NOVEL NEXT Chapter 237 ~ The Hedges Between Us
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Emotion is an ever-evasive thing to properly define.
What separates a terrible sadness from true depression, excitement from its unpleasant cousin anxiety, and deep affection from the pure currents of love. Certainly, the intensity of the emotion can suggest one way or the other, but no two people truly experience emotions the same. More scientific sorts could probably babble on all day about the different chemicals responsible, defining similarities and differences between each experience.
Their methods don’t much matter to me, what defines my love apart from all others, is the cruel knife twisting in my heart as I watch my lovers walk into danger. I know what I feel is love because I know that I can no longer live without them.
Thus, the roiling ball of tar that comes to mind as I embrace the anxious emotions flooding through me proves beyond doubt that I love this crazy elf. She smirks bravely at me, absolutely confident in her victory, even as she meets our own gathered uncertainty. The way her soft lips shift into that half-smile, and her eyes sparkle with excitement, somehow it’s both soothing and terrifying at once.
I don’t want to lose her, but I know that I can trust her.
With a prowling gait, she steps up to Nel, who’s the only one here more peeved than I. Nel’s tapping feet sound out a chaotic rhythm as she glares at our troublemaker, quickly forming the words from her own anxious heart.
“Why would you go and do something as stupid as this?” Nel asks, her brow creased and her eyes sparkling.
Eshya doesn’t reply with words, walking right up to our pregnant wife and drawing her in for a kiss. Seeing them together stirs an uncomfortable fit of jealously in me, which quickly disappears like a fart in a sandstorm as I think of all that can go wrong in this coming battle.
“She asked a rather pointed question,” I say, meeting Eshya’s eyes. “You can’t quiet us all at once, you know.”
“Ah, the unexpected struggles of our twisted little relationship, I can’t charm you all at once.” She replies, with more energy than I expect from her, now that I think of it there is something extra strange about her today. “Though perhaps when I’m finished here, we can tie ourselves up into even more of a knotted mess.”
“Why are you talking fancy all of a sudden?” I ask.
“I’m feeling a little clearer today,” Eshya says. “I’ve been overthinking a few things, the way you let those idiot gremlins live at the top of that list, and I’ve come to a realization that I didn’t realize that I, at some point, forgot. I don’t want anything to do with all that. I want good, meaningful fights, and I want a home to return to with the people I love.
“So, I’m going to go beat up this idiot, make his slave our slave, and then come back home and whisper secrets between the sheets.”
“Is that all you really want? Violence and sex?” Nel asks.
“Who says I was talking about sex?” Eshya replies with a shake of her head and taking a breath. “I fell into this strange relationship rather easily, it just felt right in the moment, but now. Now I want more. I want to spend late nights sharing secrets and embarrassing stories, I want to spend more time with you.”
“We have all the time in the world if you don’t get yourself killed with reckless fights.”
“She can’t die in a duel,” Vii says, stepping into the conversation. “Arduelle won’t let that happen.”
“I… well yes, we could be spending more time relaxing together,” I say, crossing my arms and acknowledging the problem that I’ve been kicking along the road.
“It’s more than that…” Eshya says. “I can’t put it into words, even in my head. It’s more of a feeling. I want to spend a decade finding out all the things that confuse me about all of you. I want to learn everything and be there as the universe buckles under the weight of our growing power. I want your everything Vii, Kyra, Nel, Adler, and I want more, and today I’ll start taking it. First by taking this problem from our plate, then… we’ll see.”
“Be careful,” I reply, the strength behind her conviction enough to settle the anxieties for a few moments. Instead, my stomach turns with a vague excitement at her new energy.
We all change day by day, into new people, changed people, and I understand that it’s the reason people so often drift apart. Instead, as I let my fingers linger on Eshya’s warm cheek, I fall in love again with this changed Eshya. I’m sure that tomorrow I will fall yet again for the new her that I’ll get to know all over again.
“How are we getting through this fight?” I ask her. “What are the stakes, and what’s the purpose.”
“Personal duels are played differently from the formal duels of the Council,” Nel explains, more aware of these details than any of us. “Where the council fights over resolutions, akin to a minister casting a vote in a senate such as you’ll find in the republic, a personal duel requires both sides to agree to the stakes involved.”
“In this instance,” Eshya says, “It’s my fate for that of your classmate, the removal of his collar for giving one to me.”
“Excuse me, what?” I ask, my mind spinning at the implications.
“I can’t be collared,” Eshya smirks victorious, “Not that I’m going to lose.”
“We don’t know enough about Gale to be sure of that.”
“Which is why I made sure that the conditions wouldn’t allow me to lose. I can’t be collared, and on the unlikely chance that I’m somehow collared regardless, you can pull it out of me. The deal was for me to get collared, not to keep me collared.” She slowly draws her sword as she looks across to where Gale stands opposite us, his own confidence something more maddened than grounded in fact, the long bead and wide smile would make for a frightening display down a dark alley at night.
“Don’t let him take you by surprise,” I say. “He’s somehow freed himself from his collar, and however he’s done that, he could be a danger to you.”
“I won’t underestimate him,” Eshya replies. “I’ll cut him down fast as I can. He won’t have a chance.”
“See that you do,” Nel says warmly.
Eshya slowly steps out towards the stage, her sword at the ready as Gale stands overeager opposite her. There is yet some time to wait, as Arduelle seems excited to explain the various aspects of the battlefield that she’s prepared.
Waiting for the fight to start, I find myself reminiscing, yet again, on my path here. We’ve come to accept such violence as this as something normal yet at the same time something that we ought to resist, I don’t want to have fights like this determine anything in my own city. Yet, my word is not the law here.
Frey’s ghostly apparition, stands at the side of this arena, petting the little tiger cub that she helped me to save. She looks down upon Eshya and Gale, yet I can tell from her expression that she feels none of the same tension in the air. She gazes down upon the pair like a child might watch ants warring with other insects, and Arduelle never really suggested that she cared much more than that.
“They don’t care at all, do they?” Nel asks, watching the pair of dungeons remain unfazed.
“I guess they don’t,” I say with a long sigh trying to keep my own burning mana in check before I cast a spell that I might regret.
“They’re still looking out for us, and setting out rules for us, so they care a little bit.” Vii says, “Not all greater beings even care that much. We’re not living on the same level as they are, sort of like how you don’t want to eat people, and would rather eat dumb things. We’re the dumb things.”
“So we’re lucky that we’re the probiotic and not the 99% of germs killed by the mouthwash,” I say, rubbing at the side of my head. “Life holds no inherent value, we determine what value each life has.”
“Or in this case, they do,” Nel grumbles.
“Each life is still valuable,” Adler says, “Just because we cannot give focus to every living being, does not mean that they are without value or meaning.”
“It is all subjective,” I nod slowly. Giving voice to the feelings that have long since guided me on this path. “Which is why I focus my efforts on those that I love, and those who I can afford to help.”
“Even Gale has his own subjective values,” Vii nods, looking sadly down at the insane man. “Well, probably. If he’s insane it might be a bit different.”
Gale is not some perfect villain standing in our way. He is cruel, and beyond the reach of reason, and no doubt he’ll commit more evil deeds so long as he has the power to do so, but that doesn’t make him particularly special around here.
Even though I feel as if some terrible fate is looming over us, Gale himself isn’t so much of a threat as I tend to recognise him as. I… I just need a distraction. A villain to blame this anxiety on.
Today we’re simply using violence for our own ends, to attack someone who is not yet a real threat to us.
“We are not heroes; he is not a villain,” I say, letting out a little more of my frustration in a pent up sigh.
This is simply another struggle between animals battling for supremacy, and in that way, none of us are special. Our lives are only meaningful to the few of us with personal connections.
Has it ever been different?
Every tactic, every pain and struggle, every ounce of cruelty, and even every child lost, all terrible ordeals that no one should have to experience, yet, it’s little more than insects slaughtering each other in the muck of the forest floor. Without personal stakes in the battles, it’s all background noise. Meaningless violence, which would all seem rather inane, even boring, to those who stand above us as the dungeons do.
I remember vaguely, watching ants tearing apart the body of a beetle while it was still alive. A horrible scene for those who direct their empathy toward the beetle, but… it isn’t special. Most people never deign to feel sympathy for the beetle unless the scene is enlarged and forced before their eyes. It’s an everyday occurrence, something that happens in every garden or plot of dirt, everywhere around the universe.
No one is out there trying to rescue the beetles from the ants, because in truth, while we can sympathise, deep down we understand that there is nothing we can do to stop it entirely and no one can survive a life sympathising with every bug crawling about in their home or garden.
Yet, we live as those same bugs, as the titans above us deign to offer us their attention, and even their sympathies. We are special for their attention; we are special because these two dungeons offer us their favour.
I take a step back from the battle soon to begin, and let some of the tension die away.
Eshya will win this fight, because she is strong, and because she has to.
“I hope you realise this is going to be a short fight,” Eshya says, facing the madman who stands opposite her. “This will be over in but a moment.”
“You are surrendering, then?” Gale asks, genuinely confused.
“Never,” Eshya replies with a firm smile, levelling her sword as she takes a ready stance. “I’m finishing you right here and now.”
“Then, get to it,” Arduelle says, standing as the referee, waving her hand and shouting. “Start!”
Eshya is silent, but fast, charging fast enough to blur and thrusting into Gale with the force of a freight train, only barely stopping short of crashing into him. Her sword, sheathed in his chest, missed his heart by a millimetre, but magic burns inside the tip of the blade as she readies a spell to blast him apart.
The man, laughing in crazed delirium, grabs her arm and pulls.
Eshya screams, silver sliding from her skin and her eyes, but her magic can’t be stopped so easily.
A flash of magic erupts between them, and Gale is removed from the arena before Eshya’s spell blasts the air at the tip of her sword.
She stands frozen, rubbing at the silver running from her eyes.
Nel races me down to her, throwing a fresh brain chip into our wounded lover, clearing away the silver dripping from her skin and eyes.
“I… sorry, my mind is a little…” Eshya blinks, her head twitching side to side as she faces us. “I think he did something to my…”
“Eshya…?” I try reading her thoughts, but it’s a jumbled mess that flows out of her mind. I can’t make any sense of it.
“I think I might have forgotten your names,” Eshya says, and Nel gasps. “Ah, it’s fine, it’s fine. I’m still me, and you’re all still just as beautiful as ever, it’s just… can we go over a few details, I think I need to unscramble a few things is all it is.”
“Arduelle!” I shout, “Come and fix this!”
The titan comes to my call, as she should.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Stats and Skills
~Mana Form:
Current mana density: 39,023 / 60,892 units
Current mana volume: 19,399 / 30,271 shards
Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):
Kyra: 30,271 shards
Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards
Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards
~Forms
Mana Canon
-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)
-Blood Fuel (Adapted)
-Bone Magic Storage (40,000 mana shards)
-Nail Shifters (50,000 mana shards)
Dancer
-Flash Nerves (Adapted)
-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)
-Burst Reflex Muscles (35,000 mana shards)
-Layered space Muscles (80,000 mana shards)
Turtle
-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)
-Catalyst Sweat Glands (140,000 mana shards)
-Repulsive Skin (80,000 mana shards)
-Prehensile hair (10,000 mana shards)
-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (100,000 mana shards)
Investigator
-Wide eyes (Adapted)
-Wide ears (Adapted)
-Sharp nose (Adapted)
Misc.
-Clean bowels (Adapted)
~Favourited Skills:
Magic:
-Annihilation Magic (Customised)
-Fire Magic (Functional)
-Space magic (Broken)
-Force magic (Functional)
-Ice magic (Broken)
-Wind magic (Broken)
Movement:
-Hand-to-hand casting (Functional)
-Mana surge movement (Functional)
-Stealth (Functional)
Senses:
-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)
-Combat Awareness (Functional)
-Watchmen (Functional)
-Hidden bug (Mastered)
-De-tagging (Mastered)
-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)
Special:
-Spirit Transformation (Broken)
-Conformity (Broken)
-Training mana form (Functional)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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