Precious Hearts
As planned, the entire base set off the next day for the lakeside. The time had finally arrived, there was nothing else they could do but to keep going forward.
Lwyn was still grasping her mother’s core, most of the red shredded already to reveal the golden mechanisms beneath. It looked sorta like a jigsaw cube.. except it was golden and a sphere and it wasn’t moving.. at least, not anymore.. and not ever again. She looked across the multitude of blank panels spanning the device that had lost it’s purpose. No, no it hadn’t.. her mother had told her that she would need to find a way to set this thing into the veil itself. This was how her mother would be here with her, helping her to achieve her goals.
She clung once more to the core, the passing words she had managed in the end before removing the core not feeling enough. Saying goodbye was so very hard, and it hurt so very much. This wasn’t even the first time she had been forced to endure the death of her mother, but it still hurt so very much. Even after the whole facility begun to move, with Zyuixqs at the helm, Lwyn kept to her room, clinging to the core.
Mhyl had set off early, making sure to tend to the sort of stuff Lwyn typically did. Thanrie and Qheria had decided to help out as well, considering they had a month of training with a wide assortment of chores. It wasn’t lost upon them though who had been responsible for these lessons, who they had worked under doing these tasks originally. In fact, somehow, that knowledge just made the whole thing even more fitting. Thanrie was sweeping up the floor around several of the rooms and halls, while Qheria was sweeping in the storage room and Mhyl was doing the dishes left from lunch. Lwyn hadn’t even had lunch, although Mhyl still made sure something was saved for her.
Mhyl suddenly found herself beside Chyurae, who had started helping by drying dishes. “Will Lwyn be okay?” “Of course she will, she’s gotten really strong. She just.. needs some time.” Chyurae it seems was as worried as Mhyl was. Lwyn had kept hard feelings from them before, Mhyl was worried that the old plastic smile might return once again. Mhyl clung to her pendant, wishing that somehow things would still work out. Maybe when she finished here, she should go check up on Lwyn, see if she had gotten hungry yet..
Qheria was at a loss. She was tall, but the shelves before her towered over her, and she had no way to tend to the upper shelves. This was something Lwyn was always far better at. Qheria was.. impressed with how much Lwyn had grown, even being their shortest. The soccer match, her cross-field kicks were impressive. The first had almost scored, the second was a pass that had lead to a goal. Later, her music had improved dramatically for that performance, even after having only failed it before. But the bravest part of it all was her having the courage to fulfill the passing request of Sxeiva. Qheria couldn’t even imagine how rough it would be, being asked to help end one’s own mother’s life like that. Braving death, being a sacrifice to save another, it was actually far easier than facing a life of loss. Although, maybe it was her own sacrifice that had helped Lwyn gain this strength…
Rhyde and Yuxzn showed up, discovering that Qheria was having a few troubles with her volunteer work. Rhyde however explained that, with Lwyn gone to the fortress, they had already set about making a ladder for this very reason. Qheria was shown where the ladder had been hiding, as Yuxzn took the opportunity to make his own request. “How.. how is Lwyn doing?” Just like Rhyde, neither of them were used to situations of sacrifice. Rhyde had been impressed earlier, before the Fortress, by Qheria’s dramatic leadership as she sacrificing herself to save Lwyn. Yuxzn was now impressed by Lwyn’s courage in much the same way. He might have made choices that threatened peoples lives, made choices that had cost people’s lives… but he had never been forced to choose that someone close and important to him should just simply die, no matter what the reasons and outcomes might have been. This was one thing he just simply could not wrap his head around.
“She’s still coping with her decision, last I heard. What she did, that wasn’t easy, so we’ve agreed to give her the time she needs. She’s grown a lot, she’s gotten strong..” “You all have, honestly. Just let us know if you have to run off again, please.” Qheria wasn’t going to sugar-coat her thoughts like Mhyl, but she still mentioned her belief in Lwyn. Rhyde was forced to agree, while wishing for the best. They all had.. that wasn’t wrong. Qheria had a lot of reason to be proud of her team, the pendant around her neck reminding her she was yet a part of that same team. She resumed her work, intent on lifting some of Lwyn’s responsibilities.
Thanrie was left contemplating the reality of the situation as she swept. Sxeiva had been their caretaker for so long, but now she was gone. Sxeiva was even attuned to the flow of the world, which had brought them a lot. Sxeiva was someone they had started looking up to countlessly, starting to depend on countlessly.. and was now gone. Thanrie was mostly worried that Sxeiva might have been their source of good fortune over their entire journey, the thing that had kept them safe though it all. If she was gone, they would not be safe anymore. Their lives were in their own care, their own responsibility.. no more miracles would just happen without warning. They had to now be very careful, so that no one else would be lost like Sxieva was..
Mid-sweeping, Thanrie froze. She spotted Lwyn walking by with laundry, tending to other responsibilities as a way to keep moving forwards. Lwyn had finally in fact decided that, like they had always called for, she had to keep going, to keep making her mother proud. She had thus stored safely away the core she had been clinging to, the one which had been blood-soaked originally, most of the blood now staining her own hands. Thanrie watching Lwyn go by with laundry.. her hands a horrific nightmare of blood.. Thanrie shrieked and ran to Lwyn.
Lwyn dropped the laundry, being startled so suddenly. Thanrie ran to her and checked Lwyn’s hands, making sure everything was alright, her panic another layer to her pale. “Oww.. why did you do that?” “Your hands..” “Oh, right, I guess I should wash them first. Maybe I should get the core wiped down too, it was such a bloody mess.” Lwyn’s ears still rung as Thanrie’s pale face shifted to a red embarrassment as she clued in to what had actually happened. Thanrie took a moment to remind herself that Lwyn was really going to be okay, there was no reason to worry.
As Lwyn wandered off, Qheria and Mhyl showed up at a dash, worried about what had happened. Zyuixqs however had arrived first. “Thanrie, are you alright? What happened?” “Oh, uh.. I.. Nothing!” Zyuixqs checked to make sure Thanrie was alright, only to find himself getting snarled at suddenly. Zyuixqs just stood there patiently. “I was just seeing things, okay. I thought Lwyn had hurt herself, that’s all. She’s off cleaning her mother’s blood from her hands now though. I’m.. I’m sorry to bother everyone.” Thanrie eventually just expressed the problem. Mhyl and Qheria noticed the abandoned laundry, and started putting even more of the picture together. After consoling Thanrie through her fears, they each returned to their work.
Lwyn eventually got the blood off her hands, even though she never truly got rid of the feeling. She still knew what responsibility she had to face, what fate her father had left for her. All of that was setup because her father could no longer cope with the way the world worked, and was set to change it. He was going to change things for the worse, but itself.. the need for change wasn’t wrong. Her mother wasn’t left to face inevitable death because her father wanted to change the world, her mother was set to die because of the same hatred Khaexyn was set on eliminating. He himself blamed the world for the whole deal.
Her own knowledge though lent her understanding.. his path was doomed to fail. Remaking the world wouldn’t just be some magic solution that would fix everything. There was a bit of irony in that statement, him using the gift to make things happen. However, reflecting on the idea, she didn’t actually fully agree with the irony. The gift wasn’t itself something as strange and unknown as magic, it was a real thing that was a part of their lives. It was just another part of Celese, something that fit into their everyday lives. There was nothing magical about it, not really.. it even had its own kind of science.
Lwyn recalled Mhyl’s old quote, though she couldn’t remember that it was Clarke’s Third Law. ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ Technically, the real magic here was the technology they were using, something that hardly made sense by the laws of Celese. So in a way, it was her father’s magic solution after all. The only problem was, the magic was just an illusion, lies to lend him belief in a salvation it could never bring. Instead, she would have to not only stop her father, but also find an actual real solution to the same problem.. she had to do it for her mother too.
Mhyl walked in at this point, again trying to offer her a lunch. When Lwyn mentioned the still neglected laundry, Thanrie walked in carrying the load. She was still shaking, but she was determined to face her fears and overcome them. Lwyn had done such, certainly she could too. Thanrie’s only defeat in her ambition was when she realized she had no idea how laundry was actually being done. It seems Lwyn would have to share some of her knowledge, to help Thanrie to overcome her fears. However, Mhyl was still in her way, with her lunch. Obviously there would have to be an order to everything.
Qheria waited outside, watching the silent exchange. All of them really had honestly learned so much, had become capable of so many things. Thanrie working to overcome her fears, now that was a sight to behold. It was also obvious that Mhyl was very worried about how Lwyn was truthfully doing, the concern was printed over her face. She wasn’t about to let Lwyn fall apart again. Mhyl was standing strong against it, a conviction even Qheria had to respect. Qheria though felt it was best to simply be honest and direct, it would be the best for all of them.
Qheria entered the room as Lwyn started on her lunch, giving surrender. “So Lwyn, honestly, you going to be alright?” Qheria wasn’t going to sugar-coat her question either. Mhyl was surprised to hear it being asked, and turned to Lwyn too. “I’ll.. I’ll be fine, just need to keep going one step at a time.” Lwyn’s face didn’t have anything close to a smile, it was a stern serious expression, filled with resolution. Mhyl was inwardly surprised, this wasn’t a typical expression Lwyn had ever worn. There wasn’t even an ounce of artificial in her expression, it couldn’t seem any more real.. it couldn’t even be any more real than this. Qheria nodded, going back to work. All of them had gone so far, grown so much, even Lwyn.
While teaching Thanrie the harmless act of laundry, using the simple mundane approach she was familiar with, Lwyn reflected upon their day. There was so much they could have in fact done on route, and yet none of them accounted for this. She would have been compelled to wonder why, but she already knew the answer. Her mother had painted that last day of happiness for them, it was all too obvious. It was like looking over a magician’s act after the performance ended, seeing behind the smoke and mirrors. Sure, being mobile like this made some things harder, and waiting for their destination might have not panned out the best, but much of their work and progress could have waited. It just didn’t, because they had three whole days left.
Sxeiva had told them that she had learned all this flow prediction stuff from her mother, left unto her in a book held now by her father. This book would now be handed down to Lwyn, giving her access to her mother’s secret. It was almost intimidating to think about, would that mean she would start also predicting the future too, knowing important things before they came to pass? Just how big was the legacy of her family, and how heavy was it falling upon her. She had a responsibility with her father at this point, but she didn’t even see it ending there. She had a responsibility with her grandfather, being heir to the Arch-Magus. She knew she had a responsibility with her grandmother now too, being the heir of a Circle Elf. She also had responsibilities on her father’s side, tormented by the war.. in fact she was then descendent of human nobility who were friends of both royal families. She was part of a web of the entire world, and her mother had given her a responsibility of the world itself, with this book left to her.
She hadn’t thought so deeply on the matter before, the extent of her responsibility. She had always feared responsibility, it had always overwhelmed her. However, after being overwhelmed so long, as the whole thing came together.. it just felt inevitable, so she had already accepted it. This certainly didn’t mean it was easier or less scary, it just meant.. she would keep going. She wasn’t alone, Mhyl had quite an elven legacy to return to, something that might reshape elven society going forwards, considering her impressions of Mhyl. If Lwyn was going to have any association to the Circle Elves, she certainly would be there to help Mhyl out along the way. Qheria and Thanrie, they had a division of the humans to face, and Lwyn was certain she would be there to help that too. They were all there for each other.
Before she knew it, Lwyn’s lesson for Thanrie was over. Thanrie had already figured out that, whatever it was that went on at the Fortress, that wasn’t the only solution for laundry. Khaexyn just had yet another bad solution to a problem, not something new for him in the least. Laundry shortcuts are fine.. as long as people aren’t hurt in the process. Khaexyn’s solutions generally seemed to involve someone getting hurt, Thanrie couldn’t help but realize this while looking upon Lwyn. For all that Khaexyn wanted to help his family, he was actually hurting quite a lot instead. Thanrie packed up the laundry, fully familiar with what was done to clothes at this point.
Lwyn found herself without a task to complete, so went off to the storage area. There, she found Qheria putting away the ladder, having finished everything. She stood there for a moment in a daze, her plans to clean around here suddenly dashed. Qheria waved to Lwyn as she went by once again, the ladder safely stashed away. It was in this moment that she started regretting teaching Thanrie how to actually do laundry. If everyone was going to start doing her work, what would be left for her to do? She recalled Thanrie had even done sweeping, and a pretty good job of it too. She recalled that they had been assigned to do work like this back in the Fortress, learning her work. It wasn’t fair.
She then set off to the kitchen. It was almost dinner, and there was a lot of things to take care of for that! She arrived to witness Mhyl having finished all of the dishes, and working on dinner. Of course Mhyl knew how to cook, she had been doing that for a while now. Lwyn thought she had an advantage there, knowing that maids didn’t do cooking in the Fortress. Technically, all of this was also frequently handled by some of the regular staff around here, but.. usually there was always something left for her to do.
With nothing left, she went to go look for Yuxzn. If people were going to steal her maid chores, she would make use of some of her own lessons too from the same time. “Yuxzn, what is the situation so far? Are we making good progress? Has there been any new updates?” “Oh, we’ve made steady progress on schedule. Moving across the river and following along it from the other side, far in the distance.. we’ve came across nothing in our travels.” “Ah, so we could arrive then late at night. That might not be smart, starting up a lot of diplomacy without rest. It might be smart to put shift to our progress, giving everyone a proper night’s sleep, and instead arrive early in the morning. I’m sure they would understand the logistics behind it. We would need a safe place to rest, so maybe drift even farther from the river, so that we could stop in the dead of the wild instead. Looping back early in the morning shouldn’t be a problem, right?” Lwyn presented her opinion of the situation, leaving Yuxzn to consider the logic behind it. There might not be such a pressing need to rest before diplomacy, but being fully refreshed before walking into such a hornets nest really wasn’t a bad idea.
As night finally approached, the facility found a decent enough location to settle for the night. Their return to the Rebellion would occur first thing in the morning, on their own terms.
Luminaeris 