Chapter 39: Chapter 37.5: Treated like a child

“Asa is scary.” Levin said, squirming uncomfortably on the sidelines next to Rolwen. However, Rolwen just refused to look at him.

“Yeah, she’s seen some shit today.” He finally said. Although the words were more or less in agreement with Levin’s comment, there was something about it that made the young boy feel like a chasm had opened up between the two of them.

Today had been really chaotic. It started when Nymph was yelling about dark elves, and then all of a sudden their home for the past two years became some kind of shelter. The place was attacked. Rolwen seemed to more or less take charge. Then, Tia went off the side of the tree followed by Asa.

Ever since then, Asa started acting really weird. The girl who he felt was the only one in a position to understand him seemed to be really upset. He had been used to her always being so strong. She always seemed to know so much, but suddenly she seemed vulnerable.

At first, Levin didn’t know what to make of it. He thought maybe he should comfort her. Then, all of a sudden she sat up and that strong confident Asa was back. But... something was different. There was suddenly something very scary about her. She started talking about some very serious stuff. About how half the village was probably out to kill her and Tia. That seemed like something crazy, but when she explained it everything made a lot of sense.

Levin didn’t even know what to do. In these situations, Rolwen always seemed to be the only other person who knew what to do, but he wasn't any help either. All he did was just go over into the corner and sit. He wasn’t even talking to Asa at all ever since she got back from all that.

This new scary version of Asa seemed to know what she was doing, but she only seemed to be talking with Tia now all of a sudden. It was like him and Rolwen were cut off. He felt like Asa only treated Tia like an adult and him and Rolwen were children. It was frustrating, but he had to admit that those two actually were the oldest in the room. Meanwhile, Levin Genuinely was the youngest, and Rolwen had a tendency to act like a dick at the worst possible times.

Levin wasn't just the youngest. He had still lived with his parents at the time he died back on Earth. He was not really young, he was 14 and was just starting highschool. Actually, that should be “she” was just starting highschool. He hadn’t told anyone here, but he was actually a girl when he was on Earth. He didn’t want to tell anyone, he didn’t think Asa and Tia would care, but Rolwen would definitely make fun of him if he knew that he was a girl before.

He couldn't bring himself to talk about how his gender had been changed. Meanwhile, Asa who was in the same boat just came right out and said that she was a man in her past life. An old man at that. She... or rather, "he" already had grandchildren.

Up until now, Levin had felt close to Asa. She was like a reliable mother, or maybe even a grandmother. She was someone he could count on to know what to do, and she always treated them fair like she was being the adult in the room. He felt like she was adapting to being a girl pretty well too. Meanwhile, Levin still didn’t know what it meant to be a boy.

On occasion, Levin had thought about trying to talk to Asa privately about the fact he had been a girl before. She seemed like she would probably understand him. Asa was a girl now. As a former girl, that made Levin more comfortable about talking to her as opposed to anyone else. Asa was also a boy before, so that meant she could help him figure things out. But he had never really had the chance before.

Now, Asa was acting all crazy. It was like that kind mother had turned into a monster. Right now her anger was directed at everything except for, thankfully, him and Rolwen. She was even angry at Nymph, who was one of their friends for a while now. It scared Levin a lot to think about what might happen if Asa and Nymph kept fighting.

Levin was afraid to talk to Rolwen right now too. He was always difficult for Levin to deal with, but Rolwen also sorta reminded Levin a bit of "his" big brother back on Earth. Plus, the way Rolwen talked earlier… he seemed like he didn’t want to talk, but he did sound like he knew more than Levin did about what was going on.

With this in mind, he decided to work up his courage and try to rely on Rolwen to answer his questions.

“Why does she have to fight with Nymph?” That was the chief concern. He got a little bit about why they were fighting, but he didn’t know just how serious it might be and what it meant.

“Teh…” Rolwen made a disgusted sound. “Explaining that would take an entire semester in a philosophy course and several history lessons just to begin on an explanation.” He said, once again sending off the ‘I don’t want to talk about this’ vibes.

“Rolwen!" He said in a very fierce 'restrained yell' of a whisper. "I don’t understand anything that’s going on here! Asa is acting crazy all of a sudden! She’s really angry! What… what’s even going on anymore?”

Rolwen didn’t answer for a while. Somehow, Levin knew from his look that he was trying to think up another way to dodge his question without actually answering. It was starting to really piss him off.

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Finally, Rolwen sighed. “Look, there are some things you can only understand once you have gone through the same experiences.” He said. “What Asa is going through right now, it’s not something you want to understand.”

He knew it. Levin knew Rolwen wasn’t going to give him an answer. And what’s with acting like he’s all superior for being able to understand it? Before Levin could even think about what he was doing, his fist was occupying the space where Rolwen’s head was a second ago.

He had not hit Rolwen. Instead, just like the lessons Asa had drilled into them again and again, Rolwen had avoided the punch by the smallest fraction of an inch, just tilting his head back a little out of the way as the fist sailed right over the bridge of his nose.

It seemed like the punch and dodge had both surprised Rolwen just as much as they had Levin. He had apparently avoided it out of some kind of instinct their training had ingrained into him rather than anything conscious.

Rolwen’s face quickly went from surprise to incredulity as he turned to face Levin while his fist was still hanging uselessly in the air. “The hell Levin?” Rolwen demanded. Levin finally realized what was going on and immediately fell on his rear.

Suddenly, Rolwen started laughing. There was something wrong with that laugh. He kept laughing and shaking his head in a way that looked kinda sad, and he was not looking at Levin at all. This made Levin all the more confused.

“Shit!” Rolwen said, and then something seemed to change about him. “Seriously, what was wrong with that punch?” He asked in an awkward tone as though he was making this up on the spot. “That’s not the way Asa taught us to attack.” Suddenly, Rolwen didn’t seem angry anymore. Not at Levin at least.

He helped Levin up and got him sitting next to him again, and then turned resume watch the conversation between Asa and Eirlathion.

“Sorry about that.” Rolwen said. “What Tia said before, how she seemed to be so casual about killing… I get that there’s something different about her, but it really freaked me out. We’ve got some real shit going on here. So much complicated shit I don’t even know where to begin on it. I’ve been trying to figure things out.”

He shook his head.

“Still, yeah, I was being a little bit of a dick but that’s no reason to go trying to punch me.” He said and then socked Levin in the shoulder. It wasn’t a mean-spirited punch, but it was not a friendly tap either. It was just strong enough to hurt a bit.

“I think we should practice a bit after this.” Rolwen said. Levin knew exactly what he was talking about. When you say practice around here, it only referred to one thing. Practice the fighting techniques Asa had taught them.

“Huh?” Levin replied dumbly. “What? But, tonight? We were just attacked! And, Asa… we can’t ask her to help us practice right now!”

“We don’t need Asa in order to practice.” Rolwen said. “We’ll just run through some techniques she already taught us. You’re looking for a way to help her because she’s upset, right? Well, us practicing somewhere she can see should do that.”

“Whah? How?” Levin asked. How was that supposed to work?

Rolwen socked him in the shoulder again, this one was light but it just had to be on the exact same spot he got punched before. Despite the fact he'd only just touched him, that spot was still sore from the last hit and it caused Levin to grimace and hold his arm.

“Just trust me on this one.” Rolwen said. “It will help. Even if it doesn’t, it will help you and me to work out some of our frustrations. Even if I’m wrong, we will be able to think a little more clearly after we are done.”

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