There was something to [Earthless Glory]—a certain je ne sais quoi, as the widow would have said—that was as grounding as it was liberating. Using it afforded Malwine the chance to act a bit more spontaneously, perhaps a bit more genuinely, than she otherwise would. It also freed her from responsibility to a degree, even if the very reason why she'd come to learn said freedom was not boundless stood before her now.

Sending the double off in her own form was no different than sending it off as the widow, ‘Kunegunda’, or even Rupert—yet it certainly felt that way.

Malwine struggled to hide her discomfort, lest Veit mistakenly assume it had anything to do with the promised conversation. It was hard to ignore just how vulnerable showing herself in this way was making her feel, even if her real form was technically just as safe and distant as it always was when she used this Skill.

Perhaps the knowledge that he now knew who and where she really was was what put her on edge—perhaps it was the act of taking this step. Of choosing to act in a way that left her with only the flimsiest of barriers between herself and the consequences of her decisions.

Now, we can talk. She had told the forester as much. She supposed she had almost meant it as a challenge.

Yet Veit took his time, seemingly paying no mind to her grin. When he finally spoke, he tipped his head back. “So it was you.”

“Oh?” Malwine raised an eyebrow. “Did you suspect?”

“Not initially,” the forester admitted. “There were easier—more logical—answers. Answers that would not have left me with half a mind to start tearing hairs out, for I cannot understand the how.”

“Doubting it could have been me would have made more sense to you than this?” Malwine had to confess she was somewhat surprised. That, and she had not expected him to take this so calmly. “I thought you had me when you showed up, honestly. That you'd tracked me somehow.”

“I did. I believed… I suppose it was easier to believe you were somehow used as anchor for the projection of a false form, or had your magic made fuel for it, by another. Forgive me for not immediately concluding a child would go around asking worrisome questions, wearing the face of an old mortal man.”

She couldn't help but recall Adelheid’s earlier comment. “Well, it could have been anyone!” Malwine giggled, a bit too genuinely. “I messed up, then? I thought you already knew. I might have given you the runaround, otherwise.”

It was a bluff, but she had better odds at nudging the conversation in the right way if she kept him from noticing she'd admittedly been caught off guard. She'd meant to shock him with the revelation and work from there—him already knowing she'd been the one behind the projection dulled her edge here.

“I did know,” Veit frowned. “I… I would have perhaps confronted you. I meant to, in any case.”

“Hm. Pray tell, what gave it away? Humor me.”

“As you are, you should only have access to levels from your core and Skills. For you to be as relatively high a level as I believe you are, you would need Skills, with levels aplenty,” Veit explained, through narrowed eyes. As before, it came off as performative to her. “If you had enough Skill levels to push past the Level 50 mark, believing someone else used you is no longer the easiest answer. Most methods would be convoluted, and with little gain—there are far better ways to obfuscate a tether than that.”

“Really? I take suggestions,” Malwine ventured, wiggling her eyebrows. “But I confess I think you're taking this a bit too well. Enough that it raises flags for me. Were you really that unsurprised by, well, me being me?”

“How could I be?” the forester scoffed. “If you want truth, I've yet to form an opinion on the matter. I have similarly yet to discard the possibility that you aren't the third generation of the Rīsans at all, but some matter of creature pretending to be a girl.”

Off the mark but veering too closely into dangerous territory. “Hurtful words, Veit,” Malwine pouted. “It sucks but, unfortunately, Kristian is my grandfather. I checked. So you better not go around telling that sort of thing to anyone.”

“How do you know I haven't already?”

“Please. You don't strike me as the type,” Malwine bluffed. “First, you clearly appreciate secrecy, or else you'd walk around letting everyone know you're in the 400s. Second, getting to that level probably requires at least some common sense, and common sense includes not making baseless accusations, especially not against anyone you don't even understand.”

It struck her that while she might have denied not being herself, she was no longer putting any effort into the thinnest of façades here. Even if she convinced him of her identity, she knew then she would never convince him of her normalcy. Though that ship probably sailed the moment I showed the double was mine. Maybe earlier.

Veit, for his part, flinched, his eyes narrowing in earnest now. “Curious that a child such as yourself could find that one out—if you even are as you claim.”

“I have my ways,” and their name is just Adelheid. “And you are a hypocrite, ‘Veit’. If anyone's humanity should be up for questioning, my first pick would be the guy whose hair is whiter than those bathroom tiles Bernie keeps making the maids bleach.”

He actually laughed at that. “Girl, has no one ever told you not to poke holes into your opponent's boat when you're also standing on it?”

“I can swim.”

Veit had the gall to laugh again.

“Fine, even if we were on the same boat—which we are not, by the way—I must ask you to spare me the details on wherever this analogy was headed, and just give it to me straight,” Malwine shook her head. “Tell me, what would it take for you to believe me? For you to believe that I am who I am?”

The forester went quiet, then.

“Come on,” Malwine insisted. “You're the one who wanted to talk to me, first. You also clearly want to know something. So why not? Let's talk.”

“What have we been doing, if not speaking?”

“You? Wasting time, of course,” Malwine said. “Meanwhile, I've been trying to talk to you. I wasn't expecting the one who wanted to have a conversation with me to need some convincing to follow up on it.”

“How?” Veit finally asked. “That is what I don't get, what keeps anything from lining up—you're too young to be in the… 50s, 60s, I believe. It defies reason.”

“Everything is subject to reason,” Malwine saw the irony of her descending into the art of spewing phrases of dubitable depth as wise old ladies might, when she was speaking to someone who was likely older than a millennium. “In this case, the explanation's pretty simple, actually.”

“Oh?” Veit asked. “And what would it be?”

“One step at a time, buddy,” Malwine raised a hand, preparing to count with her fingers in the air as she ticked off each item on her list. “We need some ground rules here. First, if I tell you a little story, of why I am like this, you've got to keep it to yourself. Then, of course, don't go and do anything to harm me over it? Pretty please? As my sister would say, that would be rude. Mean. Oh! And maybe, just maybe. Those tips on obfuscation? I wouldn't complain if some made it my way, just saying.”

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He shot a glare at her, sharp enough for her to wonder whether any abilities were involved. “That is quite the list of demands simply for indulging my curiosity. Not to mention, I wouldn't be too sure you have the high ground for a negotiation here.”

“Demands? Pfft,” Malwine made a noise. “Please, I made those up on the spot. Quick thinking and all. I'd say it's more of an impromptu trade. You're actually asking for a lot, so it's only fair I get some assurances out of it.”

“Very well,” the forester said—for the first time, she thought she could sense some hesitation to his tone. “But I expect your answers to be satisfactory.”

“They will be,” or I’ll make them.

“Pray tell, then. How is it that a child of less than five years not only possesses what must be a considerable amount of Skill levels, but knows to act and speak of things no child should know?”

“You want a life story?” Malwine let out a wistful sigh. “I was born at a very young age—”

The forester's eyes began to narrow.

“Fine. My intrusive thoughts got the better of me—happens to us all! What I meant to say, is that I just woke up one day, fresh out of stasis. No, I don't know why my Mom put me on that. But it was alright. I had lots of books to read. That’s it. That’s the start of my life.”

“...In stasis?”

She tried her best to dance around the question. “I've got this thing called [Remote Reading], so I've been reading for years. I learned a lot, and guess what, getting Skills has been way easier than everyone keeps making it out to be.”

“So your mother placed you in stasis. But you were reading before you came out of stasis. As a baby?”

“That is what I said, yes.”

“And how, exactly, were you reading while you were in stasis?”

Malwine shrugged noncommittally. “Your guess is as good as mine. I'm not the stasis expert here.”

“I confess I know little of the subject myself.”

“Oh? Then why do you use that tone, asking me how I was reading in stasis when you don't know how stasis works, huh?”

“The basics—”

“Have you ever been in stasis, buddy?”

“No?”

“So we have established you are neither an expert on stasis nor have you ever been in stasis,” Malwine scratched her chin. “On what grounds are you doubtful that I could have been reading before coming out of stasis then?”

“I…” Veit's glare remained steadfast for a few more seconds before softening as if he'd either been convinced or decided pursuing the matter would lead nowhere. “How does this [Remote Reading] Skill work?”

“It isn’t a Skill, and I’ve just had it since always,” Malwine ‘clarified’. “It just lets me read stuff, anywhere. It doesn’t matter where it’s at or where I am, just that I have a general idea of where what I want to read is.”

“A Trait, then,” Veit concluded, and she didn’t correct him. “Did your mother give it to you?”

“If she did, I don’t remember it happening. As I said, the earliest I remember was that. I was just… sort of around. So I read a lot. For a long time. I don’t even know when I was actually born, but it wasn’t The Fire of 5798, no matter what Bernie says.”

“Have you told her of this… stasis?”

“Obviously not!” Malwine raised her fists in outrage. “If she knew I was smarter than she thought, she’d just make me study manners and all the other stupid stuff she’s teaching Matilda!”

That got her a well-deserved glare, but she hoped it was selling the image. She wished for Veit to consider her a child, with even worse priorities than those she actually had, all while explaining why she might be a bit ahead for her age, even accounting for the benefits mana supposedly had in development.

“Anyhow!” Malwine continued. “I read a lot. I got Skills as time went by. As I said, I don’t know how much time went by. And suddenly I had levels.”

“There’s quite the distance to bridge between reading books and acquiring stray Skills, and… whatever this projection Skill you are using is.”

“I’m getting there, you impatient arborist.”

“I am not—”

“Anyhow, remember how I went for a really long walk this past The Harvest? I recall meeting a particularly annoying man while I was out, then, and he wouldn’t let me walk back home in peace because he was worried about monsters I’ve yet to see evidence for.”

If glares could be collected, she would have quite the collection by now.

“I remember seeing you, gathering harvestables as if no one could see you.”

“Pfft!” Malwine hid her surprise at the revelation that he had known what she had been out doing, then. “I don’t think I have to explain why, exactly, being toddler-sized is inconvenient. I’ve been young for way too long, and it turns out I still have ways to go before I can at least get taller. The passage of time is too slow.”

“For how long would you say you have been out of stasis? Do you recall that f—” Veit blinked. “No, that’s an admittedly foolish question. If you recall the stasis, you would of course recall that.”

“Two years, give or take? I just don’t know for how long I was in it. Too long! And I wanted to move around. To do things! So I decided I just needed to get a Skill for that, having no books to read for them. I stole some from Matilda’s Skill books, by the way. Don’t tell anyone.”

“Wait. How did you even know where to find books if your [Remote Reading] requires an idea of the location?”

“The family library,” Malwine shrugged. “It has always been there.”

“And you knew this before? You knew where it was?”

“I just fired the Skill off until it hit something, and that was how I found the library here.”

“So you were in stasis near the estate?”

“On that weird shed, yes. Unless it has suddenly grown legs and left, that should still be quite close to the estate.”

“So your [Rem—”

“Veit, please, I know reading books is awesome and all, but let’s focus on the matter at hand. I still haven’t finished my story!” Malwine chastised with an expression fitting a disappointed schoolteacher. “So I used the harvestables, revealed them, and got a token. It was for Skill orientation, direction, whatever. I really just wanted to move, you know. To explore! I think I’m ready, but everyone treats me like I’m a little useless toddler. I don't feel like I am. If Bernie wouldn’t let me out, I’d have to do that myself if I wanted to see anything outside the home.”

“You have been to the yards. I have seen you there.”

“That’s not outside the estate, though. I wanted to see this Beuzaheim everyone kept talking about. Maybe more, though I haven’t gone anywhere else yet. I also found a basement. Did you know our house has a basement?”

“I was not aware of that, no.”

“Well, I sent my double exploring, as one does. I wanted to see what else the adults were hiding from me,” she’d decided to try and keep the blame for this one off Adelheid, for the girl’s sake. “There was this creepy basement full of puddles and terrible interior decoration. Some random woman was pinned to the wall by a bunch of needles and it really killed the vibe, I guess.”

“Pardon?”

“It was a freaky woman who wouldn’t move and the puddles kept chasing me, so I had to keep running away. But I went to the library in Beuzaheim, which I have been to and read from, and while I was trying to read up on puddles I read these weird things about how everyone’s afraid of waves? And that was when I found out about sibyls, and you can guess my reaction.”

The forester had gone disturbingly still.

“So anyway, the wall decor in the basement apparently had a friend outside? Like in the mangal? I don’t know where exactly, but someone should probably check that out,” Malwine nodded sagely. “But anyway, that was why I went around asking, as I might have been experiencing what some would dub a mild freak-out. I thought I was being real clever, making my double look like some random guy I saw in the city. No one would trace it back to me!”

“...Semantics aside, you truly need lessons on safety, girl.”

“Why, you were serious about that? As I said, I take suggestions,” Malwine wiggled her eyebrows again. “Then I kept reading that book from Beuzaheim’s library, and would you believe it? It recommends incineration for dealing with sibyls. And I did read some books on survival and starting fires in the wild. You know, the usual. Would that this had happened during The Fire, I bet I could have found some way to just toss her outside. But it didn’t. So I had to go about it the slow way and just set the whole basement on fire with a candle harvestable.”

“You set this basement on fire? The place?”

“I meant to set the sibyl on fire, but she was pinned to the wall, so I’m afraid the basement likely constitutes collateral damage. It got caught in the crossfire, if you will.”

“A candle harvestable. You used a candle harvestable on a sibyl,” Veit spoke slowly. His brain had presumably finally caught up to him. “Which candle harvestable?”

“There’s more than one kind?” Malwine’s eyebrows went up. “I don’t know, buddy. I just had the one. I remember the description went on about Existence, something about connect—”

“Show me this place, immediately.”

“Excuse me?”

“Let’s say, tentatively, that I believe everything you’ve said,” Veit had grown fidgety, glancing in every direction. “Because if this is what I think it is, there are bigger concerns for me to address than the past you claim.”