Chapter 98 - The Farm in Irttat
Chapter 98: Tower of Crows 06
Human... ah.
Lucita blinked.
"Why?"
"My mother was human." Hope shone in Delphine's eyes. "She called me into existence, so I woke up in Dragon Fell."
"I am her daughter. I am Delphine. I should be human, shouldn't I?"
Lucita hadn't expected an answer like this.
She exchanged a glance with Violet. The latter gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head.
"Perhaps you're not wrong," Lucita said, "but this is a serious matter. Once you choose, it cannot be undone. You must think carefully. A human lifespan is only seventy short years, yet you... you are a child of space. You could exist forever, dear one."
"I..."
"There's no rush, Delphine. You can take your time and think about it." Lucita gently cut her off. "This decision is important for you. Very important."
Delphine stood where she was, a little lost, and looked toward Linnea.
Linnea looked back with wide eyes, appearing even more confused than she was. The two half-grown girls stared at each other.
Lucita smiled, ruffled both their heads at the same time, and ushered the two younger ones into the sitting room. "Let's eat first."
Dinnertime, as always, was the most pleasant moment of the day.
Autumn evenings carried a particular dryness. The cicadas had long since fallen silent, and fallen leaves rustled softly in the wind.
Along the rows of terraced houses lining the street, gas lamps flickered to life one after another. Through the sitting room window facing the road, the lights looked like countless paper boats drifting along a river, carrying the wishes of the human world as they glimmered quietly in the darkness.
As always, Linnea enthusiastically recounted the day's adventures.
The entire table listened to her story about sneaking into the upper city with Emily to climb walls and admire flowers, only to be caught by a gardener. Before long, the steaming pot of venison-and-pea stew at the center of the table had been scraped clean.
Earlier, the family had spent quite some time talking in the garden. The stew had remained over a low flame for a little too long, and the venison had become so tender it practically melted on the tongue. The peas had cooked down into a fine, sandy softness, blending with the venison's perfect balance of lean and fat, cutting through any richness and leaving behind a clean, delicate fragrance.
Several spoonfuls of stew were mixed into freshly steamed rice, white and glossy, soft yet springy. The broth seeped into the grains, loosening them apart. A single bite was enough to make the tongue feel as though it might melt.
The flounder had been steamed with scallions and finished with a splash of hot oil that crackled upon contact. The surface of the fish and the scattered scallion pieces had been lightly crisped to a pale golden color, releasing their aroma all at once in a surge of fragrant steam.
Flounder was tender yet firm, with almost no fishiness, and generally required little seasoning. Simple steaming was enough to bring out its natural sweetness. Even among the many seafood delicacies of the Kraken Sea, it remained one of the most beloved.
Food like this soothed a mind burdened by the complications of the day.
After dinner, the sky had darkened. Linnea and Delphine went upstairs together to work on their homework.
Lucita and Violet went out to the courtyard to feed the little lamb her evening meal.
Dusk settled over their half-visible figures in the courtyard. The wind picked up.
Lucita pulled her cloak tighter, crouching down to stroke the lamb's head and feed her the hay in her hand.
Violet handed her hay in an idle, desultory way.
"I need to find an opportunity to have a proper talk with Delphine." Lucita was the first to speak, her voice heavy with concern. "I should have noticed sooner. She genuinely thinks she's that woman's dead daughter."
"That child." Violet gave an almost inaudible sigh. "She had not yet formed any concept of 'I' before she was filled with a self-understanding that belonged to 'her.'"
Delphine had been born in space, awakened by a human mother's grief over her daughter. When she awakened, "Delphine" was the entirety of what she received.
Her name, her appearance, her understanding of who she was... all of it seemed to have been inherited from the human Delphine. Or perhaps more accurately, she had always been treating herself as that dead girl.
In a certain sense, that mother had, through this, "revived" her daughter.
But it was not right.
Delphine's memories began on the day the dragon fell: the battlefield soaked in dragon blood, the collapse of space, the decay of dragon bone, and the boundless flames at the place where the dragon had fallen. From there, she had followed Lucita into the human world. Her origins were perfectly clear. They had nothing to do with the human Delphine who had died.
Human love had given her a soul. But it was a completely new soul.
Had Lucita not asked the question today, she would never have realized how deeply disordered Delphine's sense of self truly was.
The girl seemed unable to distinguish between "I" and "her."
"This is complicated." Lucita gave a wry smile.
"I've heard humans have psychological doctors," Violet remarked, recalling the place where Franca had once lived.
"Rely on them?" Lucita rubbed her forehead. "I'd sooner rely on Linnea. She's at least a mermaid who genuinely possesses mental gifts."
"She doesn't have a mental illness. She's simply..." Violet chose her words carefully: "She's simply too young."
"Yes. Her memories stretch back five hundred years, yet the first time she truly experienced emotion was only a year ago. She adapted quickly enough that we all overlooked the fact that, in some respects, she has never received any guidance at all. She's still as fragile as an infant."
"Take it slowly," Violet said, in a tone of reassurance. "We are not human. We have a great deal of time."
The hay in Lucita's hands had been eaten clean.
She dusted off her palms and stood up, and heard Violet say, with a hint of amusement: "Now let's talk about you."
Lucita blinked. "Me?"
"Yes, you." Violet walked to the long covered corridor before the door, bent one knee, and sat sideways on the stone bench.
After dinner, she had untied the band that had kept her hair up.
The evening wind had loosened it completely. Her eyes, green as a moonlit lake, fixed themselves on Lucita. For some reason, Lucita suddenly felt self-conscious.
Violet gestured with her chin at the bench across from her: "Come on, sit."
Lucita didn't sit across from her. Instead she sat on the bench on the same side, with one stone pillar between them.
She leaned against the pillar, so that Violet couldn't see her clearly, and could only speak with her back turned.
Violet gave a quiet laugh and said nothing.
She asked: "What are your plans going forward?"
Lucita let out a slow breath.
"After autumn ends, I'll settle things at the seed shop. Then I'll return with you to visit your homeland." She began counting on her fingers unconsciously. "After that, back to Irttat. Linnea and Delphine need a peaceful environment for their studies. Mm... what about you? Do you have plans?"
"Changing the subject again, Lucita." Violet sounded both amused and exasperated. "Think about it, didn't you say those exact words to me before dinner?"
"Er..." Lucita was stumped.
"Never mind." The elf gave a sudden quiet scoff. "You have many secrets. I know. I've never asked."
"Do you think I don't know who I'm living alongside, day in and day out? The mysterious Lucita. Friend to Linnea, to Delphine, and to me. You think I don't know what you're doing? You think I don't know who you are?"
Like a thunderclap out of a clear sky, the question hit Lucita so squarely that she went still for a moment.
"Violet..." She steadied herself and began, tentatively: "I never intended to hide anything from you. It's just that..."
She didn't finish. Violet interrupted her.
"I know what you're going to say, and I'm not blaming you," she said. "Everyone has secrets. Yours... I've been watching from the very beginning. Over time, I've come to understand most of them. None of that matters."
"But the state you're in right now is not quite right, Luci."
Lucita started: "How do you mean?"
"I may be the only prehistoric being still alive in this era." Violet shifted the conversation, settling herself as though preparing for a long story: "So there are things others know and things they don't know. I know a little of both."
"When the Great Catastrophe struck, the Mirror Lake drifted through the void. That one gathered the surviving remnants of the people and marked out the Esti mountain range for them to live in."
"Have you ever seen what a world looks like when it falls apart?"
"It was all very slow." Violet tilted her head back and stared absently at the full moon overhead. "There was no sound. The terrified faces of the last survivors were frozen in fragments of black and white…the corresponding color fragments had gone somewhere, I don't know where."
"The void went through tremendous upheaval as well. It was a long time before I came back to myself, and found that someone was gathering those fragments and piecing them back together."
"The wound was smoothed over by her. Mountains rose again from nothing."
Violet's voice grew quieter and quieter, as though afraid of disturbing something.
She was silent for a moment, then skipped over that part entirely: "And then you came, Luci."
"The first time I saw you, four bloodlines sharing a single soul, a stranger among strangers. You pulled me out of the void. And I knew—"
"I knew," she said again, "that if this world was going to need some kind of turning point, it would be you."
"After the world was restored, she retrieved the fragment of the void that contained me and was probably surprised to discover a survivor. She looked at me once and settled me in the Esti Forest."
"The surviving remnants began building their new lives. Irttat was established beside me."
"A few days ago, one evening when I didn't know where you'd gone..." she continued. "That evening when you were planting rice in the abandoned cemetery. The first time you looked up at me, your eyes carried the same cold indifference as hers."
"After that day, you became a little quiet, a little distant. Sometimes when we're all being loud and playful together, I feel like you're very far away."
"Can I ask you now..." The elven king, several centuries old, let out a barely audible breath before speaking. "Who are you, right now?"
Lucita didn't answer for a moment.
She lowered her eyes to her own hands. The lines of her palms were clearly visible.
Wind, earth, water, fire, time, space, spirit, life...
Fine, glimmering orbs of light flickered in her palms. With the lightest grip, it seemed as though she could hold the reins of the world, and yet those hands were still warm with color, alive, blood moving through them; pressed against the stone pillar, she could feel the warmth of her own body reflected back.
She said: "I am Lucita. I haven't changed."
"I hope you'll always be able to say that, Lucita."
Violet's parting words carried a weight of meaning.
Night frost settled on the deep green rose leaves. The night wind arrived suddenly, and the trees rustled and whispered, scattering the end of that conversation away.
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