128: Custodian of the Crown
Chapter 128: Custodian of the Crown
SENA
The weather was harsh this fading season.
Sena had traveled enough during her time in the Silent Order that she knew Chall had relatively mild fading. The day sky would dim for a time, and the weather would turn chilly and rainy, with occasional morning frosts. Once in a while, a dust of snow would show itself, but the bigger problem was the sleet, hail, and occasional freezing rain.
This was basically nothing compared to some of the regions she had visited… but that didn’t mean Sena could shrug off the howling winds outside, or the steady creak and trickle from the snow melting on her roof and pouring down the sides. She had her hearth burning, the central pillar containing it radiating a cozy warmth to the entire cottage. The nearest of the doors to the hearth was half open to allow the crackling fire to warm her bed, where she sat upright under a blanket.
She still felt cold, but that was just normal now.
Asha and her husband Tirend had stayed here for the fading to help make sure she didn’t fall ill. Both had been forced to go out in the storm when the tethers broke, trying to recover the livestock before all of them were gone. It was a rare moment of quiet in the last few days, and Sena found it both comfortable and a little lonely.
When had she gotten so soft?
She should really consider getting something to eat, if only to move around and get herself warmed up further. It had been a particularly miserable fading, and just moving around took initiative that she struggled to gather of late.
“Soup?”
The scent of herbs and root vegetables hit her just before the lilting, almost musical voice. Sena perked an ear and tilted her head, staring down with her good eye at the lithe, tiny form offering the bowl with both hands.
It was unmistakably an elf, the second she’d ever seen. Taller than the first, less stocky and even more delicate, but with similar features. Tail swaying behind her, eyes peering upward with an odd, greenish glow to them. The stance and expression made it obvious to her who she was looking at.
“Akasha,” she murmured in greeting, accepting the warm clay bowl with a sigh. “I wondered if I’d see you again before I died.”
The fire crackled, and Sena was unsurprised to see Kenta there, poking at the logs to shift them about. He was young again, just like when she’d first seen him. That boded ill for her, but it wasn’t a shock to think about it. He’d kept pace with her own age for so long, but now she was getting to the point where her body was failing. His likely would too, if he tried to match her.
Akasha hopped up onto the nearby table, swinging her legs and carefully threading her tail under the tabletop. Sena appreciated that. The way the hyperactive elf flicked her tail about would cause some disasters if left unchecked. Asha’s own childhood had taught her that growing up with tails was a much bigger issue than purposefully choosing to grow one.
Sena tipped the bowl back for a long sip, letting the warm liquid flow into her and give tingling heat to her chest and belly. It was a relief, though she didn’t say as much. Her tail twitched under the blanket as her eye moved from one guest to the other. She’d wondered how this would happen, but she didn’t open up with her real question.
“Is this weather your doing, or just poor luck?” Sena took another sip after asking, letting her ears track the answer.
Kenta chuckled. “No, not mine. Just random chance. Weather is surprisingly complicated. I try to regulate it a little bit, but if I’m not careful then anything I try to adjust will just mess up something else.”
“I hear that a lot,” the elderly vaskan murmured. “But I also know that fire can’t be warming me up this much.”
Akasha giggled, “Father may be cheating a little.”
With a shrug, Kenta turned around and smiled. “Give me some credit.” His amusement faded a little at the expression on Sena’s face, the older vaskan’s smile already gone.
“You’re both here,” she muttered. “And our next meeting is almost half a year away. Is this your way of telling me that I won’t be there to make our next meeting?”
The observation made both Akasha and Kenta look at one another… but both knew lying about this would be meaningless.
Kenta settled on the bed next to Sena. “I’ve told you before, I don’t know the future, so I’m not certain, but…” He trailed off for just long enough to sigh. “Most likely not.”
Shaking her head, Sena just tipped back the soup bowl to drain more of it. She sat in silence with them for a long time before speaking again.
“I knew it would happen soon,” came the murmured reply. “I’ve been slowing down too much. Hurting too much. Parts don’t work like they used to.” She gestured to the milky eye on her left side. “I think I’ve finished my work, though.”
Kenta let out a light laugh. “You retired ages ago! I’d say you have. You’ve earned the rest.”
Sena glanced at Akasha, then back at Kenta with a quiet chuckle. “You didn’t really think I’d stop that sort of work, did you?”
Seeing the Administrator’s confusion, she sighed heavily and tried to explain.
“Asha was curious of my work, but I didn’t want her to become involved in the Silent Order. It takes a certain mindset… and she isn’t ruthless enough to handle the work herself. I never told her about it, and I have no knowledge of its current state.”
Not entirely true. She presumed Pisca was still in charge. Her replacement hadn’t asked for advice in over twelve years, though. It was quite possible a new head had been put in place. Chall had a different government now, as well. Most likely, the Order had adjusted to match.
“It is now our family responsibility to find and cover up any accidental evidence you leave here,” she continued. “You are very sloppy. I expect you will keep my family busy for a long time. Call it a parting gift.”
The statement got a loud groan from Kenta, his head lowering to his hands. Akasha just laughed out loud, but didn’t butt into the conversation. She’d certainly mellowed in the decades since they’d met, but she was still much more playful than Kenta… normally.
When the Administrator lifted his head, he was scowling. “Sena… you can’t devote your entire life and the lives of your family to others. It’s noble – even if you were forced to do awful things – but at some point you need to give yourself some kind of satisfaction.”
Sena drained her soup bowl, then lowered it to her lap, staring at the dregs as they rippled and shifted with her subtle movements. She heaved a quiet sigh.
“All these visits and years, and you’re still clueless. You understand me better than anyone… and not at all, at the same time.”
She lifted her head and smiled. “Making the world better for those after me is what I love doing. It gives me purpose. It gives me satisfaction. That is a reward already… and in doing so, I obtained a daughter. Someone I could watch grow up, and teach, and see become a new person. Hopefully better than me, living in a world better than the one I am leaving. Isn’t that what anyone wants?”
One finger reached out and poked Kenta on the chest.
“Isn’t that literally what you do? Making our lives worth living? You harm us individually sometimes, but isn’t your whole goal to make the world stronger? Better? How many times have we circled this same point, over and over?”
He frowned back at her. “Even so. You deserve some kind of reward. We can do… some things. Another life, a longer one. We can…” He hesitated. “You don’t have the concept of what we can normally do. But surely there’s something?”
Akasha slid off the table, the sudden motion drawing Sena’s eyes. The tiny elf crawled up on the bed and… kissed her on the cheek.
“It sounds like you two have some talking to do,” Akasha murmured. “I’ll leave you two alone. Sena… thank you for your advice. Whatever you decide to do, I’ll support it.”
She held up an intricately-wound bracelet on her wrist, smiling… then she vanished in a shimmer of blue light.
Sena sighed again. “I only want two things. Two more questions answered. No hedging.”
“Name them,” Kenta replied without hesitation.
She chuckled and set her bowl aside where Akasha had been sitting. “Sounds like things went well with that girl of hers. But that isn’t my question.”
With a long breath that rattled her chest, Sena looked back to Kenta.
“Did I make the right choices in life?”
Kenta couldn’t help but chuckle sadly.
“You know, before I made this world, I asked another, older being like me a question sort of similar. I asked them what the purpose of life was.” He leaned back against the cottage wall, head tilted up to stare at the ceiling. The crackle of the fire mingled with the faint moaning of the wind outside while he composed the rest of his answer.
“The purpose of life is to live.” The tautology came out with all the seriousness of a real answer, which he thankfully elaborated upon. “The choices you make? They’re always right. What’s important isn’t which choice you made, it’s that you made the choice. That’s what being part of this world means. That’s what matters. If you want to help the most people possible, that’s how you do it. You make tough choices. You try to do your best. So yes. Yes you did.”
Sena tilted her head at him, her ear twitching. Then, she nodded.
“I don’t want to live forever, or a thousand years, or whatever you were offering to me,” she murmured in a quiet voice. “I have a grandson and granddaughter now, you know. I never thought I’d have a family, but now that I have one… I wouldn’t want to bury them just for my own benefit of living so long. But yet… I still wonder…”
She took a breath.
“Will I ever see you again, after I’m gone?”
Kenta hesitated.
“There are ways,” he answered in a hushed voice. “But you have rejected most of them. You don’t want your life extended. You don’t want to be a dungeon, or to manage a species not your own, do you? None of those… none of those match the way I see you.”
She didn’t argue, and Kenta closed his eyes as he considered.
“You can see me again.” The Administrator held up a finger, his eyes opening with a frown. “There is a way. But you won’t be able to see me as I am now. Only… when I’m least fit to be seen.”
Sena’s tail swayed as she tilted her head. She didn’t interrupt, but that was enough for Kenta to nod, accepting that she was still considering it.
Quietly, he made her an offer.
She accepted.