Eirlathion’s POV
Just as he was in the middle of talking with Aerien, trying to get her sorted out, someone just had to come to the door. This was truly not a good time for this at all. Well, Aerien seems to listen well enough, but Eirlathion still felt like he couldn’t quite be certain what she was going to do. As for what to do with the individual at the door, he really didn’t have a lot of choice.
He went down the stairs, and quickly opened the door just as he was reaching the entryway, not wanting to give the individual in question much chance to intrude very far into his house. Well, it was not likely that anyone would intrude upon his house without an invitation anyway, that was a privilage of being a high rank magus. Well, he was technically even higher in rank now, he just hadn’t fully prepared his new spell vessels yet. But still, an elf who is sensitive to spirit energy ought to be able to clearly sense the change in him.
Sure enough, as he approached the white-haired wrinkled elven man at his door, the man immediately recoiled in surprise.
“Master!” His gruffled voice came out. “You have managed to form a spell of the next rank!? That is… that would make you a ninth level at this point, would it not!?”
“Elder Calenor,” Eirlathion greeted the leader and second oldest elf in the village after himself. That being the case, the title of “elder” did not actually refer to the oldest, but to the one chosen as leader of the village. A role which Eirlathion, as a magus, was not expected to take up himself. A magi’s time was considered to be too important for him to be bothered with the day to day runnings of a village. As such, while Eirlathion was held in high respects and his world carried a lot of weight, he held no actual position of leadership in the village. The true leader of the village was the man standing right in front of him. The actual relationship between the elder and the strongest magus of a village was a rather uncertain one. For the most part though, it was assumed that neither had the ability to command the other and both were expected to treat one another with respect. “Yes, indeed. I suppose it is one of the benefits of being near those children. The humans with them truly do put out an amazing amount of spirit energy. Of course, I am not shorting any to the girls, but what manages to drift up to the next floor is more than enough to have aided me quite a bit.”
“I am certain this is not what you have come here to talk about though. What brings you here elder?” Eirlathion asked.
“Yes, I just saw the young Túeth coming from your house. She did not look well. Are her daughters unwell?”
“Hmm... well, you know they have always been doing poorly elder. I had finally convinced Túeth to come and see her daughters, and then while she was here one of them had a rather severe attack. I was quite frightened by it myself. I can only imagine how hard it must have been on her.”
The elder made a rather unpleasant face at this information. “I see, the poor girl.” He said. “They are truely in bad shape then? I certainly wish that there was more that we could do for her.”
“I can understand the sentiment.” Eirlathion said. “I am doing the best that I am able to do with her daughters. As for her, I have asked her to come again tomorrow. I would like for her to be around more frequently if possible.”
“Hmm... is it really bad?” The elder asks, his face heavy with a knowing look. It seemed he was making some assumptions already in terms of Eirlathion’s meaning behind trying to get Túeth to come more frequently.
“Well, I don’t think their lives are in immediate danger,” Eirlathion decided to continue choosing words that would fit in with his misperception. “However, I feel at this time that we would likely be best off if those entering this house were limited to myself and the girls’ mother. Any additional people could easily create unwelcome complications.”
“Hmm... well, I am hoping for the best. We would not want to lose the one good to come about from the tragedy of her village.” the elder said. “I will be sure to make it clear no-one is to disturb you at your home without my permission, and I will only grant that if there is extreme due cause. It would be good if you could dedicate your full efforts toward those girls for now.” He nodded solemly at this. “Would you like for me to talk to Túeth?”
“You had best not,” Eirlathion said. “I think it might make things difficult if someone who does not know the full details of the situation were to clumsily begin offering their advice. I have learned this from talking to her before. She is already in a sensitive state from the tragedy. She has a great deal of difficulty trusting people now. An insensitive attempt by someone unfamiliar with her situation could cause her to shut down and undo what progress I have made with her.”
“Hm. In that case, I suppose I will leave you to get back to your work. Just let me know if there is anything you need.”
With those words, the elder gave Eirlathion the slightest of bows, really just a nod of the head with a slight bit of chest movement to it, and proceded to leave. Eirlathion, as he watched the respected elder walk away from his house, kept as neutral an expression on his face as he could in order not to reveal the nature of the concerns he had. Elves valued children greately beings they were born so infrequently to their people, so it was only a matter of course that the elder himself would take a great interest when he was aware that a child was sick. However, in this situation, this also creates a great problem for him. It would also be this very elder who, if he discovered the girls were grey elves, would be forced to decide upon the life or death of those girls.
Eirlathion trusted Calenor. He had worked with the man for the centuries and had seen him growing up. He was a wise and gentle man who was concerned with the wellbeing of everyone in the village. In a way, it was literally the job of the elder to be so concerned with the daily lives of each and every person who lived here. This is why the job of elder was given to him. As it had become clear Calenor was destined for this position, Eirlathion had even been asked to help train the young man he was then in some levels of magecraft in order to extend his lifespan, thus how Calenor was still alive now at the age of nearly 800.
Eirlathion knew that were Calenor to find out about the girls, he would keep their secret. However, if it got out to the rest of the village after that… he would likely attempt to reason with them, but unless he could get everyone on board with taking the risk to the village of keeping grey elves alive here, he would have no choice but to declair them to be killed.
Between letting Calenor know or not letting him know, Eirlathion had decided that it would probably be more beneficial to go with the latter option. That way, at the very least, if it was suddenly brought to him by another member of the village he would be left in a state of indecision for a while before making any judgement at all. In fact, it likely raised the chances he would attempt to protect the girls. He would be more likely to pass a judgement unfavorable to the girls if he felt the weight of hiding such a dangerous secret for some time. If he did not have to deal with that, he would be more likely to advocate for the girls more strongly later on when the truth was eventually brought to light.
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All of that said, there was another thing to consider. It was very likely Calenor already had his suspicions. There was something about the way he asked his questions. No, it wasn’t that. It was the questions he didn’t ask and the lack of suspicion or concern where it should have been. However, he had not pressed the issue and had agreed to the explanations Eirlathion offered rather easily. It was like he wanted to believe them and had come to Eirlathion wanting an excuse for him to no longer have to think about this subject. A convenient excuse and plausible deniability. “The master magus who is caring for the girls had said as such, therefore there is nothing to be concerned about.”
After Eirlathion had waited a reasonable amount of time watching his guest leave for the sake of posterity, he turned back in and closed the door behind him. It was good that Calenor seemed to be on his side in this. So long as he did not break the elder’s plausible deniability, he would set conditions so that no-one else could easily find out.
But still, it was not hard to do the math between the attack on Túeth’s village and the birth of the girls, and it did not take a wise man to have your suspicions raised when noticing the girls’ grey skin. The alternate explanation of the illness would normally not be enough to protect them. There have been other mothers of grey elves before in the past who have attempted to claim as such. The only reason it seemed to be accepted here was that it was not the girls’ mother, but a magus in his position who was making the claim this time. Even so, there had to be several in the village who found it suspicious.
He really would have to push his efforts with Aerien. A more delicate touch would be needed with Túeth, but Aerien ought to be more robust in terms of her spirit. He would be certain to work with her as often as he was able to in order to teach her to be responsible while manipulating her energies and avoid damaging herself as she had before.
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Aerien’s POV
I strained my ears to listen as Ether guy handled the person who had come to the door, apparently an elder of the village. My primary concern was whether or not he could really handle it. I wanted to hear how he would handle this. If he couldn’t, I might have to play sick again. He had just told me not to, but the impression I got from how he talked to me about it told me the risk to Gaerien and I if our identity as grey elves was found out would be far greater than whatever risk Ether guy had gotten the impression of from what I had done earlier.
Ether guy wound up using the excuse that I had had a sort of “attack” earlier. That made things really convenient. If the lie was that we were ill and apparently I had some “attacks” due to my illness, it would be an easy matter to suddenly have another one of these attacks. Having heard Ether guy talk to my mother before, I knew he was bright enough. If I suddenly had another incident like that, his first action would likely be to immediately chase the guy out with what was happening to me as an excuse. He would be pretty mad at me when he came back up afterward, but dealing with his anger was better than a threat to my life.
Well, from his reaction, he seemed to be under the impression what I had done also risked my life somehow. I wasn’t too clear on the details behind this. I did not feel like it was as big a deal as he made out of it, but it’s possible I was missing something.
In the end, it turned out I did not actually have to do anything. I was quite impressed with Ether guy’s performance too. Every single word he said in the entire exchange was actually the truth, and he had expertly manipulated the direction of the conversation to where it would actually take a derailing of the entire conversation in order for Ether guy to even try to volunteer the information that he didn’t want revealed in the first place.
Well, it didn’t seem like the other guy’s suspicions were all that high, so it was not exactly a challenging person to deal with. However, suspicions were a creature that seemed small until they were suddenly very big and unmanagable, and the moment that line was crossed and how close people were coming to it was the least visible to the person the suspicions were about. Even a bystander completely uninterested in the situation could see better how close the suspected person’s cover was to being blown than the person themselves. As such, it was best at every moment to keep suspicions as close to zero as possible.
When Ether guy came back up, he had a very stony expression. He must be tired having dealt with two mentally taxing situations in a row. Well, actually three if you count the fright I had apparently given him. When he saw us, he did his best to put on a smiling face, but I could still see the exhaustion under it.
[Well then, sorry about that Aerien. Shall we begin now?]
“No!” I respond in English.
“Haha! ‘No,’ eh? n'uma naa i' beth tanya naa e' sen lammen an?”(Haha! ‘No,’ eh? That means no in their lanugage, right?) He had an amused look on his face as he came closer to me and Levin, who was also looking at me in confusion, and then knelt down very close to us. [What do you mean, ‘no,’ Aerien, eh?] Looks like he doesn’t think I actually meant what I said at all. Going by the confused expressions of Levin, Rolwen, and Gaerien though, they all definitely know I meant what I said.
[Ether need sleep!] I say, using the best broken elven I can muster to get my intentions across. I would have liked to just say later after he’s had a rest, but this is the best I can come up with for now with the same meaning.
[Oh!] He responds in shock. [Sorry, are you saying you are sleepy Aerien? I’m sorry, I forgot you need a lot of sleep at your age.] No, he’s gotten it all wrong! Well, this works too I suppose. However, I don’t sleep anymore! I guess it’s a good thing he hasn’t been constantly attentive around us all that much, otherwise he might know about this and have been a bit more troublesome.
[Well then, Levin, can you help put her to bed? I guess this must have been a little bit of an exhausting experience for her.] I stare at him somewhat judgementally as he stands up and starts moving toward the stairs. You’re really asking a 2 year old to do it!? Well, that’s actually normal for us though, it’s always the four of us together when we sleep and until now he was avoiding us so he had nothing to do with tucking us in or anything of the sort. [Can you tell me when she wakes up, Levin? This is actually pretty important now, so I would like to start working with her as soon as I can.]
“Uhh...” Levin weakly nods with me in his arms. This seems to satisfy Ether guy enough, and he goes down the stairs.
“Whad now?” He asks in a hushed whisper.
(Just wait a few hours and say I’m asleep.) I told him. The three of them all knew about my peculiar condition where sleep was concerned. So, of course he was curious. (Or, maybe you can sleep. You and Rowen were doing a neural exer... err... thing earlier, that should take a lot out of you. You should rest.)
(Ok, yeah. I am pretty tired.) Levin responds. (Anyway, are you Ok Aerien?)
“Uhh?”
(Your mommy before...)
(I’m fine!) I tell him, angry at my baby body once again for being completely incapable of hiding my emotions. That came out a lot louder and grumpier than I wanted it to sound, and I could feel my face contorting into an unpleasant expression.
(Ehh..)
(Don’t! I’ll be Ok. It’s just my baby self is upset.) I assure him. This is a concept only other reincarnated individuals like them could possibly understand. In this situation, it makes my very intensely greatful to have Levin by my side. It really would be troublesome to have to explain this to anyone not in the same situation as me. I doubt they could even understand from the beginning, having two selves that were parts of a whole, affecting one another’s emotions and having different maturity levels. True, my past-life self was causing my baby self to be a lot more mature than it’s actual age, my baby self was probably equal to a 4 year old, but that just made it even more of a handful to deal with since that maturity age gave it a lot of personality and things it could form very strong opinions about.
(Aerien... maybe you should sleep too. You say you don’t need to, but you still can, right?) Well, not really. However, I can close my eyes and lay still and find it plenty restful. And, he might be right. That would probably be just what I need to calm my baby self down.
I agreed, and with that settled out, the four of us climbed into bed as we always do, and even Gaerien seemed quite happy to be getting some sleep. I had been working her pretty hard physically today too after all, she was also quite tired. And, with that, we all fell asleep, or at least the closest thing to it in my own case.
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Author's note
It will not be immediate, but I am considering dropping the frequency of releases sometime in the near future. I have been doing my midterms which have been eating up most of my free time so I had to rush these chapters during whatever time I had. As a result, for this chapter and the chapter before it, I could sense a noticeable drop in quality in a few places. I feel I was still able to relay all the ideas that were in my head still, but I really do feel the presentation could have been better. I may have to post revised versions of both chapters sometime in the future.
Midterms are finished now, and the advance chapter I just completed shows the extra time I have now really made all the difference as it is back up to my usual standards of quality. So, next chapter will return to my usual form. However, this experience showed me that I really can't keep up the pace I have set for myself here and the manner in which the quality of these two chapters suffered as a result really shows the need for me to be a bit more flexible with the release schedule.
Because of this, I plan to keep up the current pace until the end of the second act. Once act 2 is complete, I will be taking a bit of a break from this series. I will be thinking about what is a reasonable schedule at that time. I will also likely take a break during my second midterms in three weeks in order to avoid another drop in quality like this.
As for this chapter, I know you are your own biggest critic, so I'm not entirely certain how many other people noticed the drop in quality, but I hope it was not too disruptive. I definitely still mean to revise them whenever I get the chance just as a point of pride. And also, I'm sorry to anyone who actually did notice and was bothered by the drop in quality. This will not become an ongoing thing.