"Hello, Mr. Bhemus!" I called out cheerfully, striding right through the front door of the Dwarves' shop with the brightest of smiles on my face. "I'm here for my appointment!"
"Mademoiselle," one of my favorite Bhemuses, of the many I favored, rose up from where he worked at the front desk. "We've been waiting for you."
"Hm..." I hummed in the best mood I'd been in in days and glad to hear that, having been running around as usual to make sure nothing at all had the possibility of popping up while hiding away in Strathmis. "How have you been?"
"The same; nothing much changes around here. And you, Mademoiselle?"
"Well," I flashed an even brighter smile, feeling my professionalism melting away with each passing second. "Same old, same old. Are you ready?"
The smile on Jerry Bhemus' face, seeing my youthful excitement and unconfined innocence, only made him shake his head while standing up and going for his cane. "As ready as one can be for the project of the millennia."
"I can't wait...!"
For those few days I'd been running around, the problem of not having a weapon that I could properly use without it breaking after one or two uses was finally getting on my nerves. Fed up with the weakness of everything around me - probably just because I consciously knew I'd get something stronger soon - I'd reached my breaking point as well.
And therefore, the euphoria of knowing that everything was about to change hit me like lightning. Bouncing off the walls that morning, Magaris gave up on trying to contain me when I rushed around magicking everything to prepare to be away for just that one day. In case Magaris needed this, I gave this to her, and in case the children needed that, and yada yada yada-
"Go. Just go. Be back by dinner."
"I'll see you at breakfast!"
And off I went to Strathmis, clicking my heels together. Magaris must've sighed "good riddance" the moment I was gone.
"Mr. Bhemus," I greeted the first I saw, shaking hands, "Mr. Bhemus, Mr. Bhemus, Mr. Bhemus-"
"Missing an arm now, are we?"
"Gotten up to some trouble the past few months, have we?"
"Something like that!" I laughed, noticing that my hand was already blackened by the time I'd gotten halfway through greeting everyone. People that could leave their stations came over to see me bouncing around from place to place, just happy to be in one of the best places in the world.
Major Bhemus put a halt to all of my greetings soon enough, calling out to me. "Mademoiselle de Libellule."
"Huh?" I turned around, finally calming down, taking some deep breaths to somewhat smother my smile.
"May we begin conducting our business? All of these old men have work they're shirking at the moment."
Cold water splashed over my radiance as I really reigned it in then. "Sorry...I was just excited to be here."
"And I don't blame you," the Dwarf said, glancing down at a pocket watch in his hand before slipping it back into a pocket. "However-"
"Oh, don't mind him," Grant Bhemus came up from behind and smacked the other Dwarf, causing him to stop. "He's merely nervous about the coming of the Moon Finery Competition, and the project he's relying on your time converted space to be able to complete it."
"Moon Finery Competition?"
The Bhemuses, having had their fun, began to disperse while the few meant to aid me - or take advantage of my appearance - stayed.
Grant Bhemus smiled while beckoning us towards the back of the smithy, where the workbench I'd used before still stood as clean as ever, waiting for me to make it dirty. Oh...I can't wait!
"It's a festival held once every three years to see what clan was able to create the greatest of artifacts in the given time. Consistently, the winners of the clan have received great favor from the king, first choice of the mines they will be in charge of for three years, the honor dancing with the princess, as well as-"
"The finest liquor known to Dwarfkind," Major Bhemus affirmed, eyes strangely fired up while looking down at plans spread out over another part of the workbench. "Envied even by ancient Dragons, the old Fae, and fairies who've seen civilizations rise and fall. Lorettatir."
"..."
My eyes went wide looking up to Grant Bhemus who only smiled and shook his head. "If there's anything to know about Dwarves, especially those like Major here, it is that you must never get between them and their liquor."
"...noted. So," I looked over at the plans, bothering to peek just a bit - I'd grown up just a small bit so that I didn't look as weak and fragile as I hid under my kimono - at what he had. "Where's the product?"
"I have not started yet."
"What?" My eyes went wide meeting his, looking back down at the plans on the page. "Isn't this competition in just a few days? I don't know how long I'll be able to sustain the time converted space, even though I have a lot more mana than we last met-"
"I do wonder what you do most days to end up with so many scars-"
"-because of the amount of projects and quality of them that I'm going to sustain."
"If I do not manage to finish, then it is only my own fault," Major Bhemus shook his head, eyes narrowing down at the plans. "If only I'd done it before the sun ruptured...of all the luck in the world to have, I have my own, and of all the things to go wrong, the sun itself died before I could complete my project."
"...what?"
Cold sweat dripped down my spine then as he threw cold water all over me again.
"Ah," Grant Bhemus sighed, nodding his head with folded arms. "The most bizarre thing happened a few months ago: the second sun, Saedli, suddenly began to break apart in the middle of the day and float apart while we were conducting metal purifying rituals specific to our clan in our territory, and we were unable to finish the purification. Until now, we've been relying on our stores to work, but next year we might be in a spot of trouble if we don't manage to purify our ores somehow."
"And you need...Saedli...why?"
"Because Saedli is the symbol of Zuelis, God of Light, and his blessing is needed to purify the ore that we extracted from the depths of the earth. Thousands of years ago, these lands were steeped in darkness as the Demons reigned it, before the gods pushed it back to create a space for us to live again. However, they only cleared the surface of the land where we hunt, the parts of the ocean where we fish and the Mer live, and the skies as far up as we can reach them on the backs of wyverns. The depths of the earth are full of darkness and malevolence, and every three years we must purify them for the peace of our people. Every time we pull up ore, as well, as must purify it so that it can be used for good, not evil. That," Major Bhemus sighed, elbows on the edges of his plans, head bent over, hands running through the braided mess. "Is how we smithing clans exist and derive our pride. We brave what those punks-"
"The non-smithing clans," Grant Bhemus substituted.
"-are too fearful to encounter. And for it, we must find glory in our work, to prove endlessly that we Dwarves are a hardworking and humble people. Not...a race meant to be surface-dwellers satisfied with only wealth and more human in their lust for greed than Dwarven in their blood..."
"...I see."
"Not only that," he grunted, slamming a fist down on the table and glaring even harder if that was possible. I feared his eyes would be sucked back into the sockets with how sunken they already were in his face. "But our clan has not won for the past eleven competitions! All because of those Loschmel bastards and their sudden stroke of luck...after our Bhemus clan won for two hundred and fifty-five straight years! And if they think we won't reclaim our winning streak this century, then they'd best think again. We will get the Lorettatir this year, on my honor-"
"Oh...that must be...quite the withdrawal..."
I didn't know that was what they thought the world was like. Or at least, that that was how the gods painted their creation story in the Dwarves' eyes. I could only wonder what the fairies thought, since they were definitely all old enough to have been alive longer than most gods had been there. And, the older Dragons, since their lifespans could be upwards of ten thousand years old if they lived it right.
"Well then, I'm going to apologize first. I'm sorry for what happened to Saedli-"
"...don't say such a thing, lass. It had nothing to do with you-"
My expression budged a bit, looking down at the table. That's debatable. "And for another, I'd like to make you an offer...after an inquiry. How long does it take you to purify your ores?"
"From start to finish, around a week for the low-level ores we use every day. For the ore I was planning to use," Major Bhemus shook his head further down still, glaring at the drawings. "Three months. It's almost done, but no matter how many blessings I've made that blasted church perform on it, it never gets any better."
"Hm..."
I had to think on that one for a moment, considering my options. It just depended on a few things.
"What kind of ore is it? Because if it's divine ore, I have plenty of that."
"No, heavens no, nothing as rare as that. I'd dare not waste it on just a project of mine, no matter how great the liquor."
"Then..." I reached into my storage, pulling out the weapon I'd just been swinging around that morning taking care of more cultists in Northern Zueltina. My patience was running short with how they seemed to multiply every time I searched for the next den and found five more alcoves tucked up in the mountains. Maybe I shouldn't have just been killing them indiscriminately, but every time I found a slave, or a group of women cloistered away for strange activities, I kind of just...lost it.
And then they lost their lives.
Fair exchange.
"Would this work?"
Minus the blood, the holy blade appeared, set down on the workbench so that tip to tail it didn't go over the surface. The broad sword was in pieces after how hard I swung it at the man that'd picked up a human shield as I accidentally blew out the back of the mountain, hilt separate from the rest of the thing, in pieces to look like it was still together though. Major Bhemus popped up to gasp at the overwhelming mana exuding from the thing in front of him, taking a few steps back. Something crashed not far away from us as people threw up their arms to defend themselves from the might of the sword.
"What? What's wrong?" I asked, looking over the bench to where even Grant Bhemus had ducked behind, beneath, and looked to be suffering for his decision as waves of light pushed out from the shiny white thing like ripples in a pond. "Is it too much?"
"What is that?!"
"A...sword? Oh, a holy one, I mean. Is this not the kind of ore you work with? It's purified, though..."
In fact, it was more than just purified. That thing was likely what people went to in order to purify themselves, or bless their children when naming them, or their lands, so Monsters in the night would stop coming and taking all of the cattle in the night.
"I-" Major Bhemus still flinched away while trying to look over his arm at it. I snapped my fingers and made the thing disappear so they could all breathe again, some of them collapsing to the ground and shaking, others holding onto their workspaces and shaking, trying not to take a knee. A lot of them, even beneath the soot, were...pretty pale. Whoops...? "I've never seen anything like that in my life..."
"What? But this is basically a penny on the side of the road. I have hundreds of these in my storage alone," I gawked back at him as he struggled to stand. "These things are more common and far weaker than divine ore, by far. What are you all being so dramatic for?"
"Dramatic..."
If they weren't all chilled to the bone, offense was probably what they'd have shown to me. Instead, they were all still shaking, feeling the remnants of mana tingling in the air and struggling to even swallow.
"Mademoiselle...de Libellule..."
They stared at me in such a strange way. I didn't understand, looking at all of them and realizing something fundamental must've changed in the way they thought of me. Why they didn't get that the first time I came around making divine ore circlets meant to contain me, I didn't know, but that little moment alone seemed to have changed...everything, probably.
"What...are you?"
Woah. Hold on. No dramatic movie lines, don't be afraid of me.
"Um..." But it was uncomfortable trying to come up with something to say that might make them be comfortable around me again. "I'm me? I guess."
How else am I supposed to answer?
It took me a while to realize that they were genuinely terrified, judging by the smell in the air, and that that answer probably wouldn't work.
"Ha..."
"Ha?" I repeated, looking around for whomever made that noise.
But it kept going, getting louder, as I looked over the side of the bench just in time to see Grant Bhemus fall back on the ground and begin to laugh so loud that tears trickled out of the sides of closed eyes. Major Bhemus joined him, soon enough, falling back to the ground to run those hands through his hair again, taking the time to regain his strength before sitting up, then kneeling, then struggling to get his feet beneath him to make it back to the bench. Having stumbled over to it like a drunk, only to hold on for dear life, legs failing, looking at me looking at him, disturbed.
"Was it that bad...?"
"Oh, Mademoiselle," he coughed, laughing, lifting a hesitant hand before eventually clapping it on top of my head and ruffling around. I flinched with every pat, scrunching my face as my head turned on a swivel. "From the Tearing Fang whom even gods and Demons feared, to the Red Lioness whom fairies loved, to the little girl with a holy sword as common as a penny...please, bring your child back here someday so that we may see just how far this bloodline can deviate from the path of normalcy and mortal comprehension."
"Uh..." I lifted a hand up to fix my hair, still confused. "I mean, I'm going to die before I'm even an adult, so you'll probably have to look to my siblings if you want something like that...but anyway, I'm guessing you don't want that sword in particular...I have weaker holy swords if you want, they probably won't be so overwhelming. Do you want one of those?"
Major Bhemus took in a deep breath, still leaning on the bench. Putting an elbow over it as his knees were still bent, looking at me still staring him clear in the eye. Sighing with a strange smile, shaking his head. "Lass, by Zuelis, so long as I can stand long enough in its presence, I'll take it."
"You will certainly have your Lorettatir this year, brother," Grant coughed, still laughing on the ground to himself on the other side. Forgotten in his hysteria, lost in mirth in the dirt. "If you have the guts and strength to reforge a holy sword, that is."
-X-
Forging was fun. Fun, but difficult. It didn't take me too long to learn the tricks of the trade from the former best smithy clan in all of Strathmis, famed for their specialty in diversity and enchantments, able to make anything any royal wanted with efficiency and speed unlike any other-
"Yes, yes, Major. How's the sword coming along?"
"-queen's favor..." Major Bhemus paused in his gloating over a spot of lunch, spoon coming back down to his soup, quieting the moment Mrs. Bhemus asked that question. Silently did he begin to consume his soup again, spooning the chunks of meat past a bitter expression.
She shook her head while wiping hands on a towel, throwing it over the rack while going to prepare the next stew. We'd come out for a lunch break, having already been working for a week - with the horrific time conversion of two weeks for us, two hours for the rest of the world, to give them enough time to prepare food and draw new baths when we emerged for the next break. A hundred Dwarves and little ole me popped out of the depths of the smithy, passing through a lobby that had likely never been dirtier, to surprise husbands and wives shaking their heads at their husbands and wives dirtier than the sun was shiny up in the sky.
"That's better," Mrs. Bhemus - the other Mrs. Bhemus, Major Bhemus' great-great-great-granddaughter, pregnant and aching for silence while chopping vegetables quietly through an open doorway - said, sighing when all of the agitation finally stopped.
Mr. Bhemus - Major Bhemus - turned a look over at her, about to start ranting again until Mr. Bhemus - the great-great-great-grandson-in-law - begged with him not to start. The weak-willed and pleasantly-plump great...grandson-in-law sighed in relief while taking the bowls away, preparing to go wash the dishes.
"How goes your project, Mademoiselle?" he asked upon returning with some fruit for me, having seen me eyeing it on the way in every time we came for the hour, and having started giving it to me as a treat every time we were about to leave. I didn't know if it was because my eyes lit up every time I saw it, and because I was profusely thankful while accepting and proceeding to munch down with the greatest joy before going back down underground down the street, but he knew I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was to the point that even when they ran out and I became eternally sad, I was jumping for joy when the basket was refilled next time we came back out.
"Well, I just finished learning," I responded, eyes lighting up on him - specifically, on his stomach, through which I could see my fruit in his hand behind his back. "So I should be getting started this next time we go down..."
And I waited for him to give it to me. When his arm shifted, I straightened, preparing to reach out and accept, as always, my strange Dwarven fruit.
No, it wasn't better than tyugo...but I'd definitely be taking some of that home with me.
"...Mr. Bhemus?" I blinked.
"What?"
"What?"
"Which one, Mademoiselle? You know you have to be specific."
"Oh, sorry," I apologized to the twelve at the table with me, and the ones in the surroundings. Only the women didn't turn around. "Um..."
"Peter," the Bhemus I was talking to volunteered with a sweet smile. The man was just so...kind. I blinked in surprise, since that wasn't a look I got every day. Most people ran away in fear. "Peter Bhemus."
"Um...is that fruit behind your back for me, or were you going to give it to someone else?"
And then I was bedazzled with that innocent smile again, making me flinch back like they did from the holy sword. When he put the fruit in my hand, I heard him laugh seeing me squirrel it away into my storage. Just for safety precautions.
"...I just wasn't sure."
"Okay," he reached out a hand and rubbed my head too, for some reason. Everyone liked to do that there.
"Why do you all do this to me?" I sighed, reaching up to feel what tangles there were as he tried to extract his hand. Thankfully, he wasn't wearing a work glove, as most of them were when reaching out to me. "It's like you all think my hair is beyond saving anyway, so just ruin it some more."
"Sorry," he grimaced, pulling his hand up. "Dwarves just like...taking care of people. And you fit right in, so I just..."
"Fine," I sighed, glaring the slightest bit up at him. "So long as I get my fruit...I'll allow it."
"If you would like, my daughter can help you get ready for the competition tomorrow."
"Huh?" I blinked. "Get ready...why?"
"Well, because you're going to present your project at the apprentice section, aren't you?"
Major Bhemus snorted at the youngster's idea, still scooping up his soup.
"Well...no? I was just going to make it and leave, that was the extent of my appointment? I didn't even know about the competition until a few weeks ago...in the time converter, I mean."
So far, it'd only been about two months since we'd gotten into the thing. There were still another four months and four weeks left before all of the time converted equaled a whole day in the real world. I believed that was definitely sufficient time for me to be able to complete the three things that I wanted to make, having - so far - only focused on learning, watching, and crafting little things that they had me practice on, besides supplying mana to the barrier and to Major Bhemus. That man...for his pride...refused to ask for help, even though the sword was, in Grant Bhemus' words, "Beating his arse."
"Then would you consider it now? I think it'd be a good experience, and there are small prizes for the top three winners. My daughter first got her foothold in the smithy when she won second place a few years ago," Peter Bhemus spoke softly, encouraging. Seeing the gears churning in my eyes as I stared at the ground, thinking. "And the competition isn't that much longer after you all come out of the smithy, less than a day now. There's also a good deal of food, with fruits even from Peoni...why don't you think about it?"
And I was hooked.
"I'll be there."
"Glad to hear it! Honey!" Peter Bhemus turned and went off to find his wife in the next room at the kitchen table, still slicing quietly. "Do you think Dasia still has her old dress? It would fit after a bit of enchanting, wouldn't it? Dasia was such a skinny child thirty years ago..."
And soon enough, it was time for us to go back. Without a thought in my mind, I followed the crowd back through the halls, munching on my fruit and just putting one foot in front of the next.
Oh? I jumped when about to enter the back entrance to the smithy, connected from the other side rather than having to go to where the shop was in the commercial district instead of where all of the clans were cloistered, quiet, on the other side of the city. What's this?
"Mademoiselle!" someone gasped, breathless when I failed to enter the smithy ahead of them but go straight through the wall instead. "Where did she go?!"
But I was surprised by something that had come up in my notifications, eyes narrowing, wondering if it was possible that hackers existed that could put false notifications on my screen. Maybe...is there a way to put up firewalls in this world...
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- Congratulations! You have been given the blessing of Tasega!
- Request: Tasega wishes to ask a single favor from you. Tasega understands your plight thus far and does not ask lightly and without any promised support. Will you accept?
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This is new, and...ugh...that bull crap again...
It'd appeared after the stuff in Koraco, when I got all of that favor and those blessings after dealing with idiots messing with my family. But, knowing what I knew about becoming the champion of whatever, I decided to ignore it.
So I cast off the strange notification and floated back down, entering the smithy and wandering all the way back to the workbench I'd been given. Looking back out over the others talking a bit as I started up the time conversion barrier, covering the whole smithy, and then started up a separate barrier that contained just my tools and workbench inside. They couldn't handle a mere holy sword - what would I do if they all fainted or just straight up turned to dust when I pulled out something higher than that?
Maybe I just...shouldn't do it here?
Thinking that, maybe, it something went wrong, and I was incapacitated, I might cause the death of so many people because I messed with the wrong thing thinking just a single barrier would be enough to contain it...
So I voiced these concerns to Mr. Bhemus - Jeremy Bhemus - and he nodded along, brows low over his eyes, concerned himself.
"I see."
He nodded.
"I feared that might be the case as well. However, the Heartfire forge of our clan - the strongest forge that any besides the king possesses - is being used to reforge the holy sword you gave my grandfather, and only one can use it at a time...and it can only be used by clan members. This is a bit of a dilemma..."
"I just don't understand how a mere holy sword can give so much trouble when we literally forged divine ore down here just earlier this year. That's leaps and bounds more powerful that the ore of a holy sword." Even though, compared to me, they were both just paper and glue.
"Though the divine ore is indeed much stronger than the holy sword, there was no power within it. It only became powerful when you imbued your mana inside. However, mana is no match for holy power itself, especially blessed as strongly as it is upon the sword directly from the God of Light himself," Jeremy Bhemus shook his head. "That's just how it is."
"Directly from Zuelis..."
I frowned, thinking for a moment or two. Then, frowned harder, mulling over that phrase.
"But there's no way that's holy magic, because if so..."
I would've been very hurt just by wielding it. It wasn't like I'd ever specifically changed races away from "Demon" in order to even hold the dang thing. And I knew for sure that holy magic was able to hurt me, for obvious reasons.
"But it is."
However, I couldn't accept that answer, going over it in my head again and again. It just...didn't feel like it. The holy power emanating from that sword actually felt...holy. Pure. Strong. Beautiful, even. Genuine.
Like it was meant to protect...not harm. Even for a Demon like me.
The holy power that Zuelis had struck me with had felt oversaturated, sickening, and painful.
"There's just no way..."
Jeremy Bhemus sighed, seeing it cause me such obvious consternation while folding my arms and thinking harder, and harder, head ducking down, staring at the ground and trying to put the pieces together.
"Might it be because of the origins of the holy sword?"
"Origins?" My head popped up.
"You did indeed tell my grandfathers that this holy sword is only one of many you have picked up no doubt in your travels. Ore is not constant, and it is easily impressionable even long after being forged. When we extract from the earth, tainted ore is blackened and malevolent until purified to show itself as bronze, gold, silver, divine, or some other type of metal. If the holy sword you gave to my grandfather was to have come from an area that might have left an impression on it, then maybe that is why you experience a dysphoria with what you believe holy power to feel like and what you feel from the sword."
"Origins..."
I tried to think back to where I picked up that sword from. Really, it could've come from anywhere - because I really had picked up some of those things off the side of the road, sometimes. They were rusted chunks of metal at the bottom of the ocean, they were fused with trees to act as grave markers - I made sure that the bodies were long decomposed and souls long departed and reincarnated before taking them - and housed as ornaments in the most depraved noble houses. I'd found them in stone walls, or in ruins, or being used as toys by destitute nobles.
That one sword really could have come from anywhere.
"If I want to remember..."
From in front of Jeremy Bhemus, I disappeared. Maybe some warning was in order, but rather than taking my sweet time going through my memories, there was one surefire way for me to recall exactly where that metal had come from.
"How did you...never mind," Grant Bhemus shook his head when I appeared on the other side of an anvil, having shocked Major Bhemus so sharply that he stumbled back with the hammer in hand as his brother held the clamps keeping the metal core down, muscles bulging.
Without a word, I reached out to touch the hot sword, closing my eyes.
"[Haptic Memory]."
A touch to remember.
And then I was lost in the memories of the sword, scanning through the most recent - being melted, being smelted...which really didn't do anything, since the dang thing was pure as a baby...being handed over, blasting some Dwarves away...being in my storage, being broken, being used to hack people apart...being in my storage, storage, storage, storage...being in the water.
Being in the water, being in the water.
Being in the water, being in the water.
Being in the water, the water, the water, the water, the water, the water, the water-
Being in the water for...a very long time.
I looked up through the eyes of the sword, seeing nothing but darkness. Nothing until, as I raced backwards through time, backwards through the rust and cold, through the darkness in which things touched me that I definitely didn't want to know the origin of, as I raced back through the ages-
And I gasped. How long I'd been standing there, I didn't know. But it must've been a very long time that I'd been standing there, enough for thousands of years of memories to pass through my head until I was floating upwards, through the darkness, gradually into the light, and the person that had fallen into the water with me to exist in the depths was flying up too.
And then we were bloodied and losing a fight, chunks of armor missing, hand on a side leaking so badly while standing on top of a wyvern over a grand blue ocean that looked nothing like the one I saw when picking up the sword from the exact same place.
And then we were increasingly less injured, shining great, shining glorious, shining true. So much stronger than today, where it was nothing in my eyes. Because back then, it had been something, and something great. Something to fear, for the enemies of my hero who swung me around with all of the strength in her body, through every single adventure...every single journey...every single training to become a holy knight, to be worthy of it, having been waiting in the storage for so long for someone worthy of me to take me up.
And I watched my hero, still young even when we died together, grow younger as she wielded me. I watched until she and I were seeing each other for the very first time, as the old storage room of great weapons opened up and she walked forward to choose me of the many that were. A broadsword - something her mentor discouraged, even as she definitely said that one's going to be mine. But before that, in darkness, in darkness, in darkness, until I was being picked up as time kept going backwards, and an old man was giving me up after what I would soon see was a lifetime of greatness.
And before him, a young elf, who lived and died for his freedom, after years of being enslaved by humans. Who'd used the sword that eagerly accepted him, taken from a tyrant of a fortress, to run away from the supernatural continent across a passage to Newone that was land and not sea at the time, away from it all. Down to Newone, which was not an empire, but a free land of all sorts of races living together, and where great blacksmiths - not just Dwarven, but Elven, human, even angel, it seemed, as we were that far back in time - crafted such great pieces that I thought I heard a sob, but it couldn't have been me. Because I was just a baby sword hanging somewhere in that Dwarven woman's shop, somewhere on the coast where she relentlessly worked no matter day or night.
And before that, I had been beneath her gentle hands, as she etched in all of my carvings and imbued all of that pure mana, long faded by the time me - actual me, not sword me - got my hands on it.
And before that, I had been on a wagon. A chunk of metal, part of more chunks of metal, coming from a very faraway land, since the journey took forever, even by land, even by sea, even when put on an...airship...and finally plopped down on the either side of the world, in a temple, that I definitely recognized...
No, the shrine.
"No way..."
...until I made it right before the hands of a tall man, a quiet one, with white hair, much better skin, and pink eyes so vivid and hot that I'd recognize them anywhere...
Fae...Queen.
No, I shook my head, seeing the man in his long priestly robes, in an adult form that he definitely didn't have the energy to support anymore.
Arion.