“You like foxes?” Adelheid asked the forester. “Oh! You’re the forest man, aren’t you? How old are you?”
“We need it for the census,” Malwine explained. This should have explained everything the man needed to know. “How did you get here, anyway?”
“It was the cool lights,” Adelheid nodded sagely.
Malwine joined her in the gesture. “They were cool.”
Veit, for his part, was opening and closing his mouth like a fish desperate to avoid drowning in open air. He looked around the room as if he expected somebody else to be in there—he probably did, actually.
He only seemed to be acknowledging them from the corner of his eye now, as if that would make how he barged in any less terrible. Granted, the man had been trying to chase some intruder, but ending up here still wasn’t a good look for his capabilities.
“You okay?” Malwine asked innocently.
“I am looking for someone,” Veit said slowly. He bent down carefully, his bell-shaped pants almost shifting into a carpet as he knelt to look under the beds. “You have nothing to worry about.”
“Is the monster under the bed real?”
“No. I was ensuring no one was hiding down there.”
“Who could hide under my bed? A gnome?”
“What are they teaching children these days?” Veit shook his head as he straightened. He sighed repeatedly. Perhaps he had needed to calm himself down after the utter whiplash of his appearance here, perhaps he was genuinely too confused to function. “Have you seen an old man? Wrinkly beyond belief?” he awkwardly did an air-chop, motioning. “About this tall?”
“The only old man we've seen around is you,” Malwine huffed.
Adelheid nodded. “Yeah! That's why you won't tell us your age for the census, isn't it?”
“What?”
“How could you have not heard?” Malwine puffed and put her hands on her lips before shooting him a disapproving look. “Everyone knows about the Rīsan estate census!”
“Yeah, the Rīsan estate census!” Adelheid agreed. She leaned over to Malwine then, whispering. “You named it?”
“I’m twenty-two,” Veit said. “Feel free to write that down.”
“I don’t believe you! Otherwise, why would you not have made your age known, huh?” Malwine continued her glaring. Between how [Cool Head on Your Shoulder] kept working overtime, and her general predisposition to the occasional underreaction, she thought she was coping quite well with the sudden intrusion.
She’d been more worried about Adelheid, really, but the girl did not appear to have cared for the forester’s sudden appearance in the slightest.
“Right, I'm from the 3000s,” Veit said with a suspiciously deadpan tone. “It must have slipped my mind.”
“Oh!” Malwine pretended that was a perfectly normal number. “That's a huge range of years! How far are you from 1,800? Or are you closer to 1,000? What's it like being so many centuries old?”
“Wait, you can count that far?” Veit's eyes widened. “I take that back, it was a joke. It was humor, meant to make you laugh.”
“The census is no laughing matter!” Malwine admonished before sliding a hand under her bed's mattress. She summoned a random sheet of paper then and there and removed her hand, hopefully giving off the impression that the paper had previously been hidden there. “Let's see, between one-thousand and…”
“It was a joke!”
“Too late, it's going in like that!”
“So old!” Adelheid looked impressed, yet somehow unfazed.
“I—” Veit exhaled slowly. “I do not have time to waste. I am trying to find an old man. I attempted to track him inside, and that led me here. Are you sure you haven’t seen anyone around?”
Malwine shook her head. “I’ve only seen some random guy teleporting into our room and giving me a scare. I don’t like him very much.”
That just got her a glare in return.
“Fine. I apologize for the disturbance,” Veit said, bowing his head. Malwine wondered whether he actually meant it, considering he didn’t look apologetic in the slightest beyond the bow. “I shall go reconvene with the lady of the house.”
Adelheid blinked at him. “You apologize for what? You’re going to what?”
By now, Malwine couldn’t even tell if the girl was asking that honestly or not.
Veit, for his part, completely ignored the questions, stepping closer to another lightshow as if he wanted to be literally anywhere else, as soon as possible.
“After everything is organized,” Veit looked over his shoulder and pointed back, the gesture landing upon Malwine before he spoke again, his eyes narrowed. “I intend to have a long conversation with you about safety.”
Malwine pointed at herself. “Who? Me?”
“Yes, you,” he turned back to his weird portal thing. “It is perhaps something that should have happened sooner.”
“Pfft!”
Malwine couldn’t help but snicker once he’d left. That was close, though. She tried not to think about his promise to return later.
Her little sister had different priorities. “Do you think that’s his real age?”
“I don't know, but it would be funny if he just gave us something close thinking we weren’t serious.”
“Why wouldn’t we be serious?”
“Because duh,” Malwine pointed at her head, smirking. “I’ve only showed you the census. They don’t know it’s a real thing.”
“Ah,” Adelheid nodded her understanding. “So they think we’re playing a game.”
“Yes, probably. They could’ve also bought my story about it being educational.”
That Adelheid questioned none of those words was nothing short of a miracle.
As silence settled around them, Malwine finally allowed herself to breathe out a sigh of relief. Not for the first time, she felt like their—her—actions had amounted to little more than a comedy of errors.
Deep down, even at times when she managed to make the best of something, when the trials weren’t an absolute failure or even when she’d scared that guard out of his mind, it was all too easy to attribute any successes to luck. She second-guessed herself more and more now that her capabilities had grown, and while Adelheid was her new little sister and the perfect day-to-day training partner, she still couldn’t confide about everything to the girl.
It left Malwine in the strange position of not exactly regretting her decisions, yet being unable to discuss whether they’d been the right thing to do with anyone. Even the widow had had Yoyo to occasionally tell her, “No, grandma, what the fuck are you doing?”
Malwine had no such benefit. Instead, all she had for this part of the day was herself. Ensuring Adelheid got those Traits had not been a mistake. And truth be told, while she was somewhat at fault for encouraging the girl to use her new [Identify] on that mysterious great-grandma of hers, she wouldn’t deny it was likely Adelheid would have done it herself at some point anyway.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Not that it really absolved her of at least some responsibility, but did it matter in the end? She couldn’t change the past.
It always came back to that. We can only move forward.
Malwine thought back to her double. Certainly, this fiasco would be keeping her from moving around as freely for a while, but as she’d previously concluded, Beuzaheim should still be fair game. The adults would probably be busy with searching for the non-existent Rupert for a while.
Let’s see—who were you, Adelheid fon Hūdijanin?
“I’m going to check the archive out,” Malwine warned her little sister before closing her eyes and sending the double off. Her time would be limited from all that earlier dismissing and reforming the double, but thanks to some liberal distribution of attribute points into Circulation over her latest levels, she’d still have over a hundred minutes.
On her way in, she got a library address out of the secretary—it turned out to be directly in front of the archive, on that same street. I’ll fire [Remote Reading] off later…
This time, she didn’t have as much time as she would have liked to appreciate the ambiance at the archive—she was on a mission, and it wasn’t knowledge for the sake of knowledge she sought, this time.
Dietrich, son of Adelheid. Malwine combed through the birth records, her hopes slowly leaving her. Bernie’s father had no doubt been a cultivator, mage, whichever title they used. This kept Malwine from simply guessing her parents could have gotten married, say, twenty to twenty five years before her birth, as people often did for that kind of guesstimation.
Her frustration led her back to the marriage books. It would be easier to read through those than the ones for births, anyway, if she didn’t have any frame of reference. She almost felt bad for not immediately taking the time to look for Kristoffer and Alaric’s births, but assuming she still had time when she was done with this particular search, she’d grab them before she left.
Malwine bit her lip, despite the intangibility of her double. Working under pressure like this had her on edge. She was used to researching because she wanted to, not because she had to.
It was on the year 5729 that she first saw Adelheid fon Hūdijanin show up as Registrar, and on 5659 that she found the first clue. Holy fuck, they’re old.
> During The Cold of 5659, I, Johann fon Gnagan, Registrar and Inscriber of Beuzaheim, verified in word and truth that a marriage occurred between Lord Lietrich fon Hūdijan and Lady Johanna Babette fon Wurmevin.
>
> Lord Lietrich fon Hūdijan, of age 172 and with potential, surviving son of Adelheid fon Hūdijanin and Lord Lietrich fon Undir from this very city of Beuzaheim, sought to join in marriage the young Lady Johanna Babette fon Wurmevin, of age 23 and with potential, daughter of Lord Heinrich fon Wurmev and Lady Babette fon Ahtudô. By mutual agreement, any children had between the two will belong to the House of Adelheid fon Hūdijanin.
>
> Before the sixteen mandated witnesses, I certified their union, and give leave for them to be celebrated for ten days at their leisure, as befits the union of two of their status. All written here is true to life, so Say I=Johann fon Gnagan
Brother, Dietrich isn’t that hard to spell! Malwine sighed. Truly, not even being in a literally different world could spare her from finding a scribe that misspelled names beyond reason. It also happened with the surname of Bernie’s mother, after all. And speaking of surnames… The surname of Bernie’s maternal grandmother caught her eye as well. It didn’t have the suffix she’d come to expect.
Something to check out later, Malwine concluded, hoping she wouldn’t forget.
It seemed the older Adelheid had been the head of the House, much like Kristian was supposedly the patriarch of House Rīsan. Everyone in the know understood the family was carried by Bernie and by Bernie alone, but the paperwork didn’t seem to say that, at least so far.
What should I call her? OAdelheid? Oh, no, that sounds terrible. OHeidi? It’s not a perfect solution, but it rolls off the tongue more easily than ‘that sibyl who hates us’.
Malwine now knew Bernie’s parents had gotten married well over a century before her birth, though. That had to guarantee they’d had Affinities, right? Yet Bernie doesn’t. She’d thought none of her aunts or uncles having one seemed odd, when Katrina had at least two. Now, she was looking at two people, each presumably powerful or at least decent on their own right, to have lived a century… and they’d had a mortal child.
No lie, that must have sucked for her, Malwine couldn’t help but sympathize with Bernie. She’d had been dead a million times already if she hadn’t had Affinities to fuel all these Skills with.
She returned the book to its place, unsure as to what to look for. A marriage between Adelheid fon Hūdijanin and Dietrich fon Undir, maybe? Assuming the man’s surname had even been Undir, judging by this particular scribe’s record. She’d have to look for confirmation on the spellings present on Bernie’s birth later, but how that man spelled Dietrich had not inspired confidence in this version.
It was also strangely satisfying to confirm surnames seemed to be deliberately chosen at times, even if the phrasing on Katrina and Kristian’s original marriage had implied this just as much as this one had. Still, it was the side of Bernie’s father using the maternal surname that sealed it.
Malwine went through one book and then another, grabbing the previous one every time one proved fruitless, until she was closing in on the 5200s and half of her time as the double had passed. All she had to go off on was the knowledge that Dietrich fon Hūdijan had been born roughly around 5486. I really need to do Bernie’s tree sometime, but I haven’t even finished mine…
Stupid sibyls throwing everything into disarray! Nevermind that Malwine hadn’t visited the archive again since her initial visit thanks to being distracted by training with Adelheid.
By the time she found herself grabbing Beuzaheim Marriages 4921-5079, Malwine found she had some very strong opinions about the ages of Bernie’s ancestors. Even the age gap between her parents had been considerably worse than that between her and Kristian, something Malwine would have never expected to catch herself thinking.
How old is this woman?!
Malwine got her answer as her gaze landed upon the page where 5001 marriages started, and she felt her double’s eye twitch despite this technically being a good thing.
> 5001
>
> The Wind of 5001
>
> During The Wind of 5001, I, Heinrich fon Gnagan, Registrar and Inscriber of Beuzaheim, verified the truth and verified the word of the marriage that took place between Lord Dietrich fon Undir and Adelheid fon Hūdijanin.
>
> Lord Dietrich fon Undir, of age 208 and with potential, surviving son of the late Lord Dietrich fon Undir and the late Elisabet da Swerdą from this very Beuzaheim, joined hands in marriage with Adelheid fon Hūdijanin, of age 233 and with potential, daughter of the Looping Box Champion and Lady Maria fon Hūdijanin. By mutual agreement, any children that come from this union will bear her name and belong to her House.
>
> The union was celebrated as befits a couple of their status, before the sixteen required witnesses. The above all occurred and is real, as it is true, so say I =Heinrich fon Gnagan
She couldn’t help but wonder who or what had driven the fon Gnagan family out of the Registrar business, considering how many of those she saw on these older years. They were probably all related.
As for OHeidi herself… So she was 233 in 5001, meaning she was born around, what, 4768? …Thanks, I hate it.
Malwine had somehow managed to avoid wrapping her head around the idea of incredibly long lifespans so far, despite not for a second doubting she would live one for a second time.
On one hand, if Bernie’s grandma was almost a thousand years her senior, that might explain why the woman was at such a high rank. But… a thousand years older! She’d have expected so many generations to live and die in such a timeframe—only now was it hitting her that her hopes might have been misplaced. She’d been thinking in the ways of the widow’s Earth, still.
A thousand years worth of records would have been a treasure trove there—yet here, it could be the distance between a woman’s birth and that of her granddaughter.
Malwine shook her head. This didn’t answer how the aforementioned OHeidi had ended up as a sea-related zombie. But it at least gave her some idea of who the woman had been in life—she was the daughter of a Champion. An otherworlder. And just as her son would inherit her surname, hers had come from her mother.
Her not using ‘Lady’ before her name seems deliberate, too.
Next up was the matter of finding out how she died. With the knowledge that she had still been alive in 5766 to register Katrina and Kristian’s marriage, Malwine had an idea of where to start.
Unfortunately for her, time was not on her side. She’d spent so long looking through marriage books, page by page, that her double only had a few minutes left. Again. With a huff, she returned the book to where it belong and fled for her life in what must have looked like an interesting speedwalk. She did wave at the secretary of the archive, though. Obviously.
The alley was blessedly empty this time around, and so Malwine allowed her double to collapse.
She sighed audibly, turning to find Adelheid braiding her hair. Malwine’s hair was not particularly long, barely making it past her chin. “Uh…?”
“I always wanted to do that,” Adelheid admitted, sporting a braid of her own.
“Okay…”
“Did you find anything?”
“Yes, I guess,” Malwine sighed, only able to tip her head slightly while Adelheid still worked on the mini-braids. “Your great-grandma was very old. From the 4700s, even.”
“That… was a long time ago?”
“It was.”
Malwine couldn’t hide her frustration. Perhaps she should have started by looking through the deaths, but learning of the sibyl’s origins had felt important.
“Where is she, Adelheid?” she asked before she could think better of it.
“What do you mean?”
“Your great-grandma,” Malwine clarified. “You say she’s elsewhere. But where, physically?”
“I… I don’t know. She thinks the house is over her. So she’s under us?”
Great, a basement zombie. Just what this house was missing.
“I see,” Malwine nodded. She summoned that obnoxiously bright locket Anselm had given her—not that she was ungrateful—and examined her new braids. They… were certainly braid-like. She dismissed it, bringing one of her [Toll] restoratives out. She still had ten of those, and while the urge to just hoard them was quite strong, she was not ready to give up for the day.
With a sigh, she uncapped the item, downing its contents soon after.