It felt like I’d been underground a lot lately.

But this place was… far different than any others so far.

Walking behind Berri, who walked a little slowly thanks to her limp, I lifted my little lamp a little more to study the strange bricks all around us.

We were in a rather big hallway. The stairs we had descended to get here had been… rather long. I wasn’t entirely sure just how deep beneath the earth we were, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I learned we were deeper than I’d ever been.

Even the mine back at the Smithy hadn’t felt this deep, for some reason.

What was strangest about this place, however... was the fact that Oplar had not been joined us. She had been very adamant about not coming with me. I had not gotten an explanation for the reason as to why, yet, but... well... Berri had made it very clear. That I was to not tell anyone about this underground place.

This place was special. Though so far I was not sure why.

“This was a tomb once. For a god. We retrofitted it long ago, for the wars. After the wars it’s now more of a vault than anything else, really,” Berri explained.

The wars…

“A god?” I asked carefully.

Berri lifted her lamp a little more as the hallway ended, and opened up into a room.

Stepping out of the hallway, we came to a small stop as Berri lifted her lamp as to illuminate one of the nearby walls.

The wall was bright. Completely unlike the black stone bricks that seemed to absorb light, this wall made the whole area brighter. It reflected our lamp’s light easily, thanks to all the bright colors.

“A painting…?” I wondered as I too lifted my lamp, to take in the whole scene.

“A mural. It’s basically a painting, but done with lots of tiny pieces. In this case ceramics,” Berri explained.

Ceramic…

I stepped forward, both to light up the wall better… and to get a better look at what she spoke of.

Upon closer inspection it was obvious what she meant. The painting, the picture, was made up of countless little pieces of colorful stones. Most looked flat, and glossy, which explained why they reflected light so well. They were also no bigger than my thumbnail.

Stepping back, to get the whole picture in view, I wondered how long it’d take to make something like this. The wall itself was several times my height, and the painting was so big even with it being bright and reflected our two lamps couldn’t illuminate it completely. Most of its edges were dark and hard to make out from this angle.

“This one is about the god that was entombed here. That’s them in the middle, and all the surrounding motifs are supposedly their deeds,” Berri said with a point.

I nodded as I studied the person in the center. It was a larger motif of a person, a human looking being, from the waist upward. They looked… relatively normal, all things considered. Their hair was a odd green color, but that might just be the artists attempt at making them look unique.

All around the center image, of this supposed god, were many little scenes. They all had circles around them, of varying plants and flowers as borders, and the scenes themselves were about the size of my head. Some looked… strange and out of place, while others were just simple illustrations of typical stuff. One was a field of wheat. While another had a strange monster, akin to maybe a Monarch.

“Uh… so… are you saying a god was here? Is the body still here?” I asked.

Berri giggled at me. “It had been. Yes.”

Had been. Had she seen it…? Really?

I resisted the many questions that quickly came and went as Berri stepped away, heading deeper into the room.

I followed her, and noticed that the rest of the walls in the room were similar. They were all decorated with scenes and paintings. Though not all of them were very colorful. One even looked somewhat destroyed…

Hopefully they’ll let me back down here again, so I could study them.

We left the room and entered a new hallway. One that was a little smaller than the last, and had faint smell of dampness and water.

“I’m told you’re very astute. With a memory unmatched,” Berri said.

“I remember things well, yes,” I said.

“Haha… so humble. That’s a unique trait to have, you know? I can barely remember what I ate for dinner a few days ago sometimes,” Berri said.

Oh…? Was she serious, or was she much older than I thought she was?

It was hard to tell, honestly…

Berri was deformed. Half her body, her left half, had horrible scars. From burns and worse. They were so bad that even her hair on that half of her head barely grew, with only a few strands.

Those deformities made it hard to really pinpoint how old she could possibly be. Horn looked older than Vim, but I knew of course one’s appearance didn’t relay ones age correctly, especially for us non-humans. Plus judging her age based off Horn's wasn't viable either.

“Forgetting such things would only make them more memorable when they happened, at least,” I said.

Berri slowed a bit, and she tilted her head and glanced back at me. “That’s true, isn’t it? If one doesn’t remember the taste of food, they’ll get to enjoy it as new every time they ate it. Are you saying you can remember things in such detail, that even meals can be boring for you?” she asked.

Well… “Sometimes, I suppose,” I admitted. I could remember eating and the taste of, most things rather well. Yet I still enjoyed it when I ate stuff, especially the things I enjoyed… but it was true that I sometimes noticed discrepancies.

When I ate something I really enjoyed, and found it tasting off it bothered me. Because I was comparing it to something I had eaten a long time ago.

“Hm… Wonder how that affects you in other ways. Must make having conversations odd, with Vim,” she said as she thought of something.

“Odd?” I asked.

Berri returned to walking. “Yeah. That means eventually he’ll ask things he’s asked before. And you’ll have to have the same conversation again, because he doesn’t remember the things you do,” she said.

Frowning, I wondered how she had come to such a conclusion so quickly. “You’re not entirely wrong… I once lived with a human, for a long time. Nory. She used to forget things often, and I’d have to remind her,” I said. Particularly as she grew older.

“Right…? My husband is… a rather simple man, to be honest. I’m always reminding him of many things. Even the simple stuff, like his daughter’s favorite color or meal,” Berri said with a sigh.

Oh…? That was a little more than not having a good memory, I think. How did one not remember their daughter’s favorite meal?

Speaking of daughter though…

I bit my tongue as I wondered if I should ask about her or not.

She had seemed like a timid girl. A little shorter than me. Long, abundant hair. A smaller horn than her parents, and…

And eyes of pure white.

Like the Chronicler.

Like the witch I had once known.

Vim had told me that the witch I’d known had likely been a saint. Yet he’s also mentioned before that the Chronicler was not one. So either some people were just… born with such eyes, or…

“And here, is the Keep proper,” Berri then said as we left the hallway and entered a new room.

Upon entering, I noted the sound of running water. Nothing too strong, but there was definitely some kind of stream or something nearby.

I scanned the room, and didn’t find the source of the water sounds, but I did find more murals… and also statues.

Lifting my lamp, I stepped over to the nearest statue. It was a white stone one, depicting a stout man. One full of muscles, more than any I’d ever seen on any person before. It was so detailed and emphasized on the man's muscles that I doubted it was a real likeness. How could someone even walk around with such thick legs?

The statue wasn’t something put here, but built into the place. Although made of some kind of white stone, it was made into the floor and ceiling. Like a pillar that had been carved. Above the head of the man, was a section that bent off and went upward to the ceiling.

“Who’s this?” I asked.

“I’m told it had been the son of the god. The one who had been buried here,” Berri said as she stepped up next to me, to raise her lamp too.

The son…

Well… he looked godly, at least. Much more than the other painting had made this supposed god out to be.

The statue was several times bigger than any person would be. Even Link was small compared to it. And every inch of the man’s body was carved in a way to display his profound form.

Although the very muscular form was interesting, I was far more interested in the odd thing he carried in his left hand. He held it outward, as if to display it proudly. Like some prize.

The head of an animal. Some kind of boar.

“So um… what’s the story behind this?” I asked.

“He had slain a mighty foe. Though to be honest I don’t know the true story. Some of them have tiny plaques that tell the story, but this one doesn’t… or didn’t,” Berri said.

Hm…

I stepped back a bit, to look at the other statues. All of them were similar, made of the same white stone… and formed in ways to act more like pillars than anything else. One was even a real pillar, made and formed into one, and had what looked to be some kind of serpent animal wrapped around it.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Counting a quick eleven, I realized that they were all created in a formation. A giant circle…

Stepping around the statue, I stepped over to the center of the room, and finally found the source of both the sound of flowing water… and the slight smell of dampness.

A small stream of water was flowing in the ground. In a carved out section… akin to a gutter. It ran to the center of the room, where it opened into a tiny pool, and then branched off into a dozen other paths.

“So um… why the water?” I asked.

“This way,” Berri smiled as she gestured with her lamp, to another hallway.

One that also had a gutter of water, flowing straight down its center.

I followed her, walking along one side of the water and her the other. The gutter didn’t seem too deep, but it was obvious from the sound that there was more water flowing through it than appeared. I bet if I stepped into the gutter the water would reach past my ankle.

I wonder if I could touch it. Was it cold? It was kind of warm down here, really.

Keeping my questions and ideas inside to myself, I followed Berri to another room… one that was bigger than the last few.

And had lights.

I slowed to a stop as I left the room, as Berri continued walk to the room’s center. She strode towards the podiums in the center of the room without hesitation.

Which meant she knew full well what was sitting on the center podium… glowing blue.

Shivering at the sight of a monarch’s heart, I realized now why Oplar had not been allowed to come down with us.

I had thought she had simply hadn’t wanted to… but now…

Taking a deep breath, I firmed my resolve and headed deeper into the room.

The glowing heart was about the size of Miss Beak’s. Yet unlike hers that glowed a pinkish color, this one was a deep blue… just like the water that was seeping from it. It was resting on a podium, made of the same white stone of those statues earlier. Yet although on the podium, it was also on some kind of black glossy stand… one that sloped downward, allowing the water seeping from the heart to flow down the podium and then to the floor.

From the podium the water formed a small circular pool, and then branched off into those gutters. The water flowed outward from there, leaving the room.

Berri paused in front of the podium, and then bent down a little to put her lamp on the ground.

Walking up to her, I glanced around at the other podiums. Like the one with the heart on it, they too had little stands… but none of the other ones had hearts.

Had they at one time? Or…?

“See the water? It leaks pure water. Continuously. It’s an indefinite source of fresh, drinkable, water. The water pools and flows to several storage rooms, which then also flow out to the nearby lakes and rivers. It had been very useful during the wars,” Berri said as she gestured to the podium, and the heart upon it.

I gulped. “Ah… um…”

Stepping up next to her, I too lowered my lamp… but I didn’t put it down.

“You’re wondering why I’m showing you this,” Berri noted.

I nodded. “Well…”

“Vim asked me to,” she answered.

“Oh,” I nodded again.

Berri giggled. “Such an answer made perfect sense to you didn’t it?” she asked.

“Well… yes?” I said, suddenly unsure of myself. Why had she found that so odd?

“Good. It means Vim’s trust is not just something that you view as expected, but naturally so. It means he really does trust you and you him. A good trait for a mate.”

Mate again. She must be far older than me. She had called Horn husband earlier, though.

“I uh… like to think he trusts me, yes,” I said.

Berri shifted, as to lean more on her right leg than her left. Maybe she was getting tired.

Were there any chairs nearby…? Maybe somewhere to sit? It was too bad there weren’t any raised sections in the ground around us.

“This heart. It used to be one of many,” Berri pointed to the heart, confirming my earlier suspicions.

“Hm,” I nodded as I stared into the blue orb. It looked… like it was swirling. Unlike Miss Beak’s heart that gleamed from within, as if it had a tiny little fire, this one looked like a swirling whirlpool was inside it.

“Vim took the rest. But he decided this one the most important. To keep just in case,” she said.

I blinked. “I’m surprised. He seems to really… not trust them,” I said.

“Indeed. It just goes to show how important it was,” she said.

“During the wars… you mean to say fresh water was that important?” I asked.

She nodded. “There had been a few moments when this had been verily important, yes. It hadn’t been here however, but elsewhere. Farther south, where it had been used. This place had been modified for it afterward, to ensure we’d have fresh water if a day ever came again when the world itself became our enemy,” Berri said.

The world itself…

She meant that literally, didn’t she?

Did that means she was not speaking of the wars recently, but other ones? Not of the wars between our own kind and the humans, but…

“Vim has asked me to share what history I know. I think he’s more so asking me to share my story with you than anything else… but just in case, I’ll do my best to tell you of all I know all the same,” Berri then said.

“Oh…?” I perked up at that. Her story? I’d love to hear it.

“He’s… fickle. He could share so much more, yet never does. It took years for him to properly teach Narli what she needed to know, and that had been life and death! I love the man, but wish he wasn’t so odd sometimes,” Berri said.

I quickly nodded, agreeing. “Oh yes. I know what you mean. He’s promised to teach me, yet it’s always a pain to get him to go into detail. I’ve come to accept that it will just take me years, many, many years, to learn even the smallest things,” I said.

She chuckled. “Right…? I wonder who taught him to be so secretive. I bet his parents had been strange,” she said.

Parents…

Did she know them? Or rather, had she? I was unsure if I should ask.

Also…

Narli needed to know something that affected her survival…?

I’m surprised he’d not be forthcoming with such information. Yes he kept secrets, but when it came to life and death…

I mean look at that stupid book he had sent Rapti. He had a soft spot for certain types of pursuits of knowledge, yet others…

“It’s mostly his own information he guards so strongly, I think,” I said as I thought about it.

“That is true. His own life. His past. His deeds… yet so much of his story is our own. So it ends up interfering and suppressing our own knowledge,” Berri said with a sigh.

“Isn’t that the truth,” I agreed.

She shifted again, and I noticed she had returned her weight to her left leg. I tried not to stare too much as she sighed and gestured to the podium again. “Any doubt of your relationship with Vim shattered the moment he told me to show you this. As far as I’m aware, the hearts of monarchs have all but become legend within the Society. For good reason, really. I can’t blame Vim for using such a method to protect them. Though it’s interesting he had thought of it so long ago. It tells you just how far ahead he plans sometimes,” Berri said.

It was my turn to shift as I soaked up her words.

“The Keep’s original purpose was to be a stronghold. A sanctuary. A place for those of the Society to run to, in times of need. Thanks to the structure, the stores and resources, we could seal ourselves in and survive for years and years. Long enough to allow Vim to return and save any who need to be. Today though its purpose has become more of a vault, for the hearts he places here occasionally, amongst other things,” Berri said.

“There are other hearts here?” I asked. The other podiums were empty.

“Not yet. They come and go, as Vim deals with them,” Berri said.

Hm…

“And ever since my daughter’s birth, other odd things show up from time to time as well. It makes me wonder what will happen once she fully matures and takes over,” Berri said with a sigh.

Oh…?

“Odd things…?” I asked, unable to contain my curiosity.

She nodded. “Strange items mostly. It’s really weird. But such is fate for one such as her…” Berri said as she crossed her arms.

Wanting to ask more, I hesitated as I noticed the look on her face. It was a little hard to tell, thanks to the shadows casted upon her and her scarred face… but…

Yes. That was discomfort and worry. And not just from pain or anything from her own body. She didn’t like talking about the current topic.

She took a deep breath, and I watched as she simply… accepted her fate. Or at least, whatever fate she perceived.

“But we all have worries and tribulations. And not a one of us is strong enough for any of them, are we?” Berri said.

“We try to be, at least,” I said lightly. I wanted to say she must have been strong enough, to have survived what had obviously deformed her… but maybe she’d not have taken it well.

“That we do… that we do,” she agreed as she nodded.

As she nodded I noticed her horn again. I wonder if it was as pointy as it looked.

“And now again, a new worry. A new trial. But like always it is one we must struggle with, since he won’t be phased at all by it,” Berri said with a sigh.

I shifted, and my ear fluttered as I realized what she was talking about.

“This vote. It troubles me,” Berri then said.

“Mhm. Me too,” I agreed.

“Vim… he’s not able to defend himself. Not against us. Not in that way,” she said.

Suddenly the heart wasn’t very interesting at all.

“That’s… a very good way to say it, to say the least,” I said.

“So… will you be able to do it?” she then asked.

I shifted, and my tail coiled a little. My lamp, thanks to it hanging at my side, made my tail’s shadow dance in the corner of my eye as I stared into her single one.

Berri’s eye… gleamed a little. In an unnatural way. Not from tears.

Odds are it was a trait. Some of us non-humans had such eyes. Eyes that strangely gleamed in the dark. I’d been told mine did the same.

“I’ll do my best to, at least,” I finally told her.

Berri studied me for a moment… and then smiled and nodded. “Good.”

Feeling oddly humbled, I realized that Berri was… likely someone I could trust. Someone I could become friends with.

For her to not only worry over the vote… but to imply that I needed to do what Vim wouldn’t, or couldn’t, was… very telling.

Very telling indeed.

Before I could say anything, my ears forced my head to turn a little. To look down the hallway we had just come from.

Someone was heading our way.

And judging by the sounds of the footsteps, it was someone young and very light on her feet.

“Hm,” Berri too noticed her daughter before she emerged from the hallway. I stepped back a little, to give Narli a direct and unbothered path to her mother.

She was a strangely timid girl, and I’ve grown to know that such simply little gestures such as that were what they truly treasured the most.

Narli’s glowing eyes became visible first. The two small glowing orbs looked… odd in the dark. Once she entered the room however, thanks to the lamps and the heart, the glow of her eyes dimmed enough to not be as unsettling.

She smiled at the sight of her mother, and picked up her pace.

“Why, Narli, really?” Berri said gently as Narli went to standing behind her mother, to peer at me from behind her arm.

I smiled at the girl. “I’m actually very gentle you know,” I told her.

Surprisingly the girl nodded, her glowing orbs for eyes becoming smaller as she seemed to glare at me. “I do know. You’d die before you’d hurt me,” she said.

I frowned, since Narli had not only said something interesting… but had done so with the utmost confidence.

She had just declared something with such surety that I doubted anyone who had heard her wouldn’t believe her. As if it had been proven already.

Berri reached around, to gently pat her daughter’s arm. “Then why cower, dear?” Berri asked her daughter.

The girl frowned, and glanced up at her mother. Thanks to her looking straight at her, I noticed something odd.

She had pupils… but they were hidden when looked at straight on. They glowed too, in a similar way her eyes did, but they were just off-colored to be noticed. “She’d never hurt me… but she’s also dangerous,” Narli told her mother.

“Dangerous…?” both Berri and I said at the same time.

The girl nodded, and returned her attention to me. Her pupils disappeared, and I tried to find them in the glow. Why did they disappear when we looked at each other? So interesting. “Your existence. It’s dangerous,” she told me.

My… “My existence…” I said softly, and tried to comprehend what she meant.

If she knew I’d never harm her… how then was I a dangerous person? Or was she saying my existence was not a threat to her, but other things? Maybe her family? Her home? The world…?

For some reason I found that very unsettling. Why was such a timid young girl saying such a thing? With sure surety?

Berri sighed. “Honey, I’ve always happily supported your right to speak your mind… but what have I told you of prophecies?” Berri then said.

Huh…?

“It’s not really a prophecy, mother… it’s just… well…” Narli went to mumbling, typical of a scolded child, but… I couldn’t comprehend the previous comment.

“Wait…!” I stepped forward, to raise a hand… and both of them went quiet as they looked at me.

I gulped, afraid of what I was both going to ask… and what kind of answer I’d get.

“Oh… oh my. Has no one told you yet…?” Berri asked, realizing.

I groaned, realizing the truth even before being told.

Berri nodded, and then so too did her daughter.

Her eyes grew a little brighter, and I shivered.

“I’m a saint,” Narli said.