Growing Lilies

"WHAT THE FUCK!"

"W-what? Did I do something wrong? What happened?"

Lily was staring down at an ornate symbol that seemed purpose designed for her. She hadn't made anything like it herself though. A huge magic circle etched in flame, with fire and a beautiful rendition of Star in the center of it. As she let go of Adelina's hand, it faded away into the air.

"That's– That's your personal seal!?"

"I don't know what you're talking about! I never made anything like this!"

Adelina was staring at her like she was an alien. Or a ghost. Or a ghost alien.

"Who are you?"

"Stop staring at me like that! I'm Lily. I'm just Lily. Please explain what this means?"

The balaur girl visibly got herself together, and relaxed.

"Let me guess. You got the skill? [Official Seal]?"

"Y-yeah. Just recently. The [Lady] class too. After the incident with the goblins, actually."

"Oh… Of course. I should have realized sooner. Well, that's your skill."

Lily breathed a sigh of relief. Was it just her skill? That wasn't so bad. Then her chest tightened up again. Why had Adelina's reaction been like that then?

"Then why were you so shocked?"

"It's so… ornate! Complicated. Flashy. HUGE."

"W-well. I mean. I didn't get to pick it!"

They stared at each other for a long couple seconds. Lily could see the gears turning behind Adelina's eyes. She was really starting to get worried.

"I know you didn't pick it. That's what makes it so… shocking, as you put it."

"I don't know anything about any of this. You're really freaking me out. Please just explain?"

Adelina closed her eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath. Lily could see her tail tensed so it wouldn't be flicking around, and her hands balled into fists. She was getting better at reading balaur body language. But was this really such a big deal?

"Listen. [Official Seal] is a skill almost every ruling class gets very early on. It'd be abnormal if you didn't. The seal you get is a representation of you that can be verified in a myriad of ways. Things like size, magical properties and levels of complexity are all factors that denote how important someone is. For example, if I become [Matriarch], my [Official Seal] will grow more complex as well, although it will still have many of the same recognizable elements."

"That… all makes sense to me. So you were surprised because my seal is complex like the [Matriarch]'s?"

Adelina's eye twitched, and Lily realized it might be more than that. The girl raised her hand and pointed. Lily flinched, thinking she was going to cast a spell for a second, but instead frost spread from a central point forming into her seal again. The basic snowflake and… wait, the dragon was different. And there was an extra line and filigree surrounding the outside.

"This is my Mother's seal. I'm empowered to call it because I have permission to act on her behalf. Can you see the difference?"

"Oh. Yeah, it is a little different. But… only a little. Why's mine–"

"I don't know! Yours is more complicated than any of the leaders of any major country. It's more like the one the church uses to represent the Goddess. No… I think it might even be more complicated than that. So, again, who are you?"

Lily took a step back and Adelina advanced on her. Lily raised her hands in front of her in defense.

"I-I'm really not… anyone. I'm just me. I'm completely ordinary! I promise!"

"No, you're clearly not!"

Lily took another step back and was followed again. Her heart was racing. She was fighting back sudden fear. Adelina was too close. Was she mad? Lily hadn't done anything!

"Maybe it's because I'm the last person left where I came from? So, I'm the most important person by default?"

"That doesn't explain it either. I could rule this world and still not have a seal like that."

As she took another step back, Lily stumbled over her backpack and fell. She hit the ground hard, and looked up to see Adelina looming over her. This was it. She was gonna–

Lily covered her head as best she could, and heard her own voice come out, quavering with fear.

"Please don't…"

Nothing happened. A few paralyzed seconds passed. Lily opened her eyes and looked. Adelina had backed up a bit, and was looking down at her with… worry?

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. Um. Did I scare you? Sorry."

Lily's face flushed with a mix of relief and shame. She had genuinely thought Adelina was going to hit her. But… had that been in her head?

"You aren't angry at me…?"

"What? No. Confused, frustrated, excited, curious? I'm a lot of things. But I wasn't going to hurt you. We're friends, aren't we?"

Lily made herself sit up. Her hands were shaking, and she was… embarrassed, more than anything. Now that the panic had faded.

"Yeah. I just… I'm scared of people. I can't help it."

"But me?"

"You tried to hurt me when we just met too!"

Adelina's face changed. She looked genuinely hurt for a second before she covered it up.

"I'm sorry. Really. I thought you were a competent [Mage] based on your first spell. I was never going to seriously injure you! I thought you could keep up with me!"

"You said you were gonna kill me!"

"W-well. Yeah! But it was hyperbole! I wasn't serious!"

"How was I supposed to know that?"

The girl took a deep breath, and sat down across from Lily, keeping several feet of distance.

"You're right. I apologize for that. And for scaring you now. But, I really do want to be friends. I'm not going to hurt you. Okay?"

Lily tried to force herself to calm down. It… marginally helped.

"Okay. Sorry for… overreacting. I really am working on it. Honestly, I'm really embarrassed. Can we please drop it?"

"That makes two of us! So, of course."

They sat across from each other, just staring for a minute. When Lily had her breathing under control she tried talking again.

"So… my seal is special, and makes me look like a big shot."

Adelina rolled her eyes.

"Way more than a big shot. According to your seal, you might be the single most important person in the world."

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"That's ridiculous though. I'm really not anyone. I was born into an ordinary enough family. I've kept my head down most of my life, and until pretty recently didn't go out much. Do these seals somehow see the future? Like, if someone was going to be really important one day, would they have an impressive seal?"

Adelina shook her head definitively.

"No, they'd start with something small and it'd evolve with them. Just like everyone else."

"So, it's something about me now? Could it be that I'm the only one here with my specific kind of magic?"

Adelina shook her head again.

"That might be contributory, but not to this extent. If you established a magic school or something your seal might get an upgrade. But you're important right now."

"I said I'd tell you anyway. So.. full disclosure? I'm from another world. Something happened there, and… everyone but me is gone. Could that be it…?"

"You told me something like that before. You're from beyond the firmament, right? One of the countries that got swallowed, right? What exactly do you mean when you say a world?"

"I don't think it's beyond the firmament. I don't think it's anywhere. When I look up at my night sky, all the stars are gone. And it's not just a single country. It's… It's big. I don't know about the relative sizes of places here, but it certainly deserves to be called a world. More than 200 countries, and some of them are quite large. Well, until they all vanished."

Adelina had a thoughtful look on her face. Lily was just surprised she seemed to be taking this at face value, although she suspected that she could tell the girl she was actually a 3000 year old fox spirit trapped in the body of a girl and Adelina would believe her at this point.

"Okay. So, this place… We'll just assume you're right and it's somewhere entirely separate. Not beyond the firmament, but somewhere completely different. A world like this one, but not like this one. With only you on it. What happened to everyone else?"

Lily looked at the floor. This was always the hard part.

"I don't know. I woke up one morning and everyone was just gone. The stars went out too. I looked for evidence of others everywhere I could think of, and even found a recording of some last moments. They were just gone. Disappeared. Vanished in an instant. One second there, the next gone."

"So… Why were you fine?"

"I don't know! I'm no one! I'm a loser! A failure! If anything, it's probably my fault somehow. I'm so cursed an entire planet ate it. But it's not 'cause I'm good or special or something, if that's what you're thinking. I didn't even finish school. I lived in a pile of my own garbage and slowly waited to die. I'm not someone worthy of… Anything!"

Lily realized she had raised her voice, and stopped talking.

"Hmm. But you alone were spared for some reason. It can't just be luck, right? Divine intervention of some kind?"

"My world doesn't have gods that do anything."

That was a pretty cynical way of putting it. But, the comparison to this world where a Goddess took an active role definitely stood out to Lily.

"Well, I'm not going to be able to figure it out based on your account, if you don't know what makes you special.

"I'm not–! … Yeah. I guess not. Sorry."

Adelina shook her head.

"Not necessary. I'm curious, but in the end it doesn't really matter. Even if you don't know the reason, you are important. Important enough to be the only one saved in your world. But, I think you have some things backwards. I think you have that seal because you're special, and you were spared because you're special. Not that you were spared and that makes you special, so you have that seal."

"I think you're wrong. But I guess I don't have proof either way. Just, please don't treat me like someone important."

Adelina gave her a placating smile.

"Sorry Lily, can't do that either."

"What? Why!?"

"Because you are. You being here is going to have big implications for my country one way or another, and I'm a ruler in training. So, we're gonna go to Avezare and introduce you to Mother. But, I'll insist on giving you protection, and a comfortable place to be."

"Why? I'm not going to be an asset just by existing. And I'm not someone all powerful that can really do much to earn my keep."

The girl across from her shook her head and smiled more genuinely.

"Lemme tell you a fundamental truth of this world, Lily. High level people have a gravity to them. Anyone sufficiently powerful pulls in the people around them. And either they're dragged up alongside them, or they die in the process."

"What? Why would you want that? And I'm… I'm not high level!"

"It's a gamble. I believe in you. You're gonna be important here, so I want to be near you. I believe in myself, so I don't think I'll die. It's as simple as that."

"So, you think I'm going to be powerful and you want to ride my coat tails? Don't bet on it. I'm going to disappoint you."

Lily wanted to laugh. She was a beginner at her one strength, and that was her magic. Otherwise she had nothing to offer. But, the other girl shook her head.

"It's not just that. I think I can help you too. We can help each other. That's what being friends is, right?"

She thought that might be an oversimplification… But, the sentiment still put her heart at ease a bit.

"And if I end up languishing in your palace and eating your food without giving anything back?"

Adelina shrugged.

"I'm going to be [Matriarch] one day. I'm going to make that happen, with or without help from you. Feeding one additional mouth to have a friend to talk to seems like a fair trade on its own to me."

Lily giggled in response. That was confident to the point of absurdity, but in this moment she believed the girl.

"Someone's confident!"

Adelina opened her mouth to respond when there was a pounding on the door. Avea's voice came through.

"Hey, can we come in? We've got Lily's goblin."

Lily jumped up and ran to the door. It always stuck a little, but she wrenched it open. Avea was standing in the doorway. Sunica was behind him, holding the goblin, who seemed conscious but dazed.

"Sunica! Thank goodness. I'll clear off the couch again. Could you please lay them down over there?"

Lily rushed over to the couch and removed the few items that had been set there. She overheard Avea apologizing to Adelina for not finding the goblin first. It didn't sound sincere at all, and Adelina didn't seem to care.

In seconds, Sunica was hefting the goblin up onto the couch. Lily's mind was… blank. What should she do now? She hadn't really gotten time to think with Adelina, and now this was all happening so fast. She guessed she could start with the basics.

"Hey… Are you okay? I hope you didn't hurt yourself too badly trying to get away. Is it okay if I change your bandages?"

In response, the goblin looked over towards Adelina and Avea and groaned. Lily looked over there herself, but they weren't doing anything. Still, Avea had a spear and Adelina was the one who caused the wound…

"Would it be too much to ask for you two to wait outside for a little?"

Adelina was the one who spoke up for them both.

"I'll do you one better. We'll leave for now. I'll be back later with some supplies."

Avea waved on his way out the door and was gone, but Adelina turned back for a second.

"Sunica, can I talk to you outside for a second?"

Sunica perked up, and looked to Lily with an expression that was clearly asking if she would be okay. Lily waved her off. Really, talking alone might be best at first anyway. Sunica rose and made her way to the door.

Once everyone was outside, Lily turned back to the goblin at hand.

"So… Hi."

The goblin looked at her flatly.

"Hi?"

"I'm sorry. I don't know what to say. I'm not good at stuff like this. My name is Lily, what's yours?"

"Flint."

Flint coughed while saying it, and winced in obvious pain. Lily winced too. She wished she had more knowledge about how to treat wounds or really anything else medical. She had a lot of that downloaded on her phone, but that was still missing. Plus, pulling out a glowing box would probably scare Flint more than anything.

What Lily wouldn't give for a week with full access to the internet. Well, she'd probably just squander it anyways, like always.

"Flint, huh? That's a nice name. I've never met a goblin before. You're a boy, right?"

"...yeah?"

Well, she had to check. She didn't want to offend him somehow! But, that seemed to be the wrong thing to ask.

"Ah, right. Of course. I thought so, I just didn't want to assume. Not that it really matters…"

She was floundering. She didn't know what to say to someone in such pain! Flint grunted in reply, and the conversation fell into silence for a little. Lily tried again.

"I'm really sorry about what happened. The others were trying to defend me, and I didn't know–"

Suddenly, Flint reached out and grabbed her shirt with quite a bit of force for someone practically on his death bed. His voice flared with anger.

"They killed my friends. Do you really think sorry is going to do anything!?"

They stayed like that for a while, just staring at each other. Flint was breathing hard, and his face was a mask of pain and rage. Lily was trying hard not to break down into fear.

"...no. There's no way I can make it right. But if nothing else, I just want you to live. For someone to have lived, rather than no one."

He let go of her shirt, and laid back on the couch. For a second, she thought he was just going to go back to the way he was before. Instead she heard a hiccup, then a sob.

He was crying, quietly.

Lily didn't know how to comfort someone like this. She didn't know if she was doing the right thing. She was just… trying to do something, rather than nothing. But there she sat, powerless to make this better.

So, instead she just sat next to him.

She hoped it was better than being alone.