For a fleeting, brief moment, I had felt a floating sensation. Serene, silent, but filled with a distant pressure that vibrated the air. It was… familiar, for some reason.
There’s black spots in my vision and the shadow of a circle is burned in the center of my eyes. I blink again, they start to face away a little.
“Ouch… That is certainly a strong reaction.” I hear Clauren beside me.
‘Oh, right. We were doing the mana thing.’ There’s a faint noise similar to a gas leak inside my ears, I flex my jaw and feel a pop in my eardrums. Turning towards them, I see them all with their hands over their eyes.
“Strong is an understatement, that was… what was that?” Samyra says, rubbing her eyes. Her glasses are hanging free down on her neck, supported by a slim string of chains that prevent it from falling.
“Grr.” Gaviel is furiously massaging his eyes. “Are you certain you properly assembled it? Because It certainly does not feel like it and my eyes are agreeing with me.”
“*Cough*— Yes, I am sure I had!” Clauren raises his voice. “It must have blown a capacitor, with how old this thing is I should not be surprised, or faulty inscriptions, or maybe it extracted ambient mana…” He tries to look under the altar and around it, pushing and pulling pieces of the contraption. “Look, I don’t know, I was not the one that built it.”
Despite the slight smoking the altar was emitting, it looked intact and working seemingly fine, the multiple measurement gauges were a little offset but were properly displaying values and symbols that I do not know how to interpret.
“Regardless, it does not matter, see? The measurements are done.” He said, gesturing largely at the table.
He pulls down another lever in the other side of the altar, the third one. ‘How, exactly, he knows which lever is the correct one is beyond me.’ There are two rows with 8 thin levers each, they are thin, crooked and look like gear shifts.
With a resounding clunk, the altar makes multiple noises reminiscent of the sound of mechanical stamps, and then a thick card comes out.
*click* *CLANG*
It clatters into the floor and bounces a little, the noise is obnoxiously loud and sharp.
‘Clang?’
Kneeling to the floor, I pick it up. The card looks like it is made out of burnished wood, but it is way too heavy for its tiny size. I turn it over and feel the grainy surface with my hands. The surface on one side has words and pictograms burned into the slate, though there are some black lines similar to faulty printer errors on top of some, and others that look like it tried to print more than one character at the same location like when a typewriter gets stuck.
Clauren reads it over my head. “Ah, I had forgotten it did that.” He plucks it off my hands.
“Ah—” ‘Hey! I was reading that… well not really since I don't know what those words and symbols mean, but still!’ I shout at him inside my own thoughts.
“...Oh.” He blurts out.
He stands there reading the slab of wood in his hands…
He turns it over, turns it back, knocks on it, smells it, lick—
I bat his side with my tail. ‘EXCUSE ME. Can you not lick everything that makes you curious??’ I glare at him with an incredulous face. Samyra just squeezes her brows in exasperation.
The rest of the room waits for him to continue.
“”Oh?” Oh, what? Clauren.” Samyra questions.
When he doesn’t respond, she marches over and takes the slate out of his hands.
She reads it, turns it over, turns it back, puts her glasses back on and squints at it like it personally offended her ancestors.
“...Oh.”
Gaviel too, peers over too look.
“Oh…”
He takes it off Samyra’s hands and positions it under the sunlight coming from the window to better look at it. He turns it over, turns it back, lightly throws it up and down to feel its weight.
“...I do not know what any of what is written in here means.”
“Just—” Clauren sighs. “Gimme that you uncultured animal.” He snatches the wooden plaque out of his hands.
“What…..is it?” I ask. The suspense is killing me.
‘Is it good, is it bad? Is there something wrong with me? Or with the machine? Did this thing read something more than just whatever measurements they were going to take and exposed something I haven’t told them yet so I will need to explain myself and then they will—’
“You have extraordinary talent!” He interrupts my train of thoughts.
“Really?” I look up at him. Unconsciously, my tail starts to swish side to side.
“...Probably, maybe, I think so. The measurements are strange on some sections.” He adds.
“Really?...” I look back down.
“What he means.” Samyra stabs his side with a finger. “Is that you are so special, that we never encountered something like this before.” She tells me as she crouches to my eye-level.
“Um…”
“We’ve yet to cover this, but not time like the present…” Clauren starts. “To start, mana can be categorized in a few base components and properties, though keep in mind these classifications, while they work for most purposes, aren’t definitive. There are still many things and characteristics of mana that are yet unexplored and undocumented. It’s an energy always so full of surprises…”
He hands me back the wooden card.
“To simplify the main theories, mana has quality, weight, order, nature, and origin— Gaviel can you pull that blackboard over here? Thank you.” He pauses to find a piece of chalk hidden inside a drawer.
Gaviel silently obliges him, with an ear open to the sudden lesson.
“There are more terms and components that change depending on the situation and ambient that is being discussed, but for now we will talk about what is currently relevant, that is, the details about the mana that resides within someone.” He starts drawing 5 diagrams with a humanoid figure in the middle.
“Quality, refers to the fineness, the purity, or the ratio of resistance that the mana has to affect causality. What does that mean? That the less ‘coarse’ and the more ‘fine’ someone’s mana is, they need less effort to do spells and other things that require expenditure of it.” He draws a flowing symbol of water catching fire.
“Weight, refers to the density, the quantity, or the mass of the mana. A person can have the highest quality of mana and the most efficient use of it, but have little quantities of mana to make use of. But if the little quantity of mana is also dense, they can make use of the little they have as much as someone with normal quantities could.” He draws a rigid figure of stone floating in the air.
“Nature, refers to the attunement, the affinity, or the saturation of mana. Somebody, say, with an affinity for water would more easily deal with spells in that element than a person with earth affinity would. However, it is not as she is completely unable to handle spells in other elemental schools. And also, there are more saturations than the basic elements, such as more specific elements like ice, or abstract concepts like healing.” He draws a pictogram of plants and fractals.
“Order, is the polarity, the alignment, or the resonance of mana. Light and dark, entropy and stasis, spectrums and variables, mana can be either suffused with calmness or turbulence, or even both at the same time and neither. This is a more esoteric characteristic that is affected by and affects the subject or object. There are spells that work better and are easier to cast depending on the order that someone’s mana is, or what they make it be. Sometimes it is even a rigid requirement to have or obtain a certain type or order to be able to do some types of magic.” He makes two pictures of a white circle and a dark triangle.
“Origin, is the frequency, the individuality, or the identity of mana so to speak. And no, before you ask, no, mana does not have a personality or anything of the sorts. Origin refers to the minute differences and characteristics of one’s mana that makes and marks that mana as ‘theirs’. It is the footprint, the soul, or the scent of a person’s mana, each one has their own. Beings that are related or have intrinsically intertwined existences usually have similar, but not equal, origins. This attribute of mana is often used in identification or tracking magics.” He creates a depiction of the silhouette of a man inside a globe.
“And these are a few of the many idiosyncrasies that the energy known as mana has. Any questions?”
“You draw really good.” I say. He used a thick piece of chalk to draw on the blackboard, and somehow he managed to do detailed linework and even apply shadows!
“Did she even pay attention to a single thing I said?” I hear him mutter under his breath. “ANY. other questions?”
“Um…” I shuffle my feet. “...What does “iidosincrazies” mean?”
“...right.” Clauren had overlooked that, despite her prodigious talent, she sorely lacks experience in their language. “You can ask Samyra about that later.”
Samyra raises her hand.
Clauren does a long, stretched out sigh. “Yes? Samyra.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Hmm, it is quite late, now that you have mentioned.” Gaviel remarks on the side.
Clauren ignores him. “But we just ate?”
“That was just tea and some biscuits, that doesn’t count.” Samyra retorts.
“Well go eat something then.”
“You’re hungry too.” She points back at him.
“Wha—” He does a double take at her. “No I am not, how does that even make sen—”
*gurgle* His stomach makes a pathetic, suffering sound.
Clauren looks utterly stupefied. “...how??”
“I know my husband.” She simply answers with a smug smile. “I’ll be making dinner downstairs… Gaviel, would you like to stay for dinner too? Since you’re already here.” She asks, standing up from where she had seated herself during Clauren’s lecture.
“Oh, no. Thank you but I would not like to impose more than I have already. There are more… things, I would like to speak with Syuufarin too, but that can wait until tomorrow. That, and I also believe that you three already have much to sort out among yourselves, I can ask the results of her examination later.”
“Oh well… suit yourself.” Gaviel stands up to leave, she makes her way downstairs first.. “Good night gaviel!” She pays farewell to him as she walks down the steps.
“Good night— H-hey!” I also tell him as he passes by me, he ruffles my hair again as he crosses me. Clauren only gives him a nod of acknowledgement instead.
We observe both of them go downstairs, a minute later the sound of the front door being opened and closed is heard. Clauren shakes his head and starts to clean up the chalkboard and organize things.
I begin “Um…” ‘I understood half of what he said when explaining on the blackboard, but that was leading up to something wasn’t it? About me, and the card?’
Clauren reads me and answers before I can ask “I’ll answer what is wrong with the card… later.”
“Oh…” I droop.
“A-ah, don’t worry about that, nothing is wrong with you.” He amends. “I simply need some time to figure it out, you see? I’ll tell you when I do.”
“Hm.” I nod, a little assuaged, but still worried.
“Why don’t you go help your m—” He cuts himself.
“?”
“—Teacher. Yeah, teacher in the kitchen?” Close, too close. Clauren thinks to himself. Samyra had her whole breakdown about parenthood already a long, long time ago. Though he can’t say for certain that he was also not affected by it, when they start to become too comfortable around Syuufarin, some unintended things have begun to slip.
This girl… is special. In more ways than one, and in more ways than what he knows about her… Or what the little girl lets him know about her. The thought plants seeds on Clauren’s mind, but he exorcizes it. Mysteries aside, he knows for certain that the girl is as oblivious as him about herself.
“Mn.” I nod.
——— –– –– -- - -
That night, we ate a hearty dinner.
The happenings of that evening still crowded my mind, but as time passed other things came to the forefront of it, such as where is all the food coming from? I have not seen much activity on the agricultural side of things in the village.
Apparently, the entire village is being sustained by the work of 5 to 8 people, who decided they liked farming. And they have surplus even with so few people working on the fields. That’s not accounting for the people with personal gardens for their own foods and plants that they enjoy using. So that’s why a lot of people either loiter around or do other things that aren’t crucial for survival.
Hundreds of years of renewed and perfected technique made the elves really damn good farmers I guess. Apparently the process is pretty much entirely automated, they only need to plant the plants and harvest the harvest. With how safe and isolated the village is there isn’t any need to do much else at all aside watering the plants a little when it gets too hot. They even have methods to drastically speed up their growth, though those come with some downsides.
By noon of the next day, Clauren had called me to tell what it was that they saw in that wooden plaque.
He and Samyra were both sitting at the dinner table. This time I even helped them with cooking, or at least as much as they allowed me to.
‘Samyra, at first, she did let me into the kitchen. Only after a lot of stubbornness on my part she slightly relented to let me set the table and watch her cook. It is one of the things that I really need to get accustomed to, the ingredients may look and feel familiar a lot of the time, but the variety they have here is simply… different from what I was used to. So I chased the opportunity to learn.
Now… they still don't let me cook, not quite, but I can at least help process the ingredients. There are some that have poisonous and inedible bits, and I got to learn how to differentiate them from each other and how to separate them. There were even some fruits that I had already encountered before in the forest!’
Though, those weren’t actually for eating, they were for Clauren’s concoctions. And I may or may not have eaten one or two at some point in time…
…Now I know how dogs feel when they eat something they shouldn’t have, and they end up having someone shove a hand up their mouth so they spit whatever it is they ate out.
“Syuufarin.”
“Um… Yes?” I answer nervously.
“We… Argh, how do I put this?” Clauren slides his hand down his face.
“How about beginning at the start?” Samyra advises.
“Right.” He enterlaces his hands together. “I was not sure about the results I had found, so I went to consult with Miss Piyo– You remember that ancient and scary lady that took care of you?”
“...You shouldn’t call people like that.” Samyra comments with a wry face.
I nod, remembering that strange day and the lady with the skull staff. ‘Ah, So that's what her name is.’
Clauren quips. “You say that, but I know you agree with me... Anyways, that day, you had fallen unconscious, apparently because of something between you and Samyra?...” He inquisitively comments.
“...” I don’t answer him. My stomach drops. ‘I… How— There’s just so many things packed in that question. How am I even supposed to explain what happened, let alone explain myself?’
“That’s something that will stay between her and me.” Samyra says with finality. “Not that I intend to keep secrets, but it was… a sensitive moment.” She is also not sure of what to make of that day, but she could not find in her heart the will to confront Syuufarin about it.
“I’m sorry, but–” He adjusts his glasses, they weren’t misaligned, but he adjusts them again anyway. “When I talked to her, she told me “That her suspicions were confirmed” and that “For someone so fresh out of the womb that little one has an old soul”. But she didn’t explain to me what she meant with that.” He turned to me.
My stomach drops so much that I think I felt it hit the ground.
“ah…”
A long silence passes between us.
Clauren weighs his options. On one hand, it could be important to the current subject, but on the other, He doesn’t feel they are that close enough for him to have the right to demand this sort of information out of the child. “Do you… Do you want to talk about it?”
“...I” I say to at least reply to them with something, anything. “Remembered… things.”
‘How-how-how– What am I even supposed to say, should I confess? Tell them everything, tell them about that place, Earth? About who I am, who I was, what I think I am? Or hide, deflect. lie… again? How long will I be able to keep this facade?’
I resolve myself that, despite the churning in the pits of my stomach, running away from it right now won’t do anyone good. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to run, no one to face this problem but myself.
‘I-I don’t want to lie to them…’
I keep talking. “I came from somewhere, I don’t know where, I think it is weird that nobody ever mentioned or asked me about it.” I take a deep steadying breath. “That place is… lost, no living memories, no people, no closure of which I will ever be able to find.” My voice quivers. “I-I like it here, people are good, forgiving. I do not trust myself to be ever able to repay the gratitude that I have for you, for Gaviel, for everyone in the village that I have not met yet. But… But…” I hiccup.
I bring my legs to my chest and hug them tightly, squeezing and trying to occupy as little space as possible in the chair that feels too large for my tiny body. I had begun to forget how big I actually was before.
They didn’t know, they assumed, but they did not know of many things regarding this child. And they have done their best to accommodate her, but the gulf of secrets and distance that she put between them only made them slowly grow apart regardless of their efforts. And now…
They can only pay attention to everything she is saying with utmost seriousness.
Clauren, he attempts to assuage her. “I understand.” He didn’t. He understood that it would not be something that she would not want to discuss in depth again anytime soon, but the face she is making right now…
Is something that a child should never deserve to feel.
I caustically rebuke him. “You don’t.”
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“Sorry. I-I… I hid, I have felt like I was lying and deceiving you since I have stepped foot into this village. I can talk and listen and speak with everyone and I am thankful but…” I notice how tense my shoulders are unconsciously getting. I let them drop and I clench and unclench my fists. A deep breath. “I guess, I have been delaying it, avoiding it, but I figured that I would need to tell someone, anyone, sometime, some of the truth.”
‘Should I tell them the whole truth though? Or another lie laced with truth behind its mask? Would they call me crazy? Are there things that are better left unsaid?’ One step at a time, I would have to trust, or else this place would only become a prison of my own making.
Samyra and Clauren share a look.
“You don’t have to if you want...” She tells me gently.
They would admit that they are curious, but there’s time, there’s space, and right now there’s nothing in the world that could make them feel any sort of disappointment with Syuufarin. In these short few months that they have been together, she has shown them how good she can be, in the little things, proven herself to be just and not a threat to the village for those that still had suspicions about her.
But she has also inadvertently shown that she was hurting. Had been hurting for a long time. But they couldn’t just up and expose her wounds like that.
So they bid their time, and took whatever measures to help her on what they could. They taught, fed, accompanied, housed, and did many other things so she could heal.
“I want to!... I-I need to. It’s for the best, if not now, when?” My tail accidentally hits the leg of the chair I’m sitting on, I pick it up and hold it down on my lap. “if I avoid it now… I do not trust in myself to ever stop avoiding, to have the courage to speak about this again.” I admit, wrangling the stubborn words out of my own throat.
It is all so liberating and frustrating at the same time. I feel like my head and heart are trying to split into two. That of what I am, and that of what I should be, could be. Twisting around each other in a tug of war…
…And so, I tell them.
About waking up one day, lost in body and mind.
About the upending of an entire life, loved ones lost to unknown ends.
About friends and family, places and sights, memories broken out to the weight of loss.
The truth goes unspoken, however. I could not bring myself to have to explain technology, the fascinating and insidious society of humanity, or the virgin world that has not been touched by mana.
‘I’ve even forgotten my name…’ A pange of mournful feelings cross me.
It would have been nice to talk about a world that, compared to this one, is full of wonders and thousands of years of culture and history. But it would have raised even more questions than answers, and for all the possible stories that would genuinely spark their curiosity, there are ten more brutal, horrible pieces of information that this world could do without. The wonders of modern medicine, infrastructure, communication, that are built on top of the corpses of their respective ancestors. The path of blood and tears, the weapons, misery, and irreparable damage done to the world that came along with the advance of humanity? I was not sure about talking about sparking their interest in those macabre topics, and if I could keep that bleak future from this place, I reasoned that not mentioning it would be for the best.
‘I don’t know the reason or what is the point of my existence here. Pity? Fate? Destiny?’ I scoff to myself ‘To whomever or whatever has brought me into this new world, left me to die, let it be known that I make my own Destiny.‘
As I spoke and talked, it felt like a weight was being lifted off my shoulders. Slowly, timidly, carefully. Bit by bit the tension that coiled itself around my body began to unravel itself into fluttering motes of relief. At some point, I hadn’t noticed it when I had unwrung myself from my shrinked form and relaxed onto the table.
‘The only thing I know for real is that here and now. Is where everything that will make this life worth living is, in this beautiful, peaceful place… home.’
That last word traces the edges of my lips, and settles deep down into my heart.
‘This time, for real.’ I proclaim with conviction.
——— –– –– -- - -
The atmosphere had gotten… not quite awkward, but the tension that was made during the conversation put other things during the rest of the day in a contemplating mood. Nobody had much energy left to carry on with the rest of the day, we needed time to think, and to let the eventful day with all the things I talked about settle in.
In the end, the day became unproductive, and we shelved the deal with the magic aptitude test for tomorrow.
Which brings us here.
“Yesterday… Was…” Clauren has bags under his eyes. He yawns. “Yeah.”
Looking at him makes me want to yawn too. I try to fight it, I close my mouth and rub my eyes–
“*Yaaaawn…*” I don’t even make an effort to cover my mouth.
‘Hmhgh… contagious thing.’ I sluggishly think. The talk we had yesterday left me jittery, and nervous, and all kinds of other things and I did not have quite the best time falling asleep after that. Too many things crowding my head now that they know.
Samyra, meanwhile, looks to be fine compared to us—
‘—Wait. Huh?’ I turn to look at her with more attention.
She is sitting perfectly straight, holding her breakfast with her elbows resting on top of the table and… I see her head slowly bob up and down, going back up sluggishly so she doesn’t face-plant into the table.
‘Is she… sleeping?’ I watch her, up… down… up… down… she is alternating between falling asleep and jolting herself awake there in the chair.
I start to get a morbid desire to poke her awake.
Though I don’t really want for her to lash out at me on reflex so I do it using my tail.
*poke* “hmm…”
Clauren also opts to watch my mischief with morbid curiosity instead of doing anything else.
*poke* “Hgn.”
*poke* “Shhta… Clau…”
I look at him. “Did she– *yawn* –always talked in her sleep?”
*poke* “Hgrr.”
“Sometimes.” He replies, also yawning in response. “It has been a while since I last caught her so tired.”
*poke*
*pok—* “AH!” *Clatter.* She wakes up with a startle and drops the bread that she was unconsciously biting slowly into.
“Wakey wakey princess.” Clauren taunts with a mirthful smile.
“Hngrr...” She adjusts her glasses that got tussled in her stupor. “Yes… Good–” She yawns. “–morning.”
We yawn back at her.
“Why are we even awake at this ungodly time?” Clauren grumbles.
“It is almost noon.”
He turns around in his chair, squinting outside. “Oh.”
I parrot him. “Oh.” I had noticed it was bright outside but not what time it was, I woke up more out of hunger than anything, or else I would be still laying inside the veritable nest of blankets that I accumulated on my bed.
“Let’s eat first, the rest we can do… later.” Samyra tells us.
“Lazy day?” Clauren affirms.
She nods. “Lazy day.”
There’s an internal joke there that I’m not getting… but I also nod along.
After breakfast, or brunch, I don’t know. They asked me to go and do my own thing for a while.
Clauren moves to his corner of the house to check on his experiments and make sure his concoctions didn’t sprout legs overnight– and yes, that’s a thing that can happen apparently. And Samyra squirreled herself away to the archives. The bigger, more boring library that they have in the village.
‘Maybe I'll visit that place one day, if only just to take a look at what is inside… hopefully they have bookshelf stairs though, I can barely reach most things let alone the top shelves.’
I’m staying by the river again, letting the flowing water caress my feet as I lay down. I could be doing more homework or studying right now… but I don’t feel like it. Reading is off the list until I’m able to learn how to read better. And playing with the other kids still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
I don’t think I will ever be able to feel in the mood to frolic with my fellow kids in the tall grass and be whimsical amidst the trees with them. It can be fun sometimes, but my perspective of their games will always be different, older, without the childish wonder they somehow still have. I don’t blame them for their hyperfixations and repetitiveness, I was like that once too, but watching fantasy beetles punching each other gets old after the tenth day in a row doing the same thing.
“HII!” A shadow suddenly covers my vision of the clouds, interrupting my brooding.
‘Speak of the devil and she shall appear. Ugh… I don’t wanna deal with this.’ I whine internally.
I try the complicated speech pattern card to drive her away. “Begone, o’ meddlesome pest whomst disturbs mineth serene peace with relentless fervor. Thy presence hath not been requested.‘
“Eh? Ah! You’re not speaking all slow like anymore! Does that mean that you don’t have to keep locked up studying anymore?”
‘Ah… Shit.’ My cover has been utterly blown. Smithereens scattered in the wind.
“...Um. Erm… No?”
Sedia sits down next to my head. “Eeh?~ But then what was all that you just said?”
“...” I avert my eyes.
She nudges me slightly after a moment of silence. “...You ok? You look like you stumped your toe after someone ate all your cake.”
‘Damn this over-perceptive girl… And what is with that overly-specific example?’
“...Lazy day.” I answer, though I’m not sure of what exactly I’m referencing here.
Somehow though, it seems to work well enough for her. “Ah, I guess that makes sense. Hm.” She nods to herself.
Just like that, she spends a while simply sitting in silence, watching the clouds and the stream of water rush by with me. I lazily trace the shapes of the clouds with my eyes and observe how the light reflects on the water.
I close my eyes, breathing steadily in the smell of clean wilderness and stretching my legs.
‘I was never one to enjoy nature that much, there’s a limited quantity of it in the middle of urban cities and there was always something to do other than breath fresh air and touch grass. Now though…’ I wonder if it is because of the utter lack of something to do –though I can’t say much for my lack of reaching out to search for things to do– or because of this–my body. Open air, the touch of sunlight, the smell of grass, the water running through my feet… There’s something inside me that really enjoys these things, is it unconscious, instinct, nature? I’m not sure, but the feeling is nice, peaceful even, flourishing, perhaps—
“Ah!” Sedia exclaims in surprise.
I startle “HM?”
“There’s a pretty flower growing out of your head again?”
“Again?!” ‘W-wait, did she see that last time it happened?!’ I hurriedly stand up and look at my reflection in the clear water of the stream.
There, on top of my head, is another bright yellow flower blooming with vibrant vigor. ‘Does this happen every time I sleep under the sun by the river?? What am I, a plant now?’
“You didn’t know?” She says curiously. “It’s very pretty!”‘
“No!” I shout. “I do not even know why this happens!” ‘This reminds me, what did Clauren do with the last one? I don’t think I have ever asked…’
She pokes it and squeezes the petals with her fingers. Strangely enough, I can sort of feel her touching it, it doesn’t… feel bad. “Hey hey, can I keep it?”
‘She probably also saw that I could rip it off mostly harmlessly last time. At most I get a somewhat sore scalp.’ “What? Huh? Um… Sure?” That is a weird thing to ask.
The rest of the afternoon goes by with her dancing around how exactly she would keep the thing. She fussed about it for an hour before finally deciding to pluck the darn thing out of my head, worrying that it would hurt me if I pulled it out.
And then she put it in a plant pot. ‘I don’t know what to feel about that. Really don’t. It’s not like she’s keeping a lock of my hair… but that thing is still also, somehow, a part of my body that grows out.’
After that strange encounter I simply zoned out for the rest of the afternoon, contemplating what in the world my life has turned out to be.
——— –– –– -- - -
“Ready to find out?” Clauren asks with playful suspense.
They had thought long and hard about everything that Syuufarin had told them. After that they will inevitably see her in a different light than before, though, the only difference is that now they know more about her past than everyone else. At the end of the day, nothing really will change, she is still a little girl with nowhere else to go, and the village has been willing to take care of her either way from the start.
“Um… before that…” I asked them about the flower that had sprouted on my head.
“Oh, that thing? I made tea.”
“...Tea?” I blurt out, flabbergasted.
Samyra looks visibly perturbed, looking down at her cup with suspicion. “...Should I be worried?”
“I looked into it and found nothing peculiar with it aside from an unusual concentration of minerals and vitamins. Medicinal properties aside, it makes for a pretty good brew.” He says nonchalantly.
“Did you… um… this?...” I pointedly gesture to the tea we are consuming right at this moment. –I’ve never been a fan of tea, but other than juice and alcohol that I’m not allowed to drink is the only other thing they have, so I’ve come to enjoy it with time– The notion of what he did makes my stomach do funny spins.
“Oh? No, despite the humongous size of the petals I ran out of it ages ago, why do you ask?”
“...nothing, just curious” I deflect.
“Very well.” He places the wooden plaque, the origin of my problems as of late, on the table. “This…” He makes an annoyed face at the card, like it had personally offended him. Albeit with some slight nervousness, he begins to explain.
It is not the first time he has done someone’s first mana test, but this is the only time so many hurdles happened in the process, and there’s a certain… higher level of importance now that it is Syuufarin sitting in front of him. He does not wish to fumble or make this a worse experience than it had been these past days.
Samyra, who is resting aside in the other corner of the table, listens with curiosity whilst also reading a book.
“We have already discussed all the different categories yesterday, as for your results…”
Despite the looming dread and the nervousness, I bounce in excitement, this would be a big step towards starting to learn the magic I have dreamt about for so long.
“Starting with your mana capacity… we’re lucky that thing is able to get a measure of people’s reservers, I heard that outside the village they have to self-induce mind-down on themselves to know their limits. ” he comments “Anyways, the readings we got are… weird, to speak is a diminutive way.”
He slides the card to me, tapping the slot where it looks like the altar printed multiple times at the same place, making a blurry and scratched image.
“Honestly, you have an outrageous quality of mana and big reserves, but at the same time, we can interpret this as you having both dense, and light mana, as well as varying degrees of quality distribution because of that. Normally, or at least for elves because I never did measure someone from the other races.” He says to the side.
“There is mostly a constant rating of quality, with a negligible degree of deviation of the other attributes depending on the individual, their health, and other factors” He pokes the pointy part of my horn.
“You, however, from what I have been able to discern… My hypothesis is that you seem to have two sources of mana, or possess some sort of condition that makes your reserves erratic or concentrated somewhere. How in the name of the gods that is I could not even fathom. You will have to be able to sense them yourself when you eventually learn how to be able to answer this. They are the only explanations I thought of that can justify the different saturations of mana.”
‘That is… concerning? Worrying? There are so many things I don’t know about this body and this just adds to the list.’ I fiddle with the hems of my clothes. “Can I still do magic even with… all this?” I ask.
“Yes, of course you will be able to.” He isn’t actually certain about it, this is all new to him too, but nothing that can’t be solved later, she’ll probably just conjure magic a little differently from other people, hopefully. He thinks to himself. “The bigger your quantity of mana the easier it is to use, though also harder to control. Think of it like a balloon filled with water, if you make a small hole it is easy to squeeze out and aim when it is full, but when the balloon is bigger than your arms it becomes unwieldy and difficult to keep a hold of.” He takes a moment to take a sip from his cup.
‘Hm, that is interesting. It's different and yet similar to the things I know about magic and mystical energies, given that they come from the ramblings of madmen and works of fantasy back on Earth.’ I imagine that, according to what he said, I would have no trouble casting something like a flamethrower, but other things that require detail and finesse like enchanting or something would be more difficult.
“As for nature, if anything this proves that you’ll do great in the path of a wizard. Though, again, I can’t understand how the f—”
There’s a very sharp sound of a book slamming close from the direction Samyra is sitting.
“Fffowlishing flowers…”
“...What?”
He coughs, recomposing himself. “Ordinary people have one attunement, exceptional people have at most two, and truly expectacular people may have three…” He explains, leading up to something.
I can’t help but fidget in anxiousness.
“You have… four.” He says with a frown.
“...Four? Isn’t that a good thing?” From the way he said it, it doesn’t feel like it.
“No… Um.. Yes. it’s a good thing.” He ascertains somewhat indecisively. “The altar has shown that you have a predisposition for nature magic, terra magic, solar magic… and something else.” The wooden plaque that the altar spat out had her attunement readings displayed in order, the third was spilling outside the print area, and then there was a rectangular black that stretched until the card ran out of space. What that smudge represented in the card was a mystery to him.
“If it was simply some additional disposition for those elements it would not be something so shocking, people have varying degrees of aptitude for the elements with usually one distinct element that they may excel at… If that were the case with you the card would not display those this way.”
I numbly pass my fingers over the spot where the card displays my affinities, a square indent with three large symbols depicting the things he told me, some sort of plant, a geological silhouette, flames, arrayed in order inside a circular pattern… and then a black stain that looks like it was smudged over the fire and nature symbols, but is set in a way that would be displayed as a fourth element.
“...the majority of people have only one affinity, as far as I know you are… unique.” He taps his fingers along his crossed arms, conflicted. “Affinities can play in wildly different ways with your magic and all other aspects that involve mana, people with one affinity have it fairly straightforward with only one aspect to develop and study in depth… I can only guess what could happen, and not even accounting for that unknown thing.”
“Oh…” My ears droop in sadness.
Clauren purses his lips at my apparent dismay “Don’t worry about it, affinity isn’t everything. Even without them you can be a force to be reckoned with your weirdness alone! It’s a good thing that you have such an eclectic combination of affinities!” He assures me.
Samyra clops him over the head. “It’s rude to call people weird” She admonishes him in a sharp whisper.
“Hm. I understand.” I reply, not very mollified.
‘I don’t want to be special…’ Or rather, I don’t want to stand out more than I already do. It feels like whatever made this body.. Me… Did not leave anything normal inside it. I was grateful for my strange abilities that kept me alive, boons that I would have died without. Now, however, each day that passes I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb in the middle of this village.
The only person that is not an elf.
The only foreigner.
The single individual that doesn’t quite fit it.
‘I am ecstatic about the news that I can be a prodigy at magic, don’t get me wrong.’ I straighten out my thoughts. Despite the giddiness that would make me want to positively shake in happiness. Is normalcy too much to ask for? I already have a supernaturally strong body, blood of unknown species running through my veins, probably an unknown fate waiting for me because why else would someone be transmigrated. I don’t want to be special, there’s a price attached to it that I don’t know whether it has been already paid or not.
‘All of this makes me think that this peace won’t last much.’ This place, this home, has rekindled what little hope I had after the forest, it seeded itself as a new place for me to be and to rest. I don’t want to lose it all… Not again.
“What about… um, origin?” I ask after a moment's pause.
“Ah, yes.” He circles around the table to grab a loaf of bread. He had been leisurely eating this whole time. “The last two aspects I told you about are not very consequential in the grand scheme of things. Order, in a nutshell, is alignment. Though this “alignment” can mean many different things. Gender, Mood, Health, Belief, Color, philosophy, Location. Depending on what is measured, what is thought, and what is brought to existence it can change erratically and completely “change” to one thing or another.”
He passes a fruit jam over a slide of bread. “There are also “orders” that are congruent to each other, and practically display no difference, it’s all a very abstract thing you see? For example:” He lifts the other half of the bread he cut in two “These two slices of bread are, for all intents and purposes, just bread. But this bread is not that bread, and that bread cannot be this bread. If you were to “measure” them you would get the same results, but at the same time said results would be either unique or equal depending on how you look at it. You can see they are both slices of bread, but you may also see they are both two distinct existences, thus creating two “orders” when you measure their location instead.”
I grip and feel the radiating warmth around my cup. Samyra gave me this while he was explaining, I think it is filled with some sort of milk and honey. ‘I feel ever grateful that they take their time to tell me things and explain to me what I don’t know or understand. I don’t think I had ever felt the fear of not keeping up enough with them… though it’s not like there is a schedule to keep.’ A tangent though goes to ruminate about the failures of the mass education system supported by capitalism and the effects it had on my habits.
He continues, bringing me back on track. “The order that the altar attempts to quantify is related to someone’s overall spirit. That is, a combination of body and mind, in other words health and sanity… or the soul.”
“The soul?” I blanch at the implication of a machine being able to perceive something like that.
“Not really, actually.” He nonchalantly adds. “Even one such as I has never been able to uncover the mysteries of the realm of spirituality.” He says with unnecessary grandeur.
Samyra sighs. “Don’t start now…”
“Alright, alright.” He withdraws playfully. “You see, what the altar tries to do is combine the quantified values of your physical wellbeing, your mind’s serenity, multiplied by the sum of the spectrum that is the imprint of the “Origin” aspect of your mana, and give an arbitrary rating based on those.”
He stands up to place his cup inside the sink. “Yours scored a moss green italic eighth out of 10 celestes by the way.”
There’s a moment’s pause as I register what he said. My face contorting into different expressions of incredulity while I make a meager attempt to comprehend whatever the heck that means.
“...Hah?”
“Pfft—” He chortles. Dodging the stare I give him. “I always loved this part.”
There’s a tired sigh beside me. “Don’t worry about it, nobody knows what that means either.” Samyra comments, flipping another page.
“I do!” Clauren helpfully raises a hand.
“And you never explain to anyone who asks.” Samyra says to him unimpressed.
“That takes the magic out of it.” He replies conspiratorially.
She goes back to flipping through her book “Right.”
“Anyways, as for origin” Clauren proceeds without a single care to my palpable confusion. ”It’s your ‘signature’, so to speak, besides being used in the previous part, it does not do anything else at all aside from marking you as the holder of this little plaque… There are other uses with artefacts or enchantments, such as locks, bells, wards…”
——— –– –– -- - -
I had asked what she was reading and told me that she was re-reading a copy of an old grimoire about a spell that folded clothes.
I was taken aback that a simple thing like that required a huge book as thick as my arm to explain. She told me that nobody really uses it because by the time someone is finished casting the spell they could have already done so by hand, but with how a lot of the people that live in the village practically never leave some odd things end up being made by people with too much time in their hands. And that besides the spell, the book had information about all the essentials and the basics about doing magic so that anyone that picked it up could learn to cast it. The title of the book was “Magic that folds clothes for you & magic fundamentals for budding beginners.”
“It is something simple and easy to start with that anyone can learn to do.” She told me, knowing that I would soon delve into the world of magic, she went and already started making plans to help me despite Clauren being the main person that would be teaching me.
“...Oh…….Um…” That struck a chord within me... Though I tried to hide it when they started to tease me about it.
She and Clauren shared a look that had a whole conversation inside it. Clauren is always prodding at new ways to get people riled up, and Syuufarin has proven to be not only a brand new target to his childish teasings but also a tough opponent at times, though he ever wanders how she is able to switch between serious and stoic to barely contained bubbleness.
However, something that has been catching both of their attention and concern is how, without fail, Syuufarin crumbles with any acts of kindness or decency that they have long since taken for granted among themselves and the village. Which made them wonder just what kind of life the little girl lived. She is still slowly getting used to them, but they always see her being caught by surprise by the strangest things and having trouble expressing herself.
“Ooh come on, this is what gets you all embarrassed?” Clauren says, hiding his thoughts with a playful grin. “What’s the magical word we say when you are grateful?”
“T-thank you…” I stumble to get the words out, feeling my tail swishing behind me.
‘Ugh, I already have a rough time with these appendages… and then my ears and tail decide to have a mind of their own!’ I turn my head away to dodge their smiles.
I don’t know whether I am happy that they are so accepting and helpful or sad that I still find it hard to get used to such things. Comparing them to most of the people I knew before I came here feels unfair, when I thought about it, sometimes if feet like that world lacked a lot of trust and love inside their societies.
By the time we finished talking Samyra had finished her book and the sun was already setting. And since it was already late and they didn’t want to bother with it, we all went to the main courtyard of the village.
They don’t really have much of a culture of cooking at home, considering that their houses aren’t all that safeguarded against intruders, only for the bare necessities and privacy. After all it isn't like there is danger inside this place nor any fear from the neighborhood.
Clauren and Samyra are some of the few that prefer to have meals at home… or at the place where they work. They do it because Clauren is a weird person that is always gravitating towards his lab and Samyra often ends up accompanying him, or maybe she just likes quiet.
‘Their concept of home isn’t just the house, but it includes the whole village rather than just the place where their things are.’ I still feel the effects of whiplash no matter how much time I’ve already spent living here. Whereas back then people barred their windows, locked their doors and gates, and built walls around them out of necessity… ‘Here… There’s so much more… freedom. it’s saddening to see how constantly unsafe I had felt despite all the security measures and the existence of police.’ As a matter of principle, they don’t measure trust or calculate risks, because they don’t need to, not when they live in safety and abundance.
‘Maybe I am repeating myself but it is always so jarring. Is this what they call culture shock?’
I’m shaken out of my thoughts when the hustle and bustle of the square becomes visible. The dark of the night is warded off by a multitude of torches and glowing things hanging off the tapestries that are hanging above some of the alcoves and tables. The loud noises of conversation, constant noise of clattering things and moving people, and bright lights start to become a bit too much for my senses as we approach. A grimace slowly makes its way to my face. ‘I can already feel a headache coming… Thankfully my eyes are fine and I don’t get blinded by lights that are too bright, but I wish I didn’t have my good hearing right now. Ugh…’
I can smell many different things, the elves’ bodies, the acrid smoke –’someone is burning incense too’–, the perfume someone’s using along with sweat. But on top of all these things… The thick aroma of food was heavenly, a massive pot steaming with broth that is being mixed by a comically sized wooden spoon by a kid standing on top of a chair catches my attention.
“Why don’t we come here more often?” I ask. It’s basically free food after all.
“I dislike walking.” Clauren bluntly answers, and a sly smile begins to form “That, and Samyra just loves to bake some surprise— ACK!!!.”
Samyra pinches and pulls his ear, lips pursed and a small blush on her. I tilt a questioning look at her as I incline myself away from them. For some reason I think we were on the same page on what he was talking about.
There’s a central place where food is made for everyone and by everyone, people can bring their own things if they want but most of the time they partake from the same pot. A huge, massive cauldron that is taller than me and even wider, if it were any bigger I’d call it a pool instead. The cauldron looks and feels old, it’s encrusted with layers upon layers of what I think is carbonized residues from both the food and the fire that gives it a sheen black shell from always being in use for god knows how many years or even decades.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen them put out that fire, or take out the cauldron to clean it– Just how much does that thing weigh?’ I wonder. ‘I've come here a few times during the hours that people are usually having a meal together… but all of the gathered up people…’ I never liked crowds.
“A lot of people like to come here not only for the food but also because it’s just where everyone else usually is at this time of the day.” Samyra explains to me. “To mingle and have a good time, but there are good sides to doing things at our house too. Everyone has their preferences I guess.”
She thought that Syuufarin could use something to unwind after everything that happened today, though honestly she was having second thoughts judging by her reactions so far. “It’s nice to have a little change of scenery every once in a while.” Plus it was late and she was not in the mood to cook something, and gods forbid she let Clauren touch the kitchen.
“You are all the scenery I need dear.” Clauren purrs dramatically..
“...Ew.” I blanch at the blatant flirting. ‘Normally I’m the one that is clueless about these sorts of things but even I can detect the cheesiness.’
“Clauren.” She says a little harshly. “Not the time. What’s gotten on with you all of a sudden?”
“I’m bored.”
“Right.” She sighs. “Just– Oh look, there’s Gaviel! Go bother him.”
“Aw, Am I a bother to you?” He whines. Even though he instantly locked on the figure of Gaviel in the distance when she mentioned him.
‘Grown ass man…’ I think to myself.
“You know what I meant, honey. Now go have fun and eat something, will you?, you are just hungry, not that bored.” She pecks him in the cheek before Clauren saunters away in the direction of his poor imminent victims.
I look over to the somewhat long line of people waiting to get a large bowl of the soup.
The long, long list of ingredients that end up inside that thing is beyond me but from what I gathered there’s a little bit of contribution from everyone. ‘It makes sense I guess, making something that huge would need the help of a lot of people.’
And the person, a highly-regarded person from what I caught on to, who commands the pot is called “the soup-mother”, though the word they use isn’t quite “mother” but has a meaning closer to something like “progenitor” or “caretaker” at the same time. They look like they have absolute authority around the kitchen-like space around the cauldron, apparently even the Chief defers to their judgment.
“Why is that?” I can only wonder why.
“You see—” A white blur crosses my vision.
“HIEEEEE!!!” A high pitched scream sounds across the area after a loud thunk is heard. Oddly enough nobody bats an eye to the noise. “GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF MY INGREDIENTS.” A deep, booming voice comes right after.
“He’s scary that’s why.” She tells me. Turning my head the first thing I see that there’s a big white bone knife glinting under the light of the oven fires, bigger than my whole arm, sunken deep into a cutting board in the kitchen area. The man in question is actually kind of short, but what he lacks in stature he more than makes up with his bursting physique, the rippling muscles and the knife making for a fearsome appearance.
There’s also a teenager looking Elf on the ground on the verge of crying holding their hand like it just got cut off. I feel a shiver down my spine, suddenly very aware of my own arm. “He’s also the Chief’s partner so there’s that to account for… But yeah, it’s mainly because he is scary.”
“The chief’s… partner?” I voice. “Why does he work in the kitchen?” From what I understand gender roles aren’t really a big thing around here and I don’t mind, but that guy looks more like a battlefield veteran than a housewife to me. And from someone associated with what I believe to be the Leader of the village, or the highest form of authority, I thought that their job would be something more… grand.
She opened her mouth… and paused.
Syuufarin was a curious child… understandable, since she wasn’t exactly from here and was getting acquainted with the village still. She liked to ask questions, a lot of questions, not only about all the things she sees and learns but about other people too. Samyra caught herself answering her a lot of the time, getting comfortable with having her always chase after her when she needs something. And though she enjoyed the bonding experience, now that she thought about it Syuu doesn’t really know anyone other than her and Clauren, and maybe that kid, Sedia, that always pops up every now and then.
Though this was not exactly the best occasion to do this nor the best candidate, it is an opportunity… Maybe, maybe she could push Syuu a little bit so she can make some friends.
She says gently as we walk up to him. “Hmm, how about you try asking him yourself?”
——— –– –– -- - -