I take a bite of the blue glowing fruit, as I no longer need it as a lantern walking under the sun through the forest. The flesh was sweet and tangy, but a gush of liquid caught me by surprise. The juice of the fruit spilled all over my clothes and I was now the one who glowed. The fruit, having served its purpose, reabsorbed into the staff, and I stared at Cranbeatha in amazement. Do all essence reservoirs just react on their own like this? My grandfather’s gloves were dormant until I put them on, and my father’s sword was tranquil until acted upon as well, so why does my staff seem to move on its own? I can’t use inscription or external essence manipulation, so the fact that my father’s spell is inscribed into a leaf of the tree also doesn’t make sense to me. It also consumed my journal without me telling it to do so.
I find this staff a strange oddity, but at the same time it feels like a missing part of me that has after so much time reunited with me. Though I have had Cranbeatha for only a few moments it is as if we have always been together, or that we should have been together. All the time before now feels like somehow, I had been missing a hand that I just now had surgically reattached to my body.
I trip in the snow and the staff holds its position in the air. For a brief second, I cling to the staff hanging suspended above the ground, until the shock of the moment catches up to me and I loosen my grip finishing my fall. I stare from my back at my essence reservoir floating above me. I get up on my own and watch the staff continue to float on its own. I take a few steps away from it and it follows me still hovering in the air. I reach out my hand and it floats to meet my grasp. The thing seems to have a mind of its own.
I rush my journey back to the gymnasium having more questions I wish to ask my grandfather. What have I made? No, I didn’t make this, it made itself. How is that possible, my soul has to command my essence, yet this staff moves and functions independently of me. I know a small portion of my soul is in the staff, but is that really enough for it to do all of this?
Entering the clearing of the gymnasium I begin to prepare some firewood so that when I speak to my grandfather, I can warm myself up and dry the wet spots on my clothes. The staff floats behind me as I rush around the clearing gathering what I need. Just as I finish organizing the wood and begin to use a bow drill to start the fire, the staff again of its own accord acts. A ball of plasma descends from where the fruit once was and lights the fire for me. How is it doing this, and where is it deriving its power?
Worried that the staff is wasting essence I plunged the staff into the ground next to me as I sit by the fire and its base unraveled as it spread and dug its roots into the ground. The leaves covering the shaft of the staff making the leathery grip, broke into individual leaves and flowers that traveled up the staff. Branches shot off from the top of the staff to provide places for the leaves and flowers to sit. Once more the staff was a tree, and I sat under its shade. The branches once fully formed move to bring themselves a safe distance away from the fire and almost sensing my dissatisfaction with being in the shade move to let the sun’s rays warm me alongside the fire.
I put on my grandfather’s gloves and a burning sensation consumes my hands. I try to tear them from my hands, but they won’t let go. This burning is new, even when my grandfather forcefully drains my essence the feeling is incredibly different as it feels like a tearing in my body not a burning. I change my gaze to see essence and what I see is the essence in my body attempting to resist the gloves, but my essence couldn’t breach my flesh to attack what it now despises.
“Please endure the pain, and attempt to let me in,” whispers my grandfather, “now that your soul acknowledges your essence reservoir, it sees me as a thief. After today your soul will completely reject me.”
I try to relax my essence, but the best I can do is force it away from my hands. The burning stops, but the essence in my body still tries to blitz to the flesh of my hands as if to protect me. My soul like my grandfather said, now seems to see the gloves as something malevolent. The branches of the tree also react to the gloves as they reach for them.
“I’ll now be returning what little of my stockpile I have left, as that might appease your soul and permit me one last conversation with you,” says my grandfather, and essence leaves the gloves and enters my body. I feel the essence that once barraged my hands and that I had to willfully restrain begin to relax and retreat, as it accepts the gift of my own essence.
“This is it huh?” I say letting this heavy truth sink into my soul. Soon I’ll have one less ally in the world, one less mentor, and will truly be on my own to discover myself and the full extent of what I am.
“I feel so spent, but I will do what I can to keep myself present for this last conversation,” says my grandfather appearing beside me as an exhausted specter who’s form fades in and out of my sight, “I never knew that inscribing my memories would be useful or inscribing a way to communicate with my future generations would work. But here I am with my grandson, teaching him as much as I can before I will truly fade into memory.”
“Wait, so your being here isn’t your reservoir’s doing, but you prepared for something like this to happen?” I ask looking back at Cranbeatha.
“Yes, why do you ask this, Skath? Common essence reservoirs are just inanimate objects used to hold essence. Which reminds me, where is yours? I know you have one given that your soul is rejecting me. Did you use your journal? I personally thought you would,” says my grandfather looking me up and down trying to figure out where my reservoir was.
I point behind myself to the tree and say, “My essence reservoir is the tree. It told me its name is Cranbeatha.”
“Don’t jest with me. There is no way an essence reservoir can be made from a living thing; its soul would spurn you. So many tried and that was always the result. Unless you like your father actually did the impossible and made a living reservoir,” says my grandfather staring at the tree in disbelief.
I pick up the tree from the ground and it morphs into a staff. I point to the staff now in my hand and enjoy the shocked expression on my grandfather’s face. His ghostly form moves closer to the staff to examine it and he shakes his head, as if not accepting what he is seeing.
“Your staff carries a soul that is a merging of yours and its own! You truly have done it, you have made a legend a reality!” says my grandfather continuing to marvel at my reservoir, “what you have made, the portion of your soul you dedicated to your reservoir didn’t fracture and infuse an inanimate object, but united with the soul of the tree. Your soul melds and transforms the soul of the tree as we speak, and weirdly enough this tree is more a celandil than you are. It itself makes essence similar to a celandil’s, and from what I can tell in your memories this tree bears consciousness.”
“My essence reservoir has a mutated version of my soul, and lives and thinks like I do,” I say looking at my reservoir with a newfound wonder, “so we kind of are kindred, if not joined spirits.”
“That reservoir will grow with you, and serve more as a companion than a tool,” says my grandfather grinning at me, “you surprise me boy. However, time grows short.”
“Before we continue, what did you mean in your directions to make an essence reservoir, and what name did your gloves whisper to you when you made them?” I ask raising my hands to look at my grandfather’s essence reservoir more closely.
“My directions were more figurative than literal, but if you didn’t interpret them as such your reservoir would have never been made,” says my grandfather with a strained chuckle and I see him trip slightly. What strength he has left is being made apparent as the way he carries himself is nothing like the confident man he is. He hunches over and his breathing is labored, but he continues as if painfully forward with our conversation, “What I meant by my words by finding something that spoke to you was to find materials to make something. Then after making said object, you would infuse it with your soul. The new object being made in a time when your soul had been trained as a celandil I figured wouldn’t carry as much influence from your human half. After all of the previous work to make your essence reservoir, I thought you would name your reservoir yourself what you felt it should be named. I was wrong, as it seems like your reservoir named itself, whereas I named mine. My reservoir is not just one but two, and their names are Eolas and Eagna.”
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“You could have explained that better,” I say looking upon Eolas and Eagna, feeling a deeper connection to them knowing their names, “but as a part of your soul is in them, why don’t your gloves bare a certain level of consciousness. The other essence reservoirs I’ve come across seem to radiate a certain part of the personality of their creator, so isn’t there something in them that is you.”
“Perhaps, but it isn’t a true soul like your reservoir, but a mere remnant of the creator contained in said reservoirs,” explains my grandfather bracing himself against a tree, “the same could be said of a painting, or even some other work of art. You may be more impacted by reservoirs particularly given your mixed heritage, but creation unto itself does invest a portion of oneself into what is created, it doesn’t matter if you are a celandil or human. This doesn’t mean that the object inherently has consciousness or breath, but is impactful none the less, for it is a piece of the creator.”
“So, what I feel is essentially what I experience with you being the essence of a memory,” I say to receive an affirming nod from my grandfather.
“Come, before I fade. I have something to show you,” says my grandfather and my world begins to morph and shift as my consciousness is taken to the classroom in my head.
The fourth wall is now gone, and we stand on a glass platform looking down upon the world. Below us the globe fills my vision and I see the great waters upon it and the greens and tans of the land. I look up into the sky and see stars as far as the eye can see. Behind us the sun burns, its light brilliant in the vast darkness.
“Welcome to Nuren, my boy,” says my grandfather sitting on the edge of the platform, “the world is a vast place and Unadeam is literally just that small speck right there.”
I follow my grandfather’s finger to a small green patch in the mountains of a large landmass that would be two if it wasn’t for an isthmus acting as a bridge between the northern and southern landmasses. Seeing how small a place in the world I had roamed my whole life, I can’t help but feel miniscule. The time I had sat in a teratolion tunnel above Unadeam made me feel small, but now that I see the world from this view where humans don’t even appear as specs of dust, I feel like certain of my worries melt into nothingness. The massiveness of the universe makes all the things I fight for feel meaningless.
“I do not know who peoples this world,” says my grandfather as we hurdle through space, “what exists now, wasn’t what existed when I traveled the world. In fact, the little hole of Unadeam where you live is my fault. I detonated a super volcano to end a massive battle in a second. Over there that desert, was created by the unknown war, where thousands of celandil who were seen to be a threat to the government for being too powerful or posing some other risks to their political legitimacy were sent to die, which included myself,” says my grandfather pointing to the northern landmass where the whole eastern section beyond a central mountain range was unmistakably a desert.
“My father said that you were responsible for that desert,” I say looking down at where my grandfather was pointing.
“Humans spread that rumor, as it was there that I unleashed the teratolion upon the world,” says my grandfather with a regretful sigh, “The truth is that whole area was once forested, and a fabricated war that lasted for over a thousand years led to that entire half a continent being decimated.”
“A whole half a continent destroyed but weren’t the celandil and humanity under one governing body, or at least that’s what I thought,” I say looking at the desert below.
“What can you do to maintain control in a world populated by demi-gods? How can one maintain political power when someone born tomorrow could have the talent to usurp you through personal might alone?” My grandfather explains as he puts an arm around me, and with us being in my head his arm is tangible to me, “The answer was to control using fear and manipulation, and through all manner of propaganda and information control a perpetual war of rebels and loyalists was created. The leaders of my people controlled both sides of the conflict, neither side being the wiser. They threw dissidents and loyal servants alike into a meat grinder of souls.”
“You’re kidding. Your leaders had their own people fight each other just so that they could maintain power,” I say looking down at the scar on the planet that now bore testimony of horrific atrocities.
“I know you have questions about the past, but I need to change the topic as I do not have much time left. This isn’t the conversation I wanted to have. I wanted to spend my last moments talking about something completely different,” says my grandfather waving his hand and the glass panel we sat upon began to descend to the surface of Nuren, “today you graduate, and I wished to speak with you as I won’t be able to speak with you again in the future.”
“So, you wish to give me some parting wisdom,” I say trying to force a smile upon my face, remembering that is what my grandfather wished for at this moment.
“No, I just wish to speak with you. No lessons, no learning, just talking. I just want a conversation between grandfather and grandson while enjoying the view,” says my grandfather looking into the sky and I see him physically relax as he stares at the stars, “Isn’t it fascinating that we can live and experience the universe and look upon her beauty and splendor, and bask in her truths as such small and impermanent creatures? Isn’t it a miracle that we can study and truly understand the workings of life, and all things? We are surrounded by marvels, and though we are less than dust on a universal scale, we are some of the lucky few to gaze upon reality with curious eyes.”
“Doesn’t that smallness frighten you? Like everything we do is just insignificant,” I say looking up into the sky with my grandfather.
“Don’t succumb to nihilism, my dear boy. Just because a story ends doesn’t mean it is worthless, if anything it needs to end so that the reader or listener can go forward changed,” says my grandfather ruffling my hair, “We cannot live thinking that our actions have no significance on the future, as even the smallest of actions can change the path of another dramatically. We may exist for a small time, but our actions ripple ever forward through time.”
“What would happen if all humans just disappeared, wouldn’t that be the moment that you fade permanently and those ripples you mentioned would just stop?” I ask still not convinced by my grandfather.
“So, you are saying that if everything you do doesn’t somehow perpetuate, life isn’t worth living?” asks my grandfather with a quiet, if not serene laugh, “No! My dear boy, do not think so far forward that you cannot see what is right before your eyes. The future doesn’t exist yet, we can only anxiously speculate at what is to come. Granted, we can learn to predict with a measure of reliability to potentially avoid disaster, or garner reward, but nothing is truly certain. The reason being, we can at this very moment decide to defy our imagined forecasts.”
“So, I shouldn’t worry about the future at all? That doesn’t seem right.” I say watching the clouds pass by my grandfather and me as we continue our descent.
“No, I guess what I was trying to say is to not devalue the present, as the future is made and not set in stone. However, I should ask you if saving Uzuri means nothing, especially if all things are meaningless in the end, would you still do it?” asks my grandfather jumping from the platform to the cliffside we had met on.
I follow him and look over the bay, that I had only seen once before and respond to my grandfather’s question, “I’d still save her.”
“There’s your answer, purpose and meaning are found in the now and that will be painted upon the massive mural of time,” says my grandfather walking up to the cave he claimed to have died in, “time is just a gigantic painting the universe and all living things add to, and we all leave marks throughout our lifetime that will continue to exist into infinitum. Though our marks may not go on to inspire past a certain point in the future, we still existed, and in a certain sense still exist upon the mural of time, and that is what is important.”
I hear an explosion in the distance and see something sparkle in the sky and a larger boom fills the bay with sound. A flash of light spreads across the sky filling it with sparkling color. More concussive blasts burst in the distance and more flaming sky flowers are thrown into the air.
“We should live like these fireworks. we will live a short time, but we should live impactfully,” says my grandfather sitting on the cliffside to watch the fireworks display, “Remember the flaming sun and moon when we visited the teratolion? fireworks take the chemical reactions of those and add to it a little to make something truly spectacular. I hope that this gives you some ideas on how to scare the ever-living shit out of that village when you do go and save your love. There I go running my mouth and teaching when I said I wouldn’t. Anyway, happy graduation Skath!”
I sit by my grandfather and watch the fireworks explode in the sky over the water of the bay. I look at my grandfather tiredly grinning next to me, and I can’t help but smile watching the spectacle. The sky was ablaze with colors, shapes, and sounds, that danced upon the water below. I look back to my grandfather and he’s gone.
“Thank you for seeing me off with a smile,” says my grandfather and I hear one last explosion and my mind shifts back to reality. A stupid grin was still on my face, but tears were falling down my cheeks. The gloves on my hands looked charred like they had gone through a fire and were now utterly lifeless.