The rain decided to pick up in mid-June instead of waiting another month. Matteo wouldn’t call himself annoyed so much as inconvenienced—a lot of plans he had with his friends needed the weather to be mostly clear if not completely sunny. It meant slightly more boring days just hanging around the conservatory or the Qrian house.
Not that he could always be available for friends even if they ignored the weather; rainy season meant at least one request for Matteo to stay with Tara. Adelinde and Rene acknowledged that her fear wasn’t ideal, but they also didn’t force her to overcome it at a pace she wasn’t comfortable with. They didn’t start encouraging her to move past it until recently.
Adelinde had to do some shopping, having put it off due to the rain but reaching a point where she couldn’t; Rene still had work, bad weather or not. Matteo half-volunteered to watch Tara as a result.
He didn’t mind; they weren’t the closest, but he was still her brother. It might give her reasons to possibly talk to him more, at least, if he didn’t leave her on her own when she got distressed.
They went to the Qrian house right after breakfast; a light drizzle started once they got there. Matteo hesitated in the hallway and glanced back at his sister.
“I was planning on translating more,” Matteo said. “Want me to sit in the music room instead, or?”
“…I guess it depends,” Tara replied quietly, coming inside and closing the door behind her. “Can you hear the rain more or less than at home?”
“I’m not usually here during heavy storms, so I honestly can’t say for sure; I’d say less, though? There’s less places on the house itself for rain to hit—pretty much just the front and roof, since there’s neighbors close on either side.”
She thought it over for a moment, then decided, “It’s up to you, then. It wouldn’t be as pleasant of a distraction regardless.”
Matteo managed a chuckle and teasing look. “Hey, I take offense to that. Mom taught me herself.”
“Rene’s better on the guitar than you on piano.” She walked into the library without ever quite looking at him, keeping her drawing supplies close.
“Okay, now I think you’re just insulting me. I would call us about the same.”
“Considering the experience you have? No.”
Matteo followed after her and took a spot behind the desk while she sat leaning against a bookshelf so she didn’t face the window. He considered questioning her before deciding against it, the two falling into silence fairly quickly.
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He took the papers (one with the first island text, another with stuff he could actually read) and the book he was using to translate it—both still in the general area of the desk, since he just stuffed them in a drawer whenever his friends came over—and continued. He came by for an hour or so every day since returning to try to get all of it done.
Matteo couldn’t say it really gave him good feelings, but he also didn’t expect much from a gravestone. What he had translated so far was…different than a usual epitaph; it was a whole story in and of itself—the origin of the legend he was there to look into, most likely.
He kept working until the translated paper had pretty much the whole thing. Partly because the rain outside—heavier now—probably bothered her and partly because being with someone that didn’t talk bothered him, he looked up at Tara.
“I think I pretty much finished translating the text on that gravestone,” Matteo said. “Do you want to see it?”
“Honestly? No.” She paused for a moment, then sighed and sat her sketchbook aside. “…But I might as well.”
Matteo nodded, closing the translating book while Tara walked over. He helpfully moved the translated paper over so she could read it better.
-.-
In the world’s earliest years, there was only one island—said island is known now by the two nations that inhabited it. The sister nations of Gin and Kuro were founded in a great war between half-god cousins; as punishment for their feud, those nations’ people were punished.
The people of Kuro were cursed to cause every conflict of the world, becoming a nation of strength and power in order to win those conflicts. The people of Gin were cursed to one day bring about the end of both nations, becoming a nation of peace and cunning to overcome it.
The island coexisted for thousands of years before the Final War of Gin and Kuro—the last conflict either nation saw. In wake of both sides losing their royal families, chaos replaced the relative stability. All human families were forced to leave.
Among these was a small group leaving Gin by ship, sailing into a storm in their haste to leave and anger at losing their homes. The sea tossed the ship around, and thunder rolled all around them. The passengers came together when the ship began to fill with water—and while the gods had surely forsaken them, they prayed all the same.
A single girl could hear the answer to those prayers; a stranger appeared before her, a young appearance betraying wise eyes.
“You have been cast away from your own gods,” the stranger told the girl. “Are you ready to die?”
“I am not,” the girl replied.
“In order to live, will you like to help me?”
“I will do anything in order to live.”
The stranger smiled. “Very well, then. You will be granted the highest honor—the power to guide and rule a new nation, borne of my people’s blood and your memories of home. It will be a place of pure bliss, modeled after the place your gods have refused to give you.”
The girl smiled back as well, but as soon as the stranger stopped, she drowned alongside the others on the ship. The stranger—a god who saw the loss of a nation as an injustice to its people—took her spirit and placed it in a shrine meant for all nations’ gods.
Here lies the spirit of the girl, only to be awakened when the conditions are met. May she rise again to create a nation.