A visit from Ceric was all it took to send Ailn down a pessimistic spiral. Worse, it was a pessimistic spiral disguised as pragmatism.

It was late in the afternoon, the day before Kylian visited. Having checked all his traps and only found failures, Ailn had been forced to forage what little food he could from the snowy forest environment.

While he was boiling reindeer moss that he’d found, Ceric came knocking at the door.

With the castle’s ongoing conflict, and his own struggles with procuring food, the intrepid explorer had completely slipped Ailn’s mind. Ceric, on the other hand, could hardly forget his savior. He was adamant about expressing his gratitude, and his efforts to do so were as indefatigable as they were fatiguing.

Pastries, fruit, and sandwiches with slices of cold meat—Ceric had brought an abundance of food from the tavern in which they had met, the moment he’d heard that Ailn had been relegated to a cottage and was likely ‘starving away.’

However, Ailn, having just committed to the temporary ethos of pulling himself up by the bootstraps, was not pleased to see Ceric's well-meaning care basket.

“My friend, I insist that you accept this token of my gratitude,” Ceric said, dispirited. He’d interpreted Ailn’s polite refusal as stemming from a deep desire to live a life that asked for no man’s help. “No man is an island. We are boats, stronger together against the tsunami.”

Ailn stared blankly at Ceric, far too addled by the pains in his stomach to parse his insane metaphor.

“Just… take the food and go,” Ailn said.

He didn’t have the energy to explain what—even to Ailn himself—seemed like a reckless whimsy. Ailn wasn’t afraid of condemnation from Ceric, given that Ceric was so whimsical himself. Rather, he’d feel worse about the whole thing if Ceric ‘got it.’

In Ailn's eyes, approval from the clueless was infinitely worse than disapproval from those who were competent.

“I understand and affirm your desire to wrestle with your own soul,” Ceric said, with a grim expression and sagely nod. “Don’t worry, Ailn. As much as it pains me to watch you suffer, I shall support your actions.”

Ceric absentmindedly took one of the few juniper berries Ailn had managed to pick, chewing it as he mulled over Ailn’s determination.

Ailn didn’t even care. The pains in his stomach weren’t just from hunger—the barely edible survival foods he’d ingested had been surprisingly bitter and acidic. It felt like he was simply eating poison, and he hadn’t been prepared for that.

He knew, objectively, that he was receiving much needed nutrition. But his body was actively resisting. As a result, he was stuck in that painful and paradoxical state where he was hungry and lacking in appetite at the same time.

“I will remove this temptation from your sight then,” Ceric said, whisking away the basket. “And I will think of your efforts as I enjoy these sandwiches, pastries, and fruits.”

Ailn just sighed, fumbling with the lichens in his pot as he attempted to hoist them out with a wooden spoon.

“But know this, my friend: Ceric Windrider is on your side. And that means the wisdom of Nightwriter is as well,” Ceric grinned. “Keep your eyes peeled, for I will be back by the morrow, to let you know its answer.”

“Answer to what—” Ailn started to ask.

The man was already rushing off, before Ailn had the chance to try and figure out a useful question.

It didn’t matter much. After his recent ‘adventure’ saving Ceric, Ailn had come to place less trust in Nightwriter’s answers than he had initially. Granted, most of Ceric’s troubles stemmed from his irrationally exuberant interpretations of Nightwriter’s responses, rather than the responses themselves.

Still, Ailn didn’t see much use in the current situation. If he were to make use of Nightwriter, it would be for questions with concrete answers, which he could eventually tease out. Asking it for advice was plain stupid.

That night, Ailn slept poorly. And Ceric’s kind support filled him with terrible doubt.

When he’d gone to check on all his traps in the early morning, he found that once again, all fifteen traps had missed. Worse, he couldn’t tell if they’d been any better than the day prior.

Had he really survived in the wild in his past life? He was starting to wonder if it was an outright delusion.

Breakfast was berries, acorns, and tobacco.

He’d figure it out soon enough. Ailn trusted himself to do that much—and even if he was stupendously wrong on that front, he wasn’t stupid enough to carry on with this lark until he died.

If there was anything he was about to give up on… if there was anyone, it was Renea.

The smoke was burning a hole in his empty stomach and, without realizing it, Ailn was falling back on empty pragmatism to justify his own desires.

He didn’t want any baggage.

Calling her dead weight was a little much, but Ailn understood the importance of his primary mission. So long as he hadn’t been tricked, the fate of this world depended on him. He wasn’t too jazzed about it; that didn’t mean he could afford to take it lightly. The stakes were too high.

Had it been anything less than that, he could’ve made better on his promise to the original Ailn. Probably.

Lying there in his cottage, hungry and cold, all the logistical headaches of tying himself to this family were becoming increasingly clear. The benefits of being a noble in name only weren’t worth the price he’d pay in lost freedom.

With someone like Sigurd at the helm, he’d be more shackled than a peasant, with hardly more influence.

Extreme sensations seemed to bring his memories closer to the fore. That might have been why he felt so intent on experiencing them, by seeing this flight of fancy through.

They helped him remember a little more of who he was.

If these flashes of memory were real, then there was a time he’d been just as cold and hungry in his past life. But back then, the situation had been real. No one was bringing him scraps of dried meat. No friends were checking on him in his man-made shelter.

While he was scrounging around in the wild, impotent because he was barely able to feed himself, those who’d relied on him waited while he never came.

The sense of desperation was coming back. The feeling that he needed to be somewhere, a fire kept barely lit in the cold with only wishes to sustain it, and the slow dwindling of its embers.

He felt like his memories were right there, if he could just take this feeling and jam it right in the cracks of his mind, pry open those doors the young god had locked tight…

Kylian had found Ailn while he was in this pensive, sullen state.

“Books?” Kylian asked. “What books?”

“Family histories… are probably the best. Sigurd seems fairly honor-bound, so he’d respect precedent,” Ailn said. “If we’re going to rule-lawyer, we’re more likely to find a way to make Sophie family head early, than to get Renea off the hook.”

Truthfully, Ailn didn’t think the chances were great for preventing Renea’s disinheritance.

But at Kylian’s prodding, he gave it enough thought to realize that, even if he took his leave of the eum-Creid family, he could still try to help her out. In fact, if he managed to do this one last thing for her, then he’d more or less make good on his promise to the original Ailn.

Kylian left, leaving Ailn with the pouch of dried meat.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Opening his chest of possessions, Ailn stashed the pouch away. It was good to have on hand, in case things got really dire.

“...It would be great if I could cut off this loose end,” Ailn mumbled.

He was hitting a second wind. Now that he realized he could help Renea without tying himself down, Ailn’s mind was finally starting to work again.

The front of his mind considered the likeliest positive resolutions: Sigurd simply rescinding his decision, Sophie successfully making an early claim to her authority, maybe finding a loophole in however the family register was notarized…

He couldn’t plan anything substantive until he did more research, but he could carefully consider what would be necessary for any of the usual patterns. Someone like Sir Fontaine acted like a trusted authority, while Ennieux gave them one more ‘vote’ from a member of the family.

Sophie… Ailn had some hesitation in relying too much on her. If they forced the issue just by flexing her importance as the Saintess, he was certain there’d be unforeseen consequences.

Rules-lawyering would be acting in bad faith, but at least it’d be judicious. Whereas flaunting power almost always caused equivalent, if delayed, blowback.

While he was thinking the problem through, Ailn received an unexpected visitor.

“Um… Ani?” Renea’s voice called out. “Are you in your cottage?”

He could hear her pause.

“I really hope so, because I can hear a fire in there…” she said, with some worry.

“I’m here.”

Ailn opened the door, perplexed by her visit. Renea stood there, her clothes less fine than usual. Her wool cloak looked comfortable yet modest in price. Her dress was simple blue linen—not much different from the maid’s kirtle that Sophie used to wear.

Behind her stood two knights—Ennieux’s children, in fact. It was clear they weren’t merely escorting Renea, but also observing her, since she’d been granted reprieve from her confinement within the castle.

Renea peered up at him with a smile that seemed almost serene.

“Would you like to… accompany me to our parents’ graves?” Renea asked.

----------------------------------------

The castle’s cemetery was actually out in the family’s private woods—same as Ailn’s cottage. This wasn’t particularly strange, except that even members of the eum-Creid family were buried there.

Theoretically, that made their bodies vulnerable to desecration if the castle were under siege. It was a testament to just how down-to-earth the eum-Creids were, despite their status as high nobility.

Renea walked quietly carrying a bouquet wrapped in silk, as Ailn followed behind her. And behind him walked Ennieux’s two children: Sir Nicolas and Dame Camille.

They made for a motley crew: the two noble siblings, escorted by their knightly cousins—who were also siblings. Technically all family, they felt like anything but.

Nicolas and Camille had grown up level-headed in spite of their often absent father, and their tempestuous mother. As Ailn heard it from Kylian, their mother’s temper and reputation, in fact, had been a guide for them of what not to do.

They did not aspire to the eum-Creid name, nor did they renounce their duties to the duchy. Inheriting their father’s surname, Gren, they understood from a young age that they were closer to vassals than family. And they acted like it.

Thus, to them, Renea and Ailn were first and foremost their lieges. It made them wonderful knights, and awkward cousins. The current Ailn was not crazy about it.

More than anything, he was surprised they could act so pristine and professional after they’d left Renea out to dry. Renea herself wasn’t making a big deal out of it, but it bothered Ailn.

There was something very fake about it.

He’d accused Renea of being fake once. And he’d intuited that Camille and NIcolas’s mother, Ennieux, carried herself with highly affected mannerisms. Yet Renea’s piety and sincere personality had managed to shine through her act, and Ennieux, however constructed her speech patterns, couldn’t be called anything but authentic.

By contrast, to Ailn’s eyes, Nicolas was dutiful to the point of being aloof.

“I’m honored you chose us to escort you, Lady Renea and Lord Ailn,” Nicolas said. The man was truly expressionless. Moreso than Sophie.

Camille, meanwhile, smiled at him pleasantly whenever he caught her eye.

“How is your cottage treating you, Your Grace?” Camille said. She sounded quite friendly.

“Wonderful. Great. Thank you,” Ailn said, pulling ahead so he could whisper to Renea. “Is someone forcing them to act like this?”

“What? No,” Renea whispered, squinting at Ailn dubiously. “They’ve always been like this.”

“They’re like a couple of… Anti-Ennieuxes.”

“You really shouldn’t…” Renea’s mind halted, as she tried to parse if it was rude to pluralize someone’s first name. She shook her head. “You’re not wrong, though.”

Cavalier as it was, ‘Anti-Ennieux’ was precisely right. Renea bit her lip.

It wasn’t a coincidence. Their mother had always encouraged, even hassled them to fight for more. Ennieux hated that they didn’t even try to enter the family register; she fought tooth and nail for them when they pointedly did not want her to.

Of course she was biased, but Renea sided wholeheartedly with Ennieux. There was nothing that said a eum-Creid could not lead a modest knight’s life. By committing themselves wholeheartedly to their father’s name, they essentially announced their complete abstention from the competition of family succession. But they’d never really been in the running anyway.

Ennieux must have felt desperately lonely that her children so adamantly refused to inherit her surname.

“Will you two… also be paying respects to Saintess Celine and Duke Henry?” Renea asked tentatively.

"Of course. As two knights of the Order, it is only proper. We will do so at a distance, watching over the two of you," Camille replied, smiling pleasantly once again. All Renea could do was avert her eyes awkwardly.

Soon enough, their party came upon moderately sized clearing. A cobblestone path led up a hill, at the top of which the cemetery could be seen, surrounded in walls of granite, with an open gate of wrought iron. Atop each of the gate’s pillars rested a near life-sized white marble wolf statue.

Once they’d all passed the gate, true to their word Nicolas and Camille kept their distance, while Renea and Ailn made their way to the back of the cemetery. There, in an area designated by a life-sized Saintess statue, the eum-Creids were buried.

Taking apart the bouquet she was holding, one flower at a time, Renea carefully placed down four. One at a cross for Celine, another for Henry, and then two more—equally spaced out. Then, kneeling at the two crosses, Renea began to quietly pray.

Watching idly as she prayed, Ailn guessed that one of the two extra flowers was for her brother. He didn’t know who the fourth was for.

The flowers were definitely a species unique to this world.

They resembled aquamarine primroses, translucent near the stamen, their petals frosting near the top. At first glance, he might have mistaken them for small ice sculptures, the way dew trickled down them as if the petals were melting. But they shivered with the wind, just like any other flower.

“Do you want to touch one?” Renea asked. She was looking up from her prayer.

“Hm? I’m alr—”

“Here,” Renea said, smiling a little proudly as she took the flower that had been at her mother’s gravestone. “They’re real. And hard to find, you know. These were Saintess Celestia’s favorite flowers: gelé primevère.”

It was definitely a little strange, touching something that looked so frosty and feeling that it was lush plant life.

“It took me a while to find them around the castle,” Renea said, her eyes drifting to the side, while she walked through recent memory. “Since I had to find four, I couldn’t go pick berries like I usually do.”

“...You pick berries?” Ailn asked. He gently placed the flower back on Celine’s grave. “In winter?”

“Yes, bonberries…” Renea said, softly. “They taste like caramel. My father’s favorite, so I hear. I like them too.”

Ailn could really go for some berries that tasted like caramel, so that was a huge shame.

At any rate, he had some interest in learning about Duke Henry, a man whom several people had described as being of little consequence—but Ailn didn’t need to prod Renea. She seemed happy to speak of her own accord.

“I don’t remember much about him, except that he was nice. He passed away when I was so young,” Renea said. “Ailn… cared a lot about him. Ailn wanted to be like him.” She gave Ailn a sheepish smile. “He was your father too, technically.”

“I’m not sure—” Ailn shrugged, “—if that’s quite right.”

“Me either. It’s complicated, isn’t it?” Renea chuckled lightly, shrugging herself. A pensive look fell on her face. “...Thanks for coming, Ani. I know that—I know you don’t consider us family. And it would be unreasonable for me to expect you to.”

Ailn averted his eyes, making no objections.

“I thought it would be—a nice way to wrap things up, I suppose,” Renea said softly. “I’ll be leaving at the end of the month. I’m already talking Sophie down from her silly rebellion.”

“Are you really happy with the way things are going?” Ailn asked.

“No, I’m not,” Renea said. Grabbing her arm self-protectively, she looked quite sad. “But Sigurd’s doing the right thing. I would do the same thing if I were in his shoes.”

Honestly? Ailn doubted she would.

“And… I’m sure Sophie will find me one way or another once she properly becomes Saintess,” Renea said. “With her strength of will, I might even be let back into the castle.”

“... And when she does, will you be added back to the family register?”

“That would never happen,” Renea said. “The royal family simply wouldn’t allow it. But I could hardly complain about such a silly thing. As long as… as long as I get to be with my fam…ily…”

Renea bit her lip. Her face momentarily scrunched up, before she looked away.

“Umm, sorry—” her voice cracked, “—I, I’m actually going to pray a bit more. If… if you could go on and tell them…”

She gestured a hand weakly toward Nicolas and Camille.

With a wordless nod, Ailn walked back to the cemetery’s entrance to give her some space. Seemed like it was the word family that set her off.

“Is Lady Renea all right?” Camille asked. Her expression was worried, but somehow it seemed as placid as ever.

“Well—you know how it is,” Ailn shrugged, feeling awkward. “It’s not easy for her.”

He thought of all the times Renea had corrected him. ‘Our sister,’ she’d say. Our aunt. Our brother.

Our family.

Looking at Renea from afar, as she tried to pass off her quiet crying as prayer, Ailn decided he’d try a little harder for his sister.