6/18/2001 - 2:45 AM {1 Year After Birth}
Decayed Foundation – Living Sector 4
Cartethyia held me close, her posture shifting from the rigid tension of the feeding to something softer, heavier. She adjusted the thin blanket, lifting me onto her lap so my head rested against her chest. I could hear the rhythmic thrum of her heart—it was beating fast, like a bird trapped in a box.
She looked down at me, her black eyes glistening with a memory I could not see.
"Aria..." she whispered the name like it was a fragile glass thing she had already broken.
"We met a long time ago, Kaiser. Before I was... this."
She stroked my hair, her gaze drifting to the dark corner of the room, but seeing a different world.
"It was the Human–Elf Unity Festival. A rare night. The only night the two races pretended to be family."
I listened. Festival.
A gathering. Unity. Together? Was there hatred between other races?
"I was 12," she said, a small, sad smile touching her lips. "And she was fourteen. We were both just... children. But on that night, the crowds were so thick, like a river of people. I let go of my father's hand for one second... just one... and the current took me."
She took a shaky breath.
"I was pushed into the Darkwood bordering the festival grounds. And that's where I found her. Another lost child. An elf with red hair and silver eyes."
"She was crying?" I asked.
Cartethyia chuckled, a wet, hollow sound. "No. Oh no. Aria didn't cry. Not then. She was... bossy."
She shifted me slightly, looking into my eyes.
"She told me she knew the way. She said, 'I am a High Elf. The forest speaks to me. You are just a clumsy human.' She was so proud, Kaiser. She tried to use her magic—Elvian Magic."
Elvian Magic. A new term.
Superior.
"She used Stellar Magic," Cartethyia murmured, tracing a line in the air with her finger. "She tried to pull starlight down to make a path. It was beautiful... blue beams cutting through the trees. And she used Ether Magic to try and phase through the bushes."
"But..." Her voice dropped. "The forest was old. And we were young. The stars she tracked kept moving. Her magic... it got us more lost."
I imagined it. Two small units in a big dark place. One is confident. One following.
"We walked for hours. The lights of the festival faded. The cold set in. And Aria... the proud elf who knew everything... she stopped."
Cartethyia's hand stopped stroking my hair.
"She sat down on a root and she realized she had failed. Her magic couldn't save us. Her pride couldn't keep us warm. And that... that was when the mask fell."
"She looked at me, Kaiser. She was shaking. She said, 'I don't want to die here.' She wasn't an elf anymore. She was just a scared girl."
"So I sat next to her," Cartethyia whispered. "I don't have magic like you.. I just had... me. I held her hand. And I told her, 'We won't die. We'll wait for the sun.'"
"That night... we didn't sleep. We just talked. About everything. About things we liked... about our dreams... about how we hated being told what to do."
A tear slid down her nose and landed on my forehead.
"By morning... We weren't strangers. We were sisters."
I closed my eyes.
I tried to see it. The dark woods. The glowing lights. The two girls holding hands in the dark.
Reasoning: Visualization can help me understand her better. As I've not been taught what 'friendship' or 'empathy' is.
I focused on her voice, letting the darkness of the room fade away, replaced by the image she painted.
The memory begins.
—------—------—------—------—------—------—------—------—------—------
Date: 9/12/1981 - 11:43 PM {20 Years into PAST}
Location: The Darkwood Border – Unity Festival Grounds Age: Cartethyia (12), Aria (14)
The woods were suffocating. The joyous music of the festival was nothing but a distant, mocking hum, swallowed by the dense canopy of ancient oaks.
"Stop dragging your feet, human," Aria snapped, though her voice wavered slightly.
She stood atop a mossy boulder, her silver hair glowing faintly in the gloom. She raised a slender hand, her long, pointed ears twitching with irritation.
" Stellar Guide. "
A beam of pale, crystalline light shot from her palm, striking the canopy above. It scattered into motes of dust.
"See?" Aria huffed, turning back with a glare. Her amethyst eyes were sharp, beautiful, and utterly arrogant. "The North Star is that way. My calculations are perfect. If you keep tripping over roots, I'll leave you here for the monsters."
Cartethyia wiped a smudge of dirt from her cheek, her brown dress torn at the hem. She glared back, her black eyes fierce despite the fear gnawing at her stomach.
"I didn't trip," she retorted, climbing over the root. "You're walking in circles! We passed this mushroom three times, Aria! It looks like a skull! I remember the skull mushroom!"
"It is a common fungal growth," Aria dismissed, flipping her hair. "Elves do not walk in circles. We have innate spatial awareness. You're just dizzy because your human brain can't process the mana density."
"My brain is fine!" Cartethyia shouted, frustration bubbling over. "Your magic isn't working! Just admit it!"
"Silence!" Aria hissed. She spun around, raising both hands. " Ether Phase. "
Her body shimmered, turning translucent like mist. She tried to walk through a dense thicket of thorns.
Snag.
Her dress caught. The spell flickered and died. She stumbled, scratching her arm on a briar.
"Ouch!" Aria yelped, clutching her arm. The "superior being" facade cracked.
Cartethyia sighed, stepping forward. She didn't use magic. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a thick handkerchief, and grabbed the thorny branch, holding it back.
"Come on," Cartethyia mumbled.
Aria stared at her, then at the held branch. She scrambled through, her face turning pink.
"I didn't need your help," she muttered.
"You're bleeding," Cartethyia pointed out.
"It's... it's just a scratch. Elves heal fast."
They walked in silence for another hour. The air grew colder. The shadows grew longer. The "North Star" Aria was following seemed to jump from one side of the sky to the other.
Finally, the trees became a wall. A dead end. A sheer cliff drops into a black ravine.
Aria stopped.
She stared at the drop. She looked at her hands. She looked at the sky.
"It... it should be the exit," she whispered. "The star said... the direction was..."
Her voice trembled.
Cartethyia walked up beside her. She looked down at the abyss.
"We're lost, aren't we?" Cartethyia asked softly.
Aria didn't snap back. She didn't boast. Her shoulders began to shake. She dropped to her knees in the dirt, her silver hair falling over her face.
"I don't know..." she sobbed, the sound small and terrified. "I don't know where we are. My mana is gone. I can't... I can't feel the way home."
She looked up at Cartethyia, her silver eyes swimming with tears.
"I lied," she confessed, her voice cracking. "I've never been in the Darkwood. I just wanted... I wanted to show off. And now we're going to die here."
She buried her face in her hands, curling into a ball of misery.
Cartethyia looked at the shivering elf. The arrogance was gone. There was just a girl, scared of the dark.
Cartethyia sat down in the dirt. She moved close, ignoring the "human" and "elf" divide. She wrapped her arms around Aria's trembling shoulders.
"We aren't going to die," Cartethyia said firmly.
Aria sniffled, looking up. "How do you know? You don't have magic."
"I have a plan," Cartethyia lied.
"What plan?"
"We sit here," Cartethyia said, pulling Aria closer until their warmth merged against the biting chill. "We wait for the sun. The sun doesn't lie like your stars. And when it comes up... my dad will find us."
Aria hesitated, then leaned her head on Cartethyia's shoulder. She clutched Cartethyia's hand, her long fingers intertwining with the human's.
"Okay," Aria whispered. "We'll wait."
The two girls sat on the edge of the cliff, huddled together against the vast, indifferent night.
"I'm Cartethyia," she said softly.
"I'm Aria," the elf whispered back.
And in the silence of the woods, under the canopy that blocked the stars, a knot was tied. One that would last for twenty years.
Before it strangled them both.
—------—------—------—------—------—------—------—------—------—------—------
The image of the dark woods fades. The cold dirt and the starlight dissolve back into the sterile grey walls of the Foundation.
Cartethyia is smiling down at me. Her face is flushed with the memory.
"And when the sun came up," she whispers, her voice light and airy, "my father found us. And Aria's parents too. We were huddled together like two little shivering rabbits."
She laughs, lifting me up again so I am hovering above her face. She looks up at me with bright, shining eyes.
"They ran to us and hugged us so tight I thought I would pop! And from that moment on... Aria and I weren't just lost girls. We were inseparable. We grew closer every day. We were best friends."
She smiles wider. Her teeth show. Her eyes crinkle at the corners.
The Instructors in the Dream Land said Empathy—the ability to feel another unit's emotional state—is a Year 2 module. I do not have it. I cannot feel if she is deceiving me.
But I have Geometry.
I study her face.
The curvature of the left side of her mouth is millimeters higher than the right side. The contraction of the orbicularis oculi muscles around her eyes is forced compared to the mouth movement.
A genuine smile is symmetrical and spontaneous. A forced smile is asymmetrical and controlled by the conscious cortex. This is a contradiction. The verbal data says "happy." The physical data says "effort."
She is hiding a variable.
I point a small, chubby finger at her nose.
"Lie," I say.
Cartethyia freezes. Her arms, holding me up, stiffen. The smile does not drop, but it becomes rigid.
"What? No, honey! I'm not lying," she says quickly, her voice pitching higher. "Aria was my best friend. We loved each other. There is nothing wrong with that story."
If there is "nothing wrong," why is her heart rate accelerating? I can feel the pulse in her fingertips against my ribs.
If Aria is positive in her life, Cartethyia should be relaxed. But she is tense. She is defending the variable.
Hypothesis: Aria caused damage. But Cartethyia is trying to alter the narrative. She is trying to control my perception of the past. She is...
She was manipulating me to stop questioning her.
"Man-ip-u-la-tion."
I open my mouth to say it. "You... m-ma... ni..."
My tongue is too heavy. The motor control for four syllables is not established.
I frown. I must simplify.
"You... lie... me."
Cartethyia sighs—a long, heavy exhale that deflates her entire posture. She lowers me down, placing me gently by her side on the mattress. She turns her head to look at the ceiling, biting her lip.
"You are too smart for your own good, Kaiser," she mutters, sounding tired. "You see too much."
I roll onto my side to face her. I reach out my hand. My fingers touch her cheek, turning her face toward me.
Her black eyes are not happy now. They are guarded.
"Tell... tr-truth," I demand.
She hesitates. Her eyes darted away again.
Why does she resist?
Fact: She loved Aria.
Fact: Aria hurt her.
Conclusion: She is defending Aria because she does not want me to identify Aria as a threat. Or... she does not want me to see her weakness. She fears that if I know she was betrayed, I will view her as damaged goods. Just like the Empire did.
She is afraid of my judgment.
I need to bypass the defense mechanism.
"P-prom... ise," I stutter.
Cartethyia blinks. She looks at me, surprised.
"Promise?" she whispers. "I did promise you but... you won't hate her? You won't be sad?"
I nod.
I will not be sad. I do not have the capacity for sadness yet. I only want the data.
"Pro-m... ise," I repeat.
The tension leaves her shoulders. She offers a weak, genuine smile this time—small, sad, but symmetrical.
"Okay..." she breathes out. "Okay, my little detective. I'll tell you the rest."
She shifts on the bed, turning her body to curl around me, wrapping her arms tight as if to protect me from the end of the story.
"It wasn't always happy," she admits softly. "And yes... she hurt me."
The fear in her eyes was still there, but her embrace tightened, a small shield against the memory.
"I promised, didn't I?" Cartethyia sighed, resting her cheek against my hair. "Okay. Before it broke, our friendship was... everything. We were stupid, naughty girls. We did all the things you shouldn't."
She paused, then smiled a little, remembering. "Once, we were bored. So we decided to make fireworks. Big, beautiful ones."
Fireworks.
"I had my Earth magic—the one they said was boring," she said. "And Aria had her Stellar Magic."
"We collected mineral dust—reds, blues, greens—and I used my magic to grind it into a fine powder. That was my job. And Aria's job was the spark. She focused the energy beams of her Stellar magic onto the powder to make it explode, like a tiny sun."
I know this.
My mind, ten years old in the dream, pieced it together instantly.
Mineral dust is the pigment. The explosion is combustion. Her magic is just an external heat source to induce chemical reaction. It's not magic. It's applied science.
"And we made nail polish!" she giggled. "We picked the brightest flowers by the river, and I used my magic to crush them and boil the pigment until it was thick. Aria would use her Ether Magic to make the polish stick perfectly to our fingernails. It was the prettiest shade of violet!"
Nail polish.
The pigment is suspended in an oil-based medium. Her Earth magic is only a physical process (crushing/boiling). Aria's Ether Magic is likely stabilizing the molecular bonds to prevent the liquid from separating. Again. Chemistry.
"We spent years like that, Kaiser. Always together. Always causing trouble. She was the Celestial, and I was the Earth, but we always won."
She pulled me close and kissed my cheek. "Then came my eighteenth birthday. All my friends were there, but Aria was late. She was always late. It was a rule."
"When she finally showed up, everyone else had given me dresses and jewels. But Aria gave me this."
Cartethyia shifted, gently moving her hand to her waist. Her fingers traced a spot on her hip.
"A tiny, carved wooden music box. It was small enough to fit in my palm. And it only played one song. The saddest, most beautiful melody you'd ever hear. It was hers."
"She handed it to me and said, 'Promise me, Cartethyia. Whenever you miss me, whenever you're alone, play this. It will remind you that I always come back.'"
Cartethyia held me tighter.
"That same night, we played a game—Blindfold Trust. We blindfolded ourselves and had to navigate my house, trusting only the voice of one other person. All my other friends were shouting in the wrong directions, trying to make me run into a wall."
"But I only listened to Aria," she said, her voice dropping to a melancholic whisper. "I trusted her voice perfectly. She guided me through every room, every corner. I won. I won because I didn't trust anyone else. Only Aria."
A deep, quiet sigh escaped her. The smile she wore was utterly sad.
I lay against her, my mind turning the data over.
Trust.
She says she only trusted Aria.But she also says Aria hurt her.
The logic was simple, cold, and absolute.
————————————————————————————————————
The Music Box is the most important clue.It is for when she misses Aria.She does not miss the person. She misses the trust.The box is a symbol of a promise that failed.
She chose Aria's voice over everyone else's. When Aria hurt her, she did not just break a friendship. She broke the rule of Blindfold Trust.
Now, she cannot trust anyone. The music box is the song of the broken rule.
Aria did not cause a sad memory. Aria caused a change in her identity. She taught Cartethyia that trust is a lie.
————————————————————————————————————
I looked up at her face.
"W-w-what next?" I asked, pushing the air out of my chest. "What Aria d-do next?"
I needed to know the full cost of the identity abandonment.
"It gets... complicated, honey," Cartethyia whispered, her eyes clouding over. "That's when someone else got involved."
Cartethyia held me close, her heart still beating a fast.
"After the music box, after all the trouble we caused in mischief," she continued, her voice soft, "we grew up. When I was nineteen, and Aria was twenty-one, we were both accepted into the Asura Academy."
Academy.
A building for learning. Like the Foundation, but better? Or inferior?
"It's like... like higher education, honey," she explained, anticipating my silent question. "A place where the children of the nobles learn how to control their magic and contribute towards the Empire. Though back then, they mostly took adults. We were young, but we were both talented."
"We took the tests to get in. Written and practical exams. We both scored around seventy percent," she said, sounding faintly proud. "That put us in Class B. At first, Aria and I stayed together. We didn't talk much to the others. Our friendship was all the company we needed."
Seventy percent.
My mind tries to calculate the meaning.In the Dream Land, seventy percent is a failure. It is disposal. It is being executed.In her world, seventy percent is a success. It is an entry to the Academy.
It must be inferior then.
"And in Class B," she whispered, her voice changing, becoming softer, "was the leader. The class representative. Alaric Monsieur Sterling."
Lord Alaric. The male or 'someone'. The reason for the break.
"He was the crush of every single girl in that class," she sighed, a dreamy sound. "He was so confident. So tall. Over six feet! Blond hair, green eyes... he looked like a myth. He had that crushing trait—the kind that made you dizzy when he spoke to you."
"He was the smartest, too. He used Celestial Magic, but he also knew almost all the Elemental magics, which was special for a human. He was deemed a future Knight of Asura before he even graduated. He often scored eighty to ninety-five percent on all the tests."
I listened to the words.
————————————————————————————————————
She says tall is good. She says blond hair is good. She says green eyes are good.I am small. I have dark hair. My eyes are blue. I am the opposite.She says girls liked him.
This Alaric unit was attractive to the female gaze. That is the important data point, not his skill.
His skill is not high. Ninety-five percent is still a failure.In the Decayed Foundation, the minimum is 100%. One failure means death.A Knight who only scores ninety-five percent is a dead Knight.He is nothing special.
Stop.
He is not in the Foundation. She is using her world's rules. If I want the truth, I have to try listening with the Year Two Empathy.I will pretend this man is important to her, not to the system.
————————————————————————————————————
"Most girls were jealous if he even looked at anyone else. But Aria and I were mostly unfazed," Cartethyia insisted, though her mouth was twitching. "Mostly. We might have had a small crush, too. He helped us study during academic exams and trained us in the practical magic exams."
"He helped us ascend to Class A," she said, looking proud of that moment. "Four students in the previous Class A were expelled—they lost dramatic amounts of points in the midterms of Year One. So, we took their spot. We made new friends there, but no one was as close as me and Aria."
She squeezed me. The familiar warmth returned, but it was mixed with a new coldness now.
Then, she stuttered. Her voice caught, thin and pained.
"And then... it all ch-ch-changed. On the final year's Island Examination."
I tilted my head, looking at her wide, pained eyes.
"Island ex-am?" I asked, testing the new words. "What is island?"
"It's like land in the middle of the sea," Cartethyia explained, her voice gaining a desperate, high-pitched edge as she remembered. She held me tight, her body rigid.
"It wasn't a school test, Kaiser. It was survival. They put all 3 classes—maybe fifty-eight or sixty-three of us—on an empty, uninhabited island for four weeks. It was a single, long competition."
Island. A piece of land surrounded by water.
"You had to survive the wilderness, fight the monsters, and protect your identity. Each student had a password for their ID. If an enemy class guessed your password, you lost your total points. But you also gained points by killing the dungeon monsters on the island. And fighting was allowed—just not to the death."
She was speaking quickly, her breathing erratic.
"The highest score ever gotten by any class, five hundred years ago, was 329 Points," she stressed. "By a Class A leader named Marseil. That set the bar for all of us."
I listened to the numbers. They were the only constant in her confusing world.
————————————————————————————————————
She says 58 students. Maybe 25 people in a class. Many people.If the goal is to win, they only need the most points. But the goal is to beat 329.I assume the average points gained from monsters is small.
If stealing the password is the fastest way to get points, then they must steal many.To get 329 points is not just winning. It is stealing over 60 passwords (60 times five points is three hundred). And killing many monsters (new word: enemy animal).300 is very hard.
329 is almost impossible.To reach that high number, the leader must not just be smart. He must be adaptable to things that break the rules.
————————————————————————————————————
"Our class... we were good," she said, her chest swelling with a faint pride. "We were Class A. And Alaric was our leader. He planned everything. For the first three weeks, we were dominating. We were going to win."
"He planned our needs. Food. Water. Safe house. Everything."
Surviving for four weeks is a long time. They had maybe 23 people left.He needed to plan many things.He needed food that would not run out.He needed water that was safe to drink.He needed shelter to hide the passwords and the weak ones.He needed to know the weather so the cold did not hurt them.He needed to plan the patrols to stop others from coming close.
He needed healing supplies for the fights.He needed a plan for the monsters—where they are and how to hunt them.He needed a way to talk to everyone when they were far apart.He needed a plan to find the other teams.
He must have planned all these things perfectly for three weeks.
I can imagine the numbers if I knew the unknown variables.
"But on the final week," Cartethyia continued, her voice heavy with sorrow, "it went bad. Class B—the one we took the spot from—they wanted revenge. They weren't fighting monsters. They were hunting us."
Hunting. Violence.
People hunting people.I try to understand the logic of fighting a former friend.If passwords give points, then fighting and torturing the other students is the fastest way to gain points. It is better to hurt a person than to kill a monster.
Violence is the ultimate authority for points.
"And on one night," she whispered, her hands shaking slightly as she remembered, "we were attacked. Me and Aria were separated..."
"When Class B attacked, they knew the best time was at night, when visibility was low. They were brutal, Kaiser. They weren't just guessing passwords. They were trying to scare us, to break us."
"Me and Aria, we tried to escape together, but they cornered us near the central ravine. Two of them—Class B Elemental mages. They were using Earth magic to throw sharp rocks and Air magic to push me off balance. They were good. I had my own Earth magic, but theirs was stronger. It was like fighting the tide."
I heard the fear in her breathing.
"I got cut," she whispered, raising her left arm and holding it up in the darkness, as if the wounds were still there. "Long cuts and bruises. I was bleeding. I was terrified. I could hear Aria's yells—she was getting hunted too, because elves were worth more points."
"I was running out of energy. I knew I was going to fail. And then... the air changed."
She paused, taking a shaky breath.
"It was Alaric. He was always the fastest. He came out of nowhere. He just used his Celestial Magic—a beam of pure, focused light that was so fast it didn't even burn the air. He hit both of the attackers with two precision strikes to their magic cores, disabling them instantly."
"He risked his life to save me," she emphasized, the relief of the memory still potent.
"Alaric rushed to me. He knelt down right away and saw my arm."
"Cartethyia," he said, and his voice wasn't booming or confident like in the class. It was soft, genuinely concerned. "Are you hurt badly? Can you walk? Tell me where the others are."
"I was so flustered," she recalled, squeezing me slightly. "I tried to act brave. I said, 'I'm fine, Lord Sterling, just a scratch! We need to find Aria!' He just narrowed his eyes and shook his head."
"He used his magic. He didn't even use a verbal chant. Just a flash of warm, golden light across the cuts. I felt the skin seal instantly. He patched my arm using his magic, and it stopped the bleeding."
"He then pulled me up by my hand. His grip was firm and steady."
"He looked up at the sky, ignoring the fighting still going on in the distance," Cartethyia said, awestruck. "He closed his eyes, and he used his Celestial magic to track the stars, like Aria did, but better. He calculated the displacement of the Ether Veil caused by Aria's unique Elvian Magic signature."
Interesting.
He used Aria's failure (Stellar tracking) to find her. He took the data and calculated the correct vector. Adaptable leader. That is a high-value trait.
"He found her," Cartethyia said, her voice now filled with relief. "She was hiding behind a rock, trying to conceal her presence. Her face was pale, and her knee was badly scraped. It was bleeding and starting to swell."
"He rushed over to her. He didn't even look at me. He just went straight to Aria and helped her up. He told us he had warned the rest of our class, and that we needed to retreat immediately. He said the scrape on Aria's knee had a residual Dark Mana signature from a monster attack, so using healing magic would cause her a lot more pain because it would clash."
"So," Cartethyia finished, her smile back, though a strange, "he picked her up in his arms and carried her back to our base."
I narrowed my eyes. My face remained neutral.
Alaric is a Hero.
He risked his safety to save the team (Cartethyia). He used a logical solution (Celestial tracking) where the expert (Aria) failed.
He then performed a high-value action by carrying the damaged unit (Aria) to safety instead of fixing her.
This is a successful display of resource management and charismatic leadership.
The data is clear. Cartethyia values him highly. She is now smiling.
But the smile is fake.
She is happy about the rescue.She is sad about the focus.
"We won the Island Exam," Cartethyia said, her voice now calm, wrapping me tightly. She lay flat on her back, pulling me to rest on her chest.
"Our class scored 182. It wasn't the 500-year record of 329, but it was enough. Class B broke too many rules; more of their students were expelled. They came in last. But we were safe."
She sighed, staring up at the ceiling. "It was after that night—after the rescue—that Aria started seeing him differently. She always admired his confidence, but seeing him brave and caring... she had feelings for Alaric."
"She confessed to him," Cartethyia continued, making the story sound light. "And he gave her a chance. He said he admired her bossy attitude and her stubbornness, which I did too. And for the next two years, they dated and loved each other dearly."
She shifted me slightly, looking into my eyes with a forced casualness. "We three were friends. It was fine. Though, Aria was an Elf, and Alaric was a human. Elves and humans were forbidden to love or get along. It was a very old, very strict rule in Elvian culture. But Aria didn't care. She was always rebellious."
She says forbidden. This is a rule based on belief, not logic.Beliefs interfere with life outside the small group. They make life harder.Elves consider themselves superior. Love with a human would lower their status.
Therefore, it is a social rule to protect pride, not a survival rule.
"I was so happy for them," Cartethyia insisted, her smile a little too wide, a little too bright.
"They were such a cute couple. We were still friends, the three of us. Like that time we all bunked classes—meaning, we skipped school—to go see the high mountains of Asura. We climbed so high the stars felt limitless, like you could reach out and touch them."
She painted the picture with her hands in the air. "Or when Aria used her Ether Magic to show us what we would look like in our dreams—she made Alaric look like a giant teddy bear. I laughed so hard. And when we went to the underground lake where the water glowed blue, and we told each other secrets in the dark."
"They were happy. I was happy for them. Truly."
She lay still for a moment, the memory fading.
"Aria was just a little distant after she fell in love. We didn't play or talk much, like we used to. So, I was only a little hurt. But it wasn't a big deal, got it, honey?" she asked, leaning her head down to check my face.
"I was just a little hurt and sad that my best friend found someone else to love," she repeated, giving herself reasons. "But I was happy too. She often told me how much they talked, how they sent letters to each other secretly using magic from their dorms. They were an affectionate, adorable couple."
"Honestly, Kaiser, seeing her face light up when she talked about Alaric... that was enough for me."
She sighed, a genuine, fond sound. "Anything else, my little detective? That's all about me and Aria."
I stared at her face, my blue eyes fixed on her dark ones.
No.
That is not all.
That is the introduction. Where is the conflict?
The music box is not for missing a friend who found love. The music box is for missing a friend who broke trust.
She is not telling me the part that made her eyes wet.
I can find out the truth myself…
She said she was only "a little hurt" that Aria found someone else. She said she was "happy" for them. But the music box was for when she missed Aria. The music box played the broken promise of trust.
If I am to understand why she hurts, I must understand the concept of liking and loving.
Liking means wanting another unit near you for comfort or data acquisition. Loving means giving a unit what it needs, even if it harms your own system.
No.
I don't understand human emotions or empathy… I must use logic to find the truth.
She was happy for them. But she still cries about the memory.
I tried to put myself in the variables:
Variable A: Cartethyia (Friend)
Variable B: Aria (Best-Friend/Lover)
Variable C: Alaric (Lover/Hero)
Axiom 1 (Cartethyia's Claim): A is happy for B and C.
Axiom 2 (Data Contradiction): The memory of A, B, and C causes pain (tears, trembling).
The logic did not compute. If a system is happy, it does not weep. There is a missing operator.
Hypothesis 1: Aria stopped being friends with Cartethyia because of Alaric.Contradiction: Cartethyia said, "We three were friends." This is false. A missing friend causes sadness, not the deep, sharp pain I see.
Hypothesis 2: Alaric liked Cartethyia, but Aria stole him.Contradiction: Cartethyia said Alaric admired Aria's "bossy attitude." Alaric never showed preference for Cartethyia in the story. This is possible, but weak.
Hypothesis 3: Cartethyia liked Alaric, but he only chose Aria.Contradiction: Cartethyia said she only had a "small crush," but she stressed that Aria loved him and Aria confessed first. She is a loyal friend. She would not steal a friend's love.
I went back to the Island Exam. The moment he came for them.
Alaric used magic to heal Cartethyia's arm.
Alaric carried Aria to safety.
He fixed the strong one (Cartethyia). He carried the hurt one (Aria).
A logical leader fixes what can be fixed quickly and secures the unit that needs constant support. This makes sense for a Knight.
But Alaric was not just a Knight. He was a Lover.
He showed Kindness to Cartethyia's wounds.
He showed Preference and Care to Aria's weakness.
I replayed her words about the rescue:
"He rushed over to her. He didn't even look at me. He just went straight to Aria and helped her up."
"He picked her up in his arms and carried her back to our base."
She was happy he came. She was sad he ignored her. She was happy Aria was safe. She was sad she was left standing alone, watching.
Realization: She did not just have a "small crush."
She loved him.
She pretended not to, so she can remain close with Aria who didn't have feelings beyond a crush either.
And when the choice was made—who to help, who to carry slowly—she saw the answer.
She had to let him choose Aria so her best friend could be happy. Because her own pain was an acceptable loss for her friend's gain.
She denied her own feelings.
The ultimate act of loving is self-sacrifice. She gave her love to her friend.
That is why she was left hurt.
That is why she is kind towards me. Even if I'm the lowest ranked student.
She knows how to endure pain for others.
I pushed my small hands against her chest, trying to push out the difficult words.
"You... l-l-lie," I said, struggling with the simple word now because the context was so heavy.
"You sacr-rificed yourself."
The complexity grew. The words started to break apart.
"For your f-f-friend," I stuttered, my tongue failing.
Then the conclusion. The terrible, beautiful cost.
"You hurt your-self to m-m-make them ha-ha-happy."
Cartethyia stopped breathing. Her eyes, fixed on my face, widened until they were round black pools reflecting the dull night light.
The forced smile she wore for my benefit finally, fully shattered.
Tears, slow and thick, gathered at the corners of her eyes. She couldn't hide it this time. She couldn't fix the flaw.
She pulled me into her chest with a shuddering, painful squeeze. She held me so tight I could barely breathe, but I didn't care.
The truth was found.
And there was more…