Chapter 200: Serie's Lap Pillow
He did not intend to interfere directly, but he could give the wheel of fate a little push.
The girl, seeing the unspoken words on his face, though she was confused, she trusted him, and so she just nodded. "I understand, Teacher Rhodes."
He looked at her, at her young and vibrant face, and then at the elf beside her, at her calm and placid expression, at the being who had all the time in the world, and a thought, unbidden, came to his mind. An elf and a human girl, setting off on a long and unknown journey... The image, it was so familiar. A strange and inexplicable sense of deja vu washed over him, a vision of a future that had not yet come, of another pair, walking a similar, yet different, path.
He shook his head, and pushed the distant vision away, and returned to the present. He looked at the girl, and his voice was now serious, with a new emphasis. "And, Flamme, this journey... it doesn't have to be a long one. Five, ten years... that will be enough."
They both looked at him, confused.
"Ela is an elf. Her sense of time is different from ours. A journey of a few decades... to her, it is just the blink of an eye. But you, Flamme, you are human. A few decades... that is half a lifetime. Power is important, but do not lose yourself in its pursuit. Do not forget the way back home."
She stared at him, and for the first time, she truly understood the vast gulf between their two races, and the heavy weight of his words.
A complex emotion flickered in the other elf's green eyes. She understood. In their long, long lives, they often forgot the fleeting nature of their human companions. If not for him, for his reincarnations... her own teacher would have long since become a legend of the past.
"I understand, Teacher Rhodes," she said with a firm nod.
Serie, who had been listening from the side, a strange, restless feeling now beginning to fade from her heart, now thought to herself, he's right. But that rule... it doesn't apply to him. And she was glad for it.
She stared at his back, a little dazed. She hadn't even heard her two students' final farewells.
"They're gone," he said, and his voice brought her back. "I hope everything goes well."
She turned, and for a moment, her gaze fell upon his profile. She was reminded of the Demon King, and she asked, "Have you figured it out yet?"
He turned to face her. "No," he said, and shook his head, his brow furrowed. "Her very existence is a great mystery. Her power... it comes from the Goddess of Life, but it is mixed with the power of the Goddess of Procreation. When I tried to sense her aura..." he paused, as if trying to find the right words, "...it was a chaos of a corrosive and corrupting power, a power that was far greater than I had anticipated. Her very being... it is a collection of a conflicting and contradictory energies. If she were to die... that power would be unleashed, and it would be enough to drag the entire world into the abyss. I stopped, not because I couldn't, but because I did not dare to risk it."
Her pupils constricted. For him, the one who had slain a god, to have been afraid... the potential danger was unimaginable. "So what do you intend to do?" she asked after a moment of silence.
"For now, we'll just have to wait and see. The first priority is to master that spell of Shurahat's." He looked at her, his eyes now a clear and honest window to his soul. "But I will need a lot of time. Fifty years, a hundred, maybe more. I can't be sure."
She listened in silence, not surprised. For an elf, time was the one thing they had in abundance. Fifty, a hundred years... it was just a small piece of a much larger puzzle. "And if you succeed... you will not have to reincarnate again?"
"Yes. I will have a lifespan that is equal to an elf's."
A wave of an unrestrained joy washed over her. He would no longer have to undergo that uncertain ritual. They could walk together, side by side, and she would no longer have to wait on the shore of time for him to come and go. They could explore the endless mysteries of magic together, until the very end of time.
In the past thousand years, his reincarnations... they had taken up a third of that time. And in those empty years, she had been alone, and though she was used to it, in the deepest part of her heart, she had still felt a pang of loneliness. If not for him, she would have long since grown accustomed to the flow of time. But he... he had changed her.
But she did not speak. She just nodded, though a small smile had touched her lips.
Just then, he raised a hand to his temple, a gesture of a sudden weariness from his studies. She saw it and, coming to his side, she sat behind him and patted her own lap.
He didn't hesitate and lay his head down.
She felt a slight tickle from his hair, and with a wisp of a cool magic at her fingertips, she began to gently massage his temples.
He closed his eyes and let the cool and soothing touch, the gentle and fragrant scent of her, wash over him.
The hut was now filled with a strange and new kind of a quiet intimacy.
And as she worked, her own gaze fell upon him, her long lashes casting a shadow on her cheeks, hiding the turmoil of her own emotions. Why, she thought, is my heart so restless? I must be... sick.
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