Chapter 62: Book 2 Chapter 9: A rotten new start

2nd Arc: Capital

Act 2: To the capital

Eirlathion’s POV

Eirlathion rode at the head of a covered wagon, the very same wagon that the village used for bringing back human children from their raids. It was only used once every few years, but the construction was sturdy. Unlike a wagon a human might build, the body and the trestle, essentially everything but the moving wheels were made from a single piece of smooth wood. The wheels, wooden as well, glided freely under the influence of a permanent enchantment placed on them centuries ago when the wagon was first formed from the side of a lakira tree.

In order to keep the wagon from degrading over time, the wood that made up the wagon was still alive. It was no longer a part of a tree, and therefore it no longer needed to be rooted to the ground or absorb sunlight. However, any spirit inhabited lakira tree could connect to it and treat it as part of its body, and in the process it would be supplied with fresh nutrients and moisture in order to keep it functioning exactly as it was when it was first made.

Normally, the wagon would be pulled by 2 strong hunters. However, there would be no one else willing to journey to the capital with them. No, more specifically, nobody COULD go with them. There was simply too much risk involved, and anybody below the fifth tier had to stay away or else risk having their spirit corrupted by the excessive arcane energies that would be surrounding that battle ground. In this sense, Eirlathion himself only just barely made the cut.

Túeth had her spirit enhanced by her exposure to the Heaven’s Fall. The density and resilience of her spirit was, in fact, stronger than his own. She did not know how to purge arcane energies from her spirit, but she ought to be able to resist the effects long enough for him to get the chance to teach her. As for the children, their spirits were even stronger than hers. Since Dryad had revealed the true nature of the Heaven’s Fall, pure spirit energy from another world, as well as the fact that the children’s souls originally came from that world, it made perfect sense that their spirits would become this strong. It was doubtful as to whether or not they would ever face the threat of being corrupted, it would take some incredibly dense arcane energies to do so.

As for how the wagon was being pulled, this was done by the newest addition to their group. The changeling Sagel, who took the form of a large Ox. He had worked together with Dryad to rig up a yoke which would not slip off easily but he could also get out of quickly with a minor shift of his form.

They rode on in silence. Eirlathion was still shaken from discovering what had transpired over the night. Over half the village’s population gone. Not by an enemy attack, they had turned on each other in a wild murderous rage, neighbor against neighbor, simply by a few words from Dryad. It wasn’t even like they were instructed to kill each other. In fact, they had come up with that part completely on their own. However, Eirlathion could tell, Dryad knew this would be the result of their words.

Eirlathion let out a heavy sigh and clutched his head, turning away from the view of the road ahead and the swinging tail of Sagel’s Ox form. There was no coachman’s seat either on this wagon, he had only been looking out because it was a better view than having to look at the state the children and Túeth had been reduced to. Aerien was in a coma, and that had affected everyone else in their own ways. 

Her mother, Túeth, was completely distraught. She had not let go of that child since the moment Eirlathion had finished his examination of her, and just about all she did was look at the child and cry. About the only time she would really do anything else would be if the boys tried to move away from her. She would pull them back to her sides and often yell at them, insisting that Aerien needed them every second of every day to be right next to her until she was cured. Gaerien seemed concerned as well, but she also seemed terrified of her mother. She was keeping her distance from everyone, sitting against one of the walls about half way up the wagon, slightly closer to the front than the back where her mother was seated with her sister and two... friends. Yes, because they were fellow people from another world, it was certain they would be a lot closer than the typical elf and human children even at this incredibly young age.

Any way you cut it, it seemed a pretty miserable sight. It seemed completely unreal. The fate of a single 6 month old infant had destroyed an entire village, resulted in hundreds of deaths, and completely devastated those who were closest to her. And here he was expected to be the strength of this group running away from the aftermath of that disastrous incident.

“She kept calling for me.” Túeth murmured. This was something she would occasionally murmur. This woman was always so full of guilt over everything to do with these children. He could not understand the source of that guilt. He had thought at first it was her avoiding them because they reminded her of her trauma. Well, that was likely part of it still, but it seemed she actually blamed herself for something. All he could get out of her so far is the newest source of her guilt.

“All the time, every time I would...” She looked up at him. This was the real reason he had resolved to keep his attention forward all this time. This was the third time now she’s gone off into this, as though to confess all her guilt to him.

“Túeth, it is not your fault any of this happened to Aerien.” He told her in as firm a voice as he could manage without sounding harsh. He had tried to be soothing before, but that only lead to her breaking down to a more extreme degree.

“NO!” She shouted. “She wanted me! She wanted her mother, but... I kept turning my back on her. I ran away from her and she cried! If I had been there for her more she wouldn’t have been so terrified when that man broke in!” Great, it had progressed to this point. She kept heaping more and more fault onto herself every time she had one of these breakdowns. Before it was just that she had neglected Aerien and upset her in the days leading up to such a horrible incident, now she seemed to be trying to give herself the entirety of the responsibility for the current state of things. It was a good thing he had kept it a secret from her what happened last night, he didn’t even want to think of how bad this poor young woman would get if she knew about that.

Eirlathion wanted to find a way to tell her it wasn’t her fault, but right now with the running theory being that Aerien had gotten scared and worn out her spirit with an energy summoning spell it seemed like her logic was entirely reasonable. He could lie to her in some way, but that would only make things worse. If that was the case, he would have to show her why her current behavior was destructive. He looked over to the boys who were reeling in fear but also too terrified to risk backing away from her. He saw Gaerien shaking as she sat looking at the floor with all kinds of emotions working their way across a face likely too young to properly express them. That’s the route he should go.

“Túeth” he said in a soothing but still very firm tone as he began to approach. “You need to look at what you are doing. You are scaring Gaerien right now.” He reached to put a hand on the child’s back. She immediately turned and smacked his hand away viciously and tripped as she tried to crawl away from him, then breaking down into tears. This behavior shocked Eirlathion as he stared at his rebuffed hand.

“Hmph! That child hates me.” Túeth bit back, sending a challenging gaze his way. “You never seemed to notice, I didn’t notice until just recently. That child’s every bit as smart as Aerien. No, maybe she’s even smarter. She can actually see exactly how much of a monster her mother is.” 

“Túeth that’s... stop that kind of talk!” This was not working out. He was starting to lose his patience with the entire situation. Right now, he had another thing to deal with. He wouldn’t have thought much about it if he had thought Gaerien was a normal baby, but knowing she has a fully formed consciousness and memories of her previous life he could not ignore a reaction that strong to being touched. What was wrong with this girl? He had not told Túeth about the children’s previous life memories either. He didn’t think she could handle it yet, and that would also mean revealing to the children that he knew their secret. The latter could easily open up even more potential problems in such a tense situation.

“Why? That child knows. That’s why she won’t even let her mother touch her.” She bit back.

“She just smacked my hand away Túeth. I think you’re thinking too much on this.” No, if this child had previous life memories, it’s possible she really did hate her for abandoning them. In this case though, he would use Túeth’s lack of knowledge on the true source of their “advanced” intelligence to his advantage. 

“Maybe she just mistook you for me for some reason.” Túeth bit back. This was definitely no way to talk to your master, but he was not about to call her on that. In her current self-destructive state, she very well might reject him as her master and refuse to be his apprentice any longer if he were to point that out.

That’s enough. He’d made his decision. He could not allow the entire trip to proceed like this. It was clear enough Túeth and Gaerien were actively instigating one another to an extent. Túeth was being unreasonable, and nobody would normally think to actually reason with an infant who wasn’t even a year old, but with her past life memories maybe he could just pull something off with her. He reached for her again, but every time his hands brushed against her she would direct an attack at his hand.

She had a LOT of power for an infant. Every strike felt like he was hit by a rock. Was this really just the result of her spirit being strengthened from her old world? She would likely have the strength of a third rank hunter by the time she grew up if she had this kind of power already at her age, and that’s assuming she doesn’t actively cultivate in that direction in the future.

It took some wrestling, but Eirlathion finally managed to get his hands wrapped around her torso. He had to grit his teeth against the blows when he held her to his chest. “I’m going to step outside so the both of you can calm down.” He told the mother, stepping past her and jumping from the back of the moving wagon. Despite being a mage, all elves will develop a first rank body by adulthood even without cultivating. As such, landing easily after jumping from a moving wagon was no issue for him at all. 

A moment after Eirlathion landed with Gaerien still kicking and screaming in his arms, the wagon came to a stop as Sagel had clearly heard and realized what was happening. He struggled to try and restrain this girl’s feet. These kicks really hurt. Her body may even be rank one already as an infant. Now that Eirlathion knew about their souls being from a different world, he would certainly need to pay more attention to them from now on. Just what were the limits of their strength?

By the time he got her restrained, Sagel was coming around the wagon in his natural form, having slipped out of the yoke he had made for his Ox form. “Eirlathion, I understand the situation is pretty tense in there, but I do not think it is a good idea to stop here. This is rather close to the battle ground around the Heaven’s Scar. Even if demons haven’t escaped past the scar itself, the arcane energies are certain to have demonized some of the local plants or wild life.”

Eirlathion glanced up at the changeling. He was probably correct in his logic, but there was something very important he was missing in this situation. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but they are starting to spiral out of control. If we don’t settle this now then it’s only going to get crazier later, and it will be when we are even closer to the Heaven’s Scar. We don’t need them getting like this while we’re surrounded by demons.”

Sagel glared at the child in his arms, and then back up at him. “You know, this would be a lot easier if you would tell them what we know.” He said.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I was planning on doing right now. Túeth is being rather unreasonable, but if Gaerien can be reasoned with then we might just be able to work something out.” Upon hearing Eirlathion’s words, the noisy crying of the child in his arms calmed down, and her struggles against him ceased for a second before resuming in a far more determined nature. Instead of wildly writhing and struggling against him, now she was determinedly pushing against his chest in order to separate away from him. “That said,” Eirlathion continued, “is this sort of behavior natural?”

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“Hmm... for a changeling it would be, but that would just be because we are pretending. I really don’t have the faintest clue about their situation, it really is unprecedented. The boys’ case is even stranger though, at least it’s been known to happen with faeries among the fey.” After Sagel’s response, Gaerien’s arms went limp. She was still hiccuping and sobbing, but her physical struggles had just about disappeared. Seems she had pieced together enough from their conversation to realize what was being talked about.

“Anyway,” Sagel continued, “at the very least you should have your staff handy. I will go get it for you while Gaerien is still settling down.” He walked back to the wagon with those words. He seemed so much more stern now than back at the village. Well, they were also in dangerous territory now, and he was likely a veteran of millennia of dangerous situations in the human lands. So, it was understandable to an extent. But still, he seemed like a completely different Sagel from yesterday when they were in the village still.

The thing that really made this strange is that he hardly seemed affected when he learned of the atrocity that had occurred at the village while they all slept inside of Dryad’s main body. He had fought the hardest for the villager’s safety the night before, but then he took the deaths of hundreds of elves over the night like nothing had happened.

“Well, they’re already dead. After having seen as much death as I have over my long life, you learn to be more concerned with those who are still living. There’s nothing you can do about those who are dead.”

These were the words he had said when he was asked about it. He had also added that, of course, they were people he had barely known for an hour. This reminded Eirlathion once again that just because he had lived a long life did not mean he had experienced a lot of life. His life had been mostly confined to the forest, with only a brief excursion out in his younger days during which he had decided to seed a section of abandoned human lands to expand the elve’s forest land. Sagel quite clearly had one over him on experience, and quite likely on years as well. A changeling’s lifespan was supposedly infinite. There was no telling how long Sagel had lived.

Eirlathion directed an uncomfortable look toward the staff that Dryad had given him this morning as Sagel carried it to him. He was amazed when he was told about how powerful that thing he had thought to be just a walking stick when it was given to him really was.

Apparently, Dryad had worked some feathers from the fey dragon Everon’s severed wing, and blood and bones from his severed tail into the wood of the staff, but that only served to diversify the magic that could be channeled through it. The wood itself was apparently something that was even more significant on its own. As it was, it had become a magic medium that would allow him to cast spells without materials for all of the natural fey magic up through the sixth tier, and even beyond that if it was strictly for nature related spells.

It was a real treasure for any elven spell caster, but he was disgusted by it. To him that staff represented all of the horror that had taken place last night, and it was given to him by a friend who had betrayed him. About the only reason he even took the thing was at Sagel’s insistence and persuasion that they could not go into such a dangerous territory without a powerful weapon such as this.

Sagel continued to hold the staff for him and Eirlathion sighed. At least he had the excuse of his arms being full with an uncooperative child to avoid having to touch the thing right now. This was fine, Sagel could keep holding it so long as nothing showed up. It only needed to be available just in case.

Well then, time to completely change the nature of his relationship with this fussy child... or so he thought.

“Buut ah-me a‘own!” It turned out, Gaerien was the one to speak first. She was still trying to calm her crying, but she was demanding something and it was pretty easy to guess what she wanted given the circumstances. “Buuut eee a‘oown!!” She demanded again, starting to struggle a bit more.

“I can’t do that out here Gaerien.” He told her.

“Dat! Buut me a‘own!” She started struggling again, pointing toward the wagon.

Eirlathion looked over to Sagel with a questioning expression, only to get a shrug in return. Was Dryad really right about them having all their previous life memories? “Well, sometimes you do get in the habit of acting like an infant when you go on with it for a while. They’ve been like this for 6 months now, right?”

“Yeah.” Eirlathion responded. It didn’t seem entirely like this should be accurate, but, maybe she had just been doing a bad job of acting since she didn’t know the normal maturity rate for an elven infant? Her and Aerien were definitely acting advanced, but they did also act like infants as well. Perhaps this is accurate for a human infant at the same age. Several of his previous questions about how strange they were seemed to have reasonable answers now. However, that really did not help much in terms of how to handle this current situation.

“Look Gaerien, we need to talk to you first.”

“I ow. I hear-edyou. I ‘on’t like your hands on be. P-ut! Me! D-own!”

Well, that’s just great. Eirlathion had hoped Gaerien, who had always been the more calm and quiet of the two would be a lot more reasonable. Aerien had gotten confrontational, but at least she seemed somewhat cooperative. He had hoped Gaerien would be more of the same, except more calm. Perhaps it was more that she did not like people was the reason she was always so quiet.

Well, this was probably good enough. If her thing was just that she didn’t want to be touched, she might just be calm enough not to cause problems so long as they all kept their distance. He was about to turn and bring Gaerien back to the wagon just as she requested, but he stopped when he saw Sagel tense up. Gaerien seemed to notice the change in mood too, because she also stopped struggling as hard.

Sagel slowly tilted Eirlathion’s staff toward him. “Sorry Gaerien.” He said, taking her from Eirlathion’s arms without ever removing his eyes from the distance. Eirlathion accepted the staff in exchange for having Gaerien taken off his hands, and he began chanting a spell.

Author's Note

This chapter was a serious challenge to write. I kept trying to think of a "leaving the village" scene, or a "preparing the wagon" scene, and none of them were turning out well at all. Finally, I just decided to time-skip over the whole thing and just refer to said events in retrospect. It has been... a surprisingly liberating experience.

Subscribers' comments of the chapter

"Damnit Gaerien, your an adult act like it."

-meowingLexi

"fear dat baby puNCH!!! and the - 50 hp mage =P"

-Roy

"Tueth, Gaerien, get in the get-along-shirt!"

-ExorcistJoker

Yep, the subscribers comments have now officially become plural.

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