How to raise a Rose
Looking at Scarlet, Rayla asks, “So?”
“So?”
“Can you explain what that was? I know Rose has her problems but having no confidence whatsoever in us or the future…It’s not like her.”
“Hasn’t she always had trouble with putting her faith in us?”
“When it comes to not abandoning her, yes. But otherwise she always had faith in us and the future. I’m sure if I had told her my dream was to touch the stars she would have said something like ‘If it’s you, I know you can do it’ or ‘I’ll do everything in my power to make that possible’. Something has changed and I want to know what it is.”
“Well, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. You’ve seen the broadcast of her birthday afterall.”
“I did…But I only vaguely remember it.”
“I have also seen it and there was nothing there that would explain all this.” Sher Aka adds.
“Wait, hold on. What broadcast? Why was I singled out again.”
“You weren’t. I doubt there was much of a way to contact you in the jungle, John.
“Good point, I’ll shut up now.”
“Wait, so you guys didn’t see when the Spirit Kings arrived?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
“Sigh I guess I’ll have some explaining to do then…On her birthday, when we were about to give her her gifts, all Spirit Kings except Nox showed up-”
“Wait, what!? Five Spirit Kings!?”
“Yep, in the flesh…Or the element I guess. Apparently, Ifrit wanted to introduce Rose to them so they all showed up. Some even brought her some ‘gifts’. None of them were gifts she wanted. Sylvia’s was the most harmless one out of them. Lum returning her bloodline ability seemed to physically hurt her and then Elqueenes forced her to become part water dragon. She ended up coughing up blood because of it and spent half a year in a coma, nearly dying multiple times.”
Somber silence hits the room as everyone present visibly seems sad and in thought.
“So, the reason why she’s like that now is because she’s scared the literal world is out to get her. The thing she seems to be scared of the most is that they could just change her race or memories on a whim and leave her stranded somewhere.”
“...”
Rayla disrupts the silence, “And how…How likely is it that something like that could happen?”
“It’s unlikely but not impossible. So far, the Spirit Kings seem to generally have a positive impression of her and just gave her misguided gifts. If she somehow pisses one of them off, who knows what could happen. But my mother did also tell me that this is pretty unlikely to happen because Rose has a very high concentration of spirit blood in her and is directly tied to the lineages of both Ifrit and Elqueenes. Which means harming her would indirectly harm two Spirit Kings which I’m sure they don’t want.”
Sher Aka asks, “What do you mean when you say that she has a high concentration of spirit blood? How does that affect her or her connections to the Spirit Kings?”
“Ah…Well, how do I best explain this so even Rayla would understand.”
“Excuse me? Why are you singling me out?”
“Because you’re the only one here who’s race doesn’t inherently have some spirit blood in it.”
“I see…Carry on.”
Thinking for a bit Scarlet answers, “Alright, let’s start at the basics. The Spirit Kings are all physical manifestations of the elements. If they disappear, so does the rest of the world and vice versa. Now, spirits are essentially small pieces of the Spirit Kings that have gained their own consciousness separate from the Spirit Kings but they are still part of the Spirit Kings. They’re essentially smaller parts of their body that have broken off but they could still be controlled by the Spirit Kings if they wanted to, they just choose to let them live freely. But that connection to the Spirit Kings isn’t just one sided. If a spirit feels a strong emotion, the Spirit King associated with that spirit will also, in the back of their mind, feel that emotion. This actually leads to a sort of shared emotional state between all spirits which is why they have a very caring and communal lifestyle. If the spirits around them are happy so are they and the same goes for feeling angry or sad. That’s also why people say it's bad to harm or enslave spirits because when you harm one spirit you make all spirits your enemy.
Now, speaking of people. Generally speaking, only Dragons and Elves have spirit blood in them. Elves, again generally speaking, are mutts. Even if they have a predominant amount of spirit blood from one Spirit King, like the Seaelves with Elqueenes or the Mountainelves with Gaia, they usually also have a good amount of different spirit blood in them. We Dragons are a little different, we just have spirit blood from one source because we can all trace our ancestry back to one Spirit King.
But even though we have some spirit blood in us we aren’t spirits. Our connection to the Spirit Kings is at best one-sided in the sense that if we have extremely strong emotions they might notice but we’re not affected by their moods nor the moods of other spirits. We’re also unaffected by spells that target Spirits like the ones a Spirit Mage would use.
Now, Rose is different. Since she is a mix of Dragon and Spiritelf, both of strong royal bloodlines, her spirit blood was already a lot more prominent than normal. According to my mother, her spirit blood was already so thick after reincarnating that she was more spirit than Dragon or Spiritelf but not more spirit than both of those combined. That means she was probably already around one third spirit. Which is a lot. Apparently that amount of spirit blood already makes her a target for Spiritual magic. A spirit mage at that point would already be able to cast binding spells on her. But now, on top of that, she also inherited Elqueenes’ blood. That means she’s probably around half spirit now. She might even be more spirit than she is a person at this point.
What that means exactly, now that she has Elqueenes’ blood in her as well, I can’t tell you because we don’t know. But back when it was only a third, Ifrit told my mom that she’ll have trouble with feeling empathy like normal people do and that she’ll feel some detachment from people. She also said that she will feel emotions more strongly than others and that she will seem…A bit weird. Which will make it hard for her to have relationships with people. She will also be attracted towards people with a fire and now probably also water affinity and will need to be near fire and water from time to time to be healthy. And on top of it she’ll mature slower. By how much I have no idea. That’s all we know. But chances are that the effects are going to be stronger now that she has even more spirit blood in her and there might be unknown side effects as well.”
Thinking for a bit Sher Aka answers, “Provided these unknown side effects aren’t actively detrimental, this is a good thing right? Even if understandably Rose feels scared, they wouldn’t do something that would harm her, right?”
“Yes, that is correct but, as Rose also pointed out when we told her that, they could just change her memories. That would solve the problem of her emotional state dragging them down if they wanted to punish her. Now is that likely? No. Is it possible? Yes and that scares her.”
“No shit she’s scared. Imagine the literal world knowing you exist and being able to just change your entire self at any moment. I’d probably consider killing myself if that happened to me.”
“John! Don’t joke about something like that!”
“I’m not joking, Sherry. That would be horrifying, there is literally no hiding or escaping from them. Every breath you take is part of a Spirit King's body. Any image you see is only possible because of the light of Lum and when you can’t see anything it’s because Nox is surrounding you. I wouldn’t want to live with the idea that every glass of water I drink could at any moment just morph into a face and tell me what to do. I’m glad the Spirit Kings don’t give a shit about me.”
Rayla gives him a stern look, “You’re allowed to hold your opinion on this but please don’t share it with Rose. She’s still young, the best we can do is make her think of the Spirit Kings watching her as something nice. You know, the same way religious people think it’s nice to be watched by the Gods.”
“Don’t worry I won’t share it…At least not unless she asks.”
A little angry Scarlet interjects, “You shouldn’t even tell her that if she does ask. Rayla is right. There are many people that worship the Six and we should just get her into a similar mindset so she doesn’t live in fear all the time.”
“I could be helpful in that,” Sher Aka answers, “I was brought up in the faith of the Six. I lost my faith long ago but I still know the teachings.”
“Sounds good. I was only taught the worship of Ifrit herself so I don’t know how to worship the Six as a whole. It would be helpful if you could teach her that stuff.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“In that case, let’s go back to the party. Rose will probably feel better soon.”
Ignoring the stares as she goes inside Sher Aka takes on a somber expression as she watches Rose being taken care of by the Queen knowing that could have been her without the King’s intervention.