บท 22: Oh, He’s Back
I kicked the now lifeless body and blood splurged out of his open throat. With only a slight push, I made him lie down and then sat on his back. I rested my chin on my hand and observed the girl, Seraph.
"We may be in the outskirts, but that doesn't mean this place has no laws," she advised me. I didn't really take it to heart, though.
"I only killed that guy, what's the big deal." I laughed. "Besides, you won't rat me out anyways."
She shrunk back and her sharp eyebrows formed a beautiful arc, pointing upwards. Her hands grasped the tree behind her.
"Will you get rid of me too?"
"Ah, that's not what I meant at all," I said and tilted my head, "hey, are you perchance part of a theater?"
Perplexed by my question, Seraph simply shrugged in confusion.
"Well, it doesn't matter anyways," I stretched my arm out, "Say, do you want to travel together with me?"
"Who would want to travel with a suspicious person like you," she yelled, her face slightly red.
"I'm not suspicious at all, see look at my smile," I said and used my fingers to pull the edges of my mouth upwards.
"The smile just makes you more suspicious," she argued while filling her mouth with air to making a pouting face and stomping the poor ground.
As that did not seem to work, I pulled the edges downwards to create a frown, "why are you acting like that, others may have been terrified by a person dying, but I know that you wouldn't be."
The moment I said that, the girl Seraph promptly stopped her protest. The innocent smile, which she kept even after I had killed someone, turned stiff. She squinted her fully opened eyes.
"What exactly are you trying to say."
"Huh, I thought you already knew."
Her mouth was still curved upwards, but her smile did not reach her eyes. The line that she drew was crossed by herself as she stepped closer.
She uttered only a single word, "elaborate."
"You are a great liar, if I hadn't seen the real you at the lake, I would have also fallen for your tricks."
A sudden silence resided within our talk. In the end, Seraph just sighed.
"I knew it, you are crazy," she said. Was everyone this mean in the medieval ages?
"Why are you keeping this farce. It's only us two, who are you trying to convince, as I obviously won't believe you."
"This conversation is over. You should stop it while you can."
"But we are just getting to the best part. This innocent personality, you can drop it. I can see it, the real you, because we are the same," I clapped my hands and kicked my feet out, afterwards I raised my index finger, "you are a cold and detached bastard, who looks at everyone in disdain. I'm not joking you were really good, it's just that you had to meet me."
As she kept listening, her smile, which had never disappeared, slowly left without a trace.
Her eyes became half closed again, only this time those emerald irises weren't glimmering. Rather they were lifeless and unfathomable.
Her friendly facial expression turned Ice cold, as she gazed at me with contempt.
The ticks and habits, such as the way she slightly lowered her head, how she touched her hair out of nervousness and her slouch were nowhere to be seen.
I would even argue that it was her imperfections that had gone away, and left standing was not a person resembling an angel, but a true angel. The kind that could burn the eye of anyone glimpsing at her beauty. Only that this one had already fallen.
If anyone else had seen her, they might have thought she was bipolar. Her personality turned from one kind, into the exact opposite with an award-winning performance.
Truth be told, she was almost a better actor than me.
Had I not caught her at the lake unprepared, I would have never been able to tell. At least not this fast.
She opened her mouth and with a voice that could lure a wayfarer to his death, she complained, "sigh, it's only because I wasn't used to playing this kind of role."
"It was still really good though, so won't you travel with me?"
She massaged her glabella, "why should I?"
I then stood up, proudly displaying the bosom that I did not have, my hands fanning my face, I said, "because I am the dukes granddaughter, you know?"
It was in these times where one should use the influence they were given.
She stared at me, her eyes filled with disdain again, "even if you were the ancestor of this kingdom, it would be you that had to listen to me," she humphed.
Ah, it seemed like it did not work, what a chore. I knew it, these titles are all useless.
"Come on, I don't have anyone else to rely on, why else would I put my trust on you," I folded my hand in a way that entangled my fingers and pleaded.
She took a glance at me, "alright, where are you headed?"
"D'Anele territory," I said.
"Where?"
"D'Anele territory," I said again.
"sorry, I can't remember where these small towns reside in," she replied nonchalantly.
Small town, what did she mean by that? No matter what, a Dukes residence could not really be that insignificant, right?
"But the way you are going, you will soon cross the borders," she continued.
"Huh, what do you mean by that?"
"We are at the edge of Endeara, any further and you would walk into unclaimed land."
What, for real? Well, it did not look like she was lying, there was no point for doing that anyways. Then it could only mean that Gerald had brought me to the wrong place. Damn, I knew something was fishy the moment he helped me up.
Seraph, meanwhile, kept staring at me with her zero temperature eyes, which would not even reflect the light, "it just so happens that I was heading to a small village, why don't you ask them for directions?"
"Ah, so you're telling me to follow you?"
"Whatever."
And thus, I joined her party.
"Yay," I cheered, "okay wait here, I got something I have to get first."
I had not forgotten about Estella's skull. It was still hidden under a brown cloth, and laid next to the now lifeless body of Gerald, so I picked it up.
There was no point in hiding it anymore, which is why I took it out.
Her bones glimmered together with the lake, as if vying for the crown.
Her uniformly shaped eye sockets and clean cut jaw looked like they were shaped out of marble.
Her teeth were like little gems with a shimmering luster.
Honestly, I missed staring at it.
"Are you referring to the head in your hands?"
"Yeah, doesn't it look nice?"
"It looks like every other skull in this world, you better put it away if you don't want to scare any passerbys."
"Eh, but I just took it out."
"And I'm telling you to put it back in, or else I'm leaving without you."
Che, I put the skull away again and l exhaled audibly. why couldn't anyone appreciate your beauty, Estella?
Finally, we set out.
Two small girls, who did not look like they had finished compulsory education yet, began making their way towards the unknown.
One of them was me, happily trotting, while I followed behind the other girl Seraph, who quietly walked the road I came from.
The new-found energy made it possible for me to resist the sun beating down my face, while Seraph who was like winter itself didn't even sweat.
I asked her where exactly we were heading to, but she didn't answer.
I asked her why she was wearing those nun clothes, but she still didn't answer.
I asked her whether she was born here or somewhere else, yet all she did was look at me with her sleepy eyes, and yes, no answer.
I did not let those failures discourage me though, so I kept on with my line of questioning in hopes of breaking the ice queen in front of me, and before I knew it, dusk had set.
At last, a crack appeared in her calm facade, "will you stop pestering me, if I reply."
"That depends on whether you can satisfy my boredom."
"Alright, what do you want to know."
"Why are you wandering around this place, all alone."
"I like traveling."
Is she one of those millennials I've heard so much in my previous life about.
"If you tell those kind of lies, what's the point of this conversation?"
"Sorry, force of habit."
Who had these kinds of dumb habits, I wanted to rebut, but then I realized- oh, I did.
I locked eyes with her chest, and blew a warm current of air towards it.
"What are you doing."
"I'm trying to thaw your frozen heart."
"You want me to kill you?"
"Hey, don't say such things so casually, or I might have to kill you, too."
"Don't steal my lines."
"I was thinking about it, you just said it first."
She closed her eyes, and began trudging faster, to keep up, I had to jog. "I should have left you behind," she said.
"Come on, don't be like that. I was just kidding. In troubling times like these, you need those occasional jokes to de-stress."
"Ok then, jokes over now. Is there anything else you want to know."
"Yes, what is magic," I asked her.
Suddenly Seraph came to a halt. I almost bumped into her, but learning from past mistakes had always been what I was good at and thus I managed to not collide into her, by hairs breath.
"Well, that is a topic to deep for us to dive into."
"We have time. Just tell me, how does it work, what's the system behind it?"
For a short moment, Seraph kept debating whether she should tell me or not. Her small head kept swaying to the left, and then to the right. Her expressions had no intention on changing, though. It seemed like it was more of a chore for her, than anything important.
"Magic is based on philosophy," she declared in the end.
So Seraph sasid, at least. Magic, philosophy, she couldn't just explain one abstract thing with another abstract thing, really. That was really too big of a baggage she had just thrown at me.
I pressed my index finger and thumb on my forehead. Let us take this slowly. Magic is philosophy. Then was philosophy magic? Didn't sound right to me. It may be something unfathomable, but it was certainly no magic, or maybe it was.
That seemed like a topic for philosophy.
Alright, this had gotten too confusing.
I tried wrapping my mind around her statement, but could not understand what she meant.
How was one thing derived from the other, when they had no connection at all?
"You look confused."
"Are you lying again."
"Shouldn't you be able to tell if I was."
"Maybe you have turned into a better liar since the last two minutes, such that I couldn't even tell, because I can't understand what magic and philosophy could possibly have I common."
Seraph groaned, "I thought you were the dukes granddaughter, shouldn't you have gotten at least an introduction to magic."
"To be honest, The only thing true about the statement is that I'm part of the family tree, any implications with the title, I do not have," I smiled.
"Forget it, it's easier if I show you."
She then left the road and strolled towards a field. I naturally began following Seraph and saw how she approached a small flower.
It was a pale white lily, fighting back against the summer wind. I only knew that it was a lily, because I had once learned that it symbolized the restored innocence after death.
It was in an ironic twist of fate, that it was a present I had gotten shortly after my own. It did suit my current predicament as the little girl named Agnes.
Anyways, with her cold hands she plucked one of the petals off, and held it against the sun.
"Normally, when you chant small magic like that, you do it silently, however," she said, but didn't finish her sentence. I mean, I get it you didn't want to talk, but at least end your thoughts.
She opened her mouth again, and with an icy sweet voice, she recited, "the dead live in the memories of the living."
It was a short sentence, with a small layer of profoundness behind it, but the implications it had, I would never be able to forget.
The petal in her hands began to vibrate and shortly after it shook violently. Afterwards, a blinding light engulfed it, and it started changing shape. Unlike its consistency, it moved like jello, forming into something else.
Only after the brightness wore off, could I make out its shape.
The lifeless part of the lily had turned into a small little boy. He was no more than the size of my hands. He had blonde hair, and his face was freckled but white. His cheeks were flushed red and he had hair that would be long for a boy, but short for a girl.
Holy shit, it was Gerald.
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Hyowha
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