Chapter 66: Book 2 Chapter 13: Attempts at communication

Eirlathion’s POV

With one problem addressed, it was time to move on to another one. He moved over to Aerien, and did his best to try remembering what he had learned of the children’s language. [Umm… caan… I… look… aat… her?] He said, gesturing toward Aerien. The boys seemed to look at him with surprise and didn’t say anything back, but they did nod and shift a little.

He let out a breath, trying to relax himself. He had a lot more tension dealing with these children now compared to the day before. Just knowing that they have full adult intelligence in their heads completely changes how he feels about interacting with them. Actual children would have a lack of judgement and awareness of the world, but someone with adult intelligence would observe your every action and read into it.

They had already demonstrated they had a bad opinion about him, this made a lot more sense when he realized that they would have been fully conscious of the fact that they were taken from their real parents and brought here. He thought he had interacted well with them, but that is not something they would easily forgive. And, Aerien and Gaerien being from the same world would likely identify with the boys a lot more than they would with their own race, so that has likely given the two of them a bad impression of him as well.

Well, the best he could do now is to do his best moving forward. He was very much in the same place as Túeth now, albeit in an entirely different way. He slumped his shoulders as he got close. He had gotten closer under saying he wanted to examine Aerien, and with what he had noticed before he absolutely still wanted to do so, but before that he really had to start working harder to start again on a new foot with these boys.

[Uhh... her.] Eirlathion said, indicating Túeth, [Umm...] what was their word for an apology? [it was... wrong... I.. uhh...]

[Sowy.] Gaerien spoke up suddenly with a commanding edge to her voice. Eirlathion looked over to her giving him a harsh glare. [Thatthewordyouookingpor.] Eirlathion shook his head a little, it was hard to understand what she was saying even if he could understand the individual words. He hadn’t gotten used to them yet, so it was very hard to understand them talking at full speed. Plus, he didn’t think she was even saying the words correctly. Even if she did know how to say them correctly, she had some pretty severe baby talk when she was talking elven before, there might be some of that in her own language as well.

Going off her tone and body language though, he sorta figured out her meaning. [Uhh... yeah. Umm... sowy? Sewy?] The boys were starting to look a little uncomfortable with this.

[So-err-ie!] Rolwen sounded out the word one sylable at a time for him, and also directed an annoyed glance toward Gaerien. [Youzoundedlikeababysayingitagain.] He seemed to be criticizing her previous explanation, or maybe her pronunciation. He knew the words for “slow” and “fast,” and he hadn’t heard either of those, and he had talked fast as well so that probably wasn’t what he said. It was also too short to have been a criticism over ineffective explanation. So, it was probably her pronunciation. He thought he had heard their word for “baby” in there somewhere. Whatever he just said to her, she did not look all that happy.

Well, at least the boys seemed to be being rational. It seems he would have had a lot more luck calming everything down if he had just appealed to them in the first place the way things were going. Well, that’s what he’s doing now. [Uhh... yes, sorry. I.. am sorry... uhh... about... her.] He indicated Túeth again. [I.. faster? Uhh...]

Levin seemed to be the one to supply the word this time. [Zooner... err... I mean, Ss! S-oon-er.] Rolwen turned and gave Levin a nod. They seemed to both have gentler and more relaxed looks on their faces now. If they were helping him with the language this much, it probably meant his message was getting through and, he hoped, it also meant they were accepting it.

[Uhh... yeah. I.. sooner.]

[Sh-ould ave, err... should have.] Rolwen interrupted. [You should have done it sooner.]

[Yeah,] Eirlathion responded, he had more or less figured out his meaning. That was the full proper sentence then? [should have... done it s... s-sooner.] He talked this time in more of a thoughtful way, too distracted with trying to dedicate the words to memory to put the proper inflection behind them, but he was sure his meaning had already gotten through already anyway. Well, that aside. [I sooner start with Aerien.]

All three of the children had really strange looks on their faces. Looks like he probably just said something wrong.

[Sh...]

[Should!] Rolwen and Levin both started trying to correct him at the same time, Rolwen being the one to actually get the completed word out. [Should start ‘ith Aerien!]

Eirlathion muttered the corrected version of the phrase under his breath, correcting it inside his head. This language of their world seemed very complicated, not only were the words different, but they seemed to arrange them in the sentence differently from Elven or even the human language of this world. He had thought he was adjusting to it correctly, but he still made mistakes. He was still far from properly grasping the language. In fact, judging at least on how Aerien had been talking a few weeks ago, the children seemed to have picked up a lot more Elven than he had of their language.

It would likely take a lot longer for him to understand their language completely, but once he does he was certain it would be quite useful, but this was not something to go into any further now. Right now, he had a rather intriguing mystery to get to the bottom of, one which may in fact give more clues as to what is really going on with Aerien. He looked at the girl laying across both the boys’ laps once again, and then back to her sister. Indeed, there was no doubt about it. She had gotten a lot bigger in the space of a single night. She looked at least 2 full years older.

This should not be possible, but evidently it was happening. There were a few things that could be causing this. Worst case scenario, her spirit had been damaged in such a way that it was no longer processing spirit energy properly, and all of it was being routed to growing her body. He probably could not find out a lot just thinking about it though. With his voice growing still, he activated his mana sight and spirit sight. He looked over her body, and found no change at all from the state she was in last night.

That shouldn’t be possible. She is not consuming or expelling any spirit energy at all, but she grew this much? If she is growing at this rate, then she ought to be consuming a monstrous amount of spirit energy. She ought to be consuming more than the boys could possibly ever produce! Unless... Eirlathion’s face began to grow dark as he realized another possibility. Could it be possible that... she’s STILL summoning power just like when she overloaded herself with Dryad? Except now, she’s consuming every single bit of it herself?

Yes, this seemed like the only reasonable explanation for what could be happening. Perhaps... this might not all be a bad thing. Maybe by some instinct her spirit is trying to repair or preserve itself. Or, no, maybe the fact that her summoning never ceased is actually the reason her spirit has not completely faded yet and she’s still alive? That last one had an odd ring of truth to it.

He looked to the rest of them and wondered... he wondered about whether any of them knew about Aerien’s cultivation methods. Maybe they did, but... even if they did, Eirlathion did not know the right words to ask them with, and he also doubted that they knew the correct Elven words. This was frustrating. But maybe... they seemed to be pretty good in that last conversation at interpreting his meaning, so maybe he should give it a try.

He had to think for a little while, trying to form just a simple sentence to get across his meaning. [Do... you know about... uhh...] He still did not have the right words to finish that sentence, but he hoped if he just glanced back down at Aerien that maybe they would get his meaning.

They all looked a little unsure at first, but then all three of them started nodding. [Yeah...] Rolwen said.

[She’s Ok!] Levin followed up, getting a little bit of a sour look from Gaerien.

“Mmm... zhe iss, bud... sse ztill eeds da gueen” Gaerien decided to answer in Elven, as bad as her babyish lisp made it. However, he still got her meaning.

Well, if there was anyone Aerien might have talked to about her magic and cultivation methods, it would be these three. Chances were good that they very well might know more about her condition than he did, so he would have to take their word for it. And, with their assurances, Eirlathion felt he could breath a lot easier.

“I see, thank you.” He said back to Gaerien. “Umm... how do you say that in your language? Uhh...”

(Thank you.) Levin responded to his question with a gentle smile. Hearing that come from Levin told him all he needed to know, all three of them probably understood him when he said it in Elven. But, for the sake of learning, and also for the sake of the new respect he was trying his best to show them, he ought to repeat it in their language anyway.

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“Well then,” (thaaan..k... tha-nk you... thank you.) He looked over to Levin for confirmation, and he gave him a nod and a nervous seeming smile. He gave an appreciative nod of his head toward them, and then awkwardly moved back away from them. Something felt very very uncomfortable and unnatural with leaving a conversation with someone who you had a lot of trouble communicating with.

He let out a very heavy sigh. That was absolutely exhausting. A very large part of his exhaustion came from the brain work involved with trying to learn their language, but there was also a pretty significant part of it that came from the fact he was trying to re-define his relationship with those three now that he knew the truth about them. He simply did not know how to act around them now.

For one part, those who have the memories of their past lives are normally all faeries, and of the faeries it is only the ones at the higher ranks who carry their complete memories and personalities from their previous lives as Dryad claims they have. In this sense, it would mean they were in the same kind of position as the most revered and respected races among the fey. It was very likely they had the same kind of power as well, or at least the potential for it. And yet, they were also children, and had a great deal of trouble communicating at the same time. That made it very difficult to give them the full appropriate respect. Also, he had spent all this time up until now interacting with them like normal children. This made it even more complicated.

Eirlathion looked to his side and saw Túeth staring at him with a thoughtful look on her face.

“You... can speak that strange language of theirs?” She asked.

“Hahh... not well, I have been trying to learn it since the girls were born and I started spending more time with them. Their language is actually pretty complicated from what I can tell.”

“Complicated?”

“Yeah, it seems to have multiple words with the same meaning, but special rules under which each should be used. It is almost like two languages layered on top of each other.” He thought for a minute and then decided this is probably a good time to come clean to her. “I should probably tell you, those two are not normal humans, and I don’t just mean for the whole spirit energy thing. I just found out from Dryad last night after everything that happened, apparently they are like faeries in that they can remember their previous life.”

“What!? Like faeries! What do you mean?” She had a rather startled look from hearing that information.

“Just what I said, they have all the memories of their past life, just like fey dragons and greater faeries.”

Túeth let out a gasp and looked toward the boys in horror, turning white as a sheet in an instant. “No... no way, that’s a joke right?”

Eirlathion just shook his head with a hard look on his face. “Unless Dryad was lying to me, it’s absolutely true. I have not found any evidence against it, there is only the fact that they do not understand Elven very well, and they have their own language. With how complex their language is though, I simply cannot see it being a lie. A child their age should not have an easy time comprehending such a difficult language, and they seem to have been born knowing it. If anything, this is evidence very strong in support of what Dryad has told me.”

Túeth’s face just looked worse and worse as he explained this to her. Maybe he really shouldn’t tell her that her daughters are the same way just yet. No, she is smart. She should probably think of it on her own by the end of the day once the initial shock wears off. For now though, he should probably not add any more stress to her. She needed to be set straight, but now that she has had this little scare he should probably give her something to calm her down instead of riling her up more.

“It’s Ok,” he said, “I can tell they didn’t really like how you’ve been acting since last night, but I’m sure they understand. They are both worried about Aerien too, they consider her a very good friend.” He watched to see how she was taking this. Her face did not get any better, she just gave him a weak smile as she realized what he was trying to do, but he could see a little bit of tension leave her body.

“Anyway, speaking of Aerien, I just examined her. It doesn’t look like she is in any immediate danger, but it also seems like she still won’t be waking up any time soon, at least until we get her to the queen.”

Túeth was silent for a good while after this, simply staring at the floor. “Hmm... that’s good.” She finally said after several seconds. “I guess I really made a fool of myself.”

“Túeth, you are a mother who was worried for her daughter. Nobody will fault you for that.” Túeth just had a self-depreciating smile in response to his words as she shook her head and looked over toward the children. When she did, Eirlathion caught some movement out the corner of his eye and saw Gaerien actively attempting to hide behind Rolwen with a fearful expression on her face, receiving strange looks from both boys in response. Eirlathion just had a dumb-founded expression in response to this and looked back to Túeth in a panic. It seemed she looked pretty hurt over her daughter’s reaction.

No, that girl has to understand Elven enough to roughly know what they were talking about. That reaction wasn’t natural given the circumstances. Could she have done that on purpose just to hurt her mother at a sensitive time like this? Why would she do such a thing? It really was looking like this whole family dynamic was going to be a lot more complicated than he had originally given it credit for.

“Ah.. anyway, for now, how about you just focus on helping the children by helping to look out for demons. Like I said earlier, if you can show them you are a dependable adult then they might come to rely on you a little more. I think if you want to make up for how you were acting earlier then that’s the best thing you can do.”

“Hahhh... right.” Túeth gave a dejected response and sat with her back against the side of the wagon and turned her head lazily out toward the back.

Well, that’s the whole complicated little family situation temporarily dealt with. It was not looking like a solution was anywhere even close to being reached though. Guess for now the best he could do is to do his part and start looking up those spells Sagel mentioned earlier.

Subscribers comments of the chapter

"Yay progress!!! They're going to solve their problems. But I want to see how Aerien and Gaerien solve their mom problem."

-meowingLexi

"the problem will get better if somebody stops praying so much -_-|||"

"also if gaery could speak better she could go hold hands and pass messages in and out."

-Roy (both comments from Roy)

Author's note

This is something else I announced in the comments of this chapter on SubscribeStar as well. Upon finishing this chapter, I took the features of Gaerien I had put forward so far, and then put them all together to search for an actual named goddess in history that fit everything so far. Not going to say the exact criteria, but I found a really strong match based on them.

That's all the hints I'm giving. From this point forward, you will need to go all theorist on the contents and read the clues in order to trace back her origins. (And I strongly doubt you have enough info to go on from what's presented so far.) Anyway, from the next chapter forward Gaerien will be portrayed in a way that is far more informed by the goddess I have fit her to. So, from now on, Gaerien is a named Earth goddess instead of just something I'm calling a goddess with no actual name the audience will ever hear.

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