6. Hope And Danger #2
“I see. The way that Kindreth society is presented–well, I know that many of the accounts are prejudiced because they’re written by Aravae–is rather cutthroat,” Finley admitted.
“But even if one were only to believe a quarter of what is written about brother betraying brother simply to rise in the ranks, mothers killing daughters so that they don’t outshine them, siblings sacrificing parents for greater magics…
well, I suppose I understand why Vex would be intent on having as much power as he could. He would need it to keep himself safe.”
“There is no such thing as safety in Kindreth society,” Rhalyf’s sudden bitterness had Finley staring at him.
His aged face puckered as he spoke, “Love is weakness. One would be better off slicing the throats of all one’s family than having them live and breathe to slice yours another night.
If you are strong enough to do it anyways. ”
Finley blinked. “That’s… that’s awful.”
“Yes, but it’s honest, too. Most people are friendly to one another because they have to be. They’re not strong enough to live on their own. As humans have found out when a rude word can get you fried by lightning, you’re more careful to be polite,” Rhalyf answered with a twist of his lips.
“Is that why you’re friends with the king? To get something out of him? Protection or riches?” Finley asked.
His tone wasn’t judgmental although Rhalyf’s words would have warranted that. Instead, his heart hurt for what the elf was saying. The cold emptiness in such an existence was something he never wanted to experience.
But I can use this in my game! Maybe one of the heroes will remind Vex that there is more to life than that. Yes, that could happen…
Rhalyf blinked and gave him a rather rakish smile, which didn’t play as well on Gran’s face as he said, “I was talking of Kindreth , dear boy. Not Aravae!”
“Right, but you also said that the Kindreth way of doing things was more honest .”
Rhalyf let out a breath. “Did I? Well, I suppose it can be in certain situations.”
“But not between you and Aquilan?”
“No. Never ,” Rhalyf murmured and Finley heard an almost pledge in those words.
“It’s not like that between me and Declan either even though he’s…
he’s stronger than me in a lot of ways. But we help each other out,” Finley said, even as he felt sometimes as if his contribution to Declan’s life was simply adding to his burdens.
After all, Declan was constantly getting into fights to save Finley.
And that had been happening since even before the war.
“You’ve given him a sense of belonging and home,” Rhalyf said rather authoritatively.
“I… I guess. I mean he’s lost so much. First his birth parents and then adopted ones.”
“You’ve lost your birth parents, too, I believe you said,” Rhalyf asked carefully.
Finley let out a long breath. “I assume they are dead. They were in Europe when the war broke out. I would hope that if they were still alive that they would take one of the gates back here to see if I’m all right.”
“You hope ?” Rhalyf cast a curious glance at him.
Finley’s hands curled into fists. “They didn’t really…
my parents weren’t… engaged with me. I was something nice to have, but easily forgotten.
It’s all right,” he quickly added as he saw a faint furrowing of Rhalyf’s brow.
“I felt the same about them. Declan is my family. Gemma, Michael and Shonda are my family. They’re more of one than my parents ever were. ”
“I understand,” Rhalyf said.
“Gemma! Don’t get too close to the forest!” Finley called as he saw the young teen had strayed too near the treeline in his opinion.
Just like the lake, the forests were now filled with creatures that were dangerous to humans from wolves and bears to leshen and dryads.
Seith and Leisha might have been killed by Leviathan, but they could just as easily have been strangled by a leshen’s wooden tendrils or captured by a dryad’s dream spell.
While perhaps not dangerous in the usual way, a friend of Gemma’s had claimed she’d seen a unicorn racing between the trees.
Gemma was intent on seeing one, too. Maybe that was why she had gotten so close.
But she turned and skipped back to them.
She had wound some flowers in her hair. She stuck a white one behind Rhalyf’s ear.
“Makes you look more lovely, Gran,” she giggled.
“Oh, my girl, do you think so?” Rhalyf twittered in an old woman’s voice.
“Remember to keep calling him– her –Gran,” Finley whispered. “We’re nearly at Hope.”
In fact the Separatist outpost was just fifty-feet away.
If there could be a night and day opposite it would be Tyrael and Hope.
Hope burst with life. A cacophony of life.
The clang and clamber of the Separatist outpost rang out loudly, blocking out the rustle of the wind through the fields and birdsong in the trees.
Unlike the clean, graceful lines of Tyrael, Hope was as if a child had tossed every vibrant toy down onto the ground, breaking some of them in the process, and then smooshed others together into a circular pile.
There was a wall around Hope made out of derelict, rusting vehicles that were piled five high interspersed with boards of every shape, size and color tacked together.
Metal beams that had been harvested from old buildings jutted up into the sky like spikes.
Metal grating had been lashed to the tops of the cars and Separatists–armed with binoculars, which were useful–and rifles–which were not–constantly patrolled the top of the wall.
It faintly reminded him of a Fallout game city as everything was scavenged and very little of it was used as it had been originally intended.
These smells and sounds of Hope would have made little impact on him before the war, but now he was used to the cleaner air and quieter pace of Tyrael.
But there was a sense of excitement about Hope, too.
It always got his blood going as he watched people take old world everyday items and repurpose them in unique and clever ways.
But the Aravae likely saw the fact that everything the Separatists had was made out of junk.
Most of the houses were made out of corrugated steel sheets with plastic flaps used for windows and doors.
“These homes don’t look exactly…” Here, Rhalyf’s nose–a very big nose–wrinkled slightly, “made to last?”
They’d passed through the gate that was kept open during the day, but firmly shut at night.
The Separatists hadn’t given them a second look, because they thought that all of their party was human .
Finley’s stomach tightened. Finding out about other species and magic hadn’t decreased prejudice, but increased it. Depressing as that was.
Gemma shrugged. “The Separatists sort of don’t have any choice.”
“There’s plenty of wood and stone,” Rhalyf offered.
“Only if you get a license to harvest it,” Finley reminded him. “Emissary Vesslan believes that if humans are allowed to simply cut wood or mine stone without such a license, they’ll take too much or take it in such a way as to harm the environment.”
“Oh, well, Vesslan likes to control things. It’s his favorite pastime,” Rhalyf responded lightly, but there was a faint frown on his lips. Finley wondered if he would tell Aquilan about these licenses.
“To be honest, he might be right about this,” Gemma said slowly. “The whole deal with the licenses started when the Separatists tried to harvest some of the oldest and biggest trees in the forests with gas powered chainsaws.”
“It wasn’t a good look,” Finley admitted. “But cutting down trees with an ax when you have to build so many homes just isn’t practical. And cutting down the oldest trees–meaning the biggest ones–meant that they would have to take down less trees. Or, at least, that’s what Duke Rohannen said.”
“Trees to the Aravae are like living gods. Find one that’s older than a trice and they put a fence around it,” Rhalyf shrugged.
Gemma stared at him for a moment. “When you say it like that, it makes you sound like you aren’t Aravae.”
“Oh, dearie, I am not! I’m a human grannie and don’t you forget it!” Rhalyf patted her nose, which had Gemma laughing.
“The humans have a right to log their own trees,” Finley objected. “In winter, these houses aren’t really great.”
“No, I imagine they are not. But they could have perfectly lovely homes if they simply lived in town and agreed to be good citizens of the Empire as so many other species have managed to do,” Rhalyf pointed out.
“Or gods’ forbid, apply for a license, but they seem allergic to doing any of these things, so forgive me, if my heart doesn’t bleed terribly much for them. ”
“Some people feel we don’t have enough of a say in how things are run on our own world,” Finley answered, though he did think that Rhalyf had a point.
“Most species do not have a Councilor on the Radiant Council. Humans do . In fact, their Councilor had a one-on-one meeting with the Sun King last night… or so I heard,“ Rhalyf responded dryly. “Unless these Separatists don’t think that Shonda Baston speaks for them for some reason.”
“Mom represents all humans, but you’re not wrong,” Gemma said tightly.
“From what I hear, the Separatist leader thinks he’s the only one who can represent everyone.
But he’s not very smart, I don’t think. After the license thing, he decided to try and illegally harvest some trees, thinking if he did it at night that the Aravae wouldn’t know. ”
Rhalyf let out a soft huff of laughter. “I’m sure that went terribly well.”
“They have a lot of imagination when it comes to repurposing this stuff,” Finley gestured around towards the houses, “but not when it comes to magic. They just don’t understand what it can do.”
“Hmmm, well, yes, too bad about that. It must have taken courage to go into the forests at night without any magic to protect themselves, but they didn’t consider that the Aravae would enchant the forests to repel their attempts to cut down trees?” Rhalyf asked.
“No, not at all,” Finley answered with a sigh.
The Separatists’ actions had made humans look greedy and stupid. Goblins like Strofin likely used that as a prime example of how humanity wasn’t worth the cost.
“Oooh, what’s that?” Rhalyf or “Gran” said in this reedy, old woman’s voice. He was pointing towards the popcorn cart.
This was an example of the cleverness of humanity.
A large metal drum had been cut in half lengthwise.
Metal struts had been soldered onto the bottom as legs.
There was a large pot, almost as tall as Gemma, on one side where popcorn was being popped.
He could see the white fluffy stuff overflowing the top.
The popcorn maker dumped some of the popcorn into an oversized copper kettle where sugar had been turned into sticky caramel.
“Caramel corn! We have to get some!” Gemma enthused as the popcorn maker swirled the popcorn into the golden, sticky liquid.
The popcorn maker–a woman in her forties, Finley guessed from the streak of frost in her hair and the crinkled skin around her dark eyes–smiled broadly at Gemma as she hopped over and extended two copper bits.
The woman expertly took a piece of brown paper, fashioned it into a cone, and shoveled the still hot caramel corn into it for Gemma. She then put a little extra on top.
“Sweets for the sweet,” the popcorn maker said with a wink.
Gemma beamed. “Thank you so much!”
Finley wasn’t surprised when the popcorn maker’s eyes followed after Gemma nor how they lingered on her and “Gran”. The truth was that the very young and the very old were rare to see these days. He’d never known his own grandparents. They’d lived in Europe and died when he was little.
“You’re just like my father,” his mother had told him once after he’d decided to do some homemade “chemistry” with ingredients he’d found underneath the kitchen sink. Youtube videos had been quite informative.
“Was he a scientist?” Finley had asked in his eight-year-old’s too serious voice.
She’d regarded him out of cool, blue eyes rather like his own and said, “He couldn’t leave anything alone. Always had to know how it worked. Understand its function. Even if it destroyed the thing he was trying to understand.”
Finley had known even then that what she’d described wasn’t supposed to be a compliment.
He had caused there to be a rather large black streak to cover one wall of their very white kitchen.
But he’d decided to take it as one. Because knowledge was greater than anything.
Knowledge was certainly greater than the physical.
So what if one destroyed an object in pursuit of knowledge?
That knowledge would always exist to create another.
Gemma brought the caramel corn over to them. “Have some, Rha… I mean, Gran . It’s really good.”
“Oh, my, that does look quite tasty. But is it as good as a Twinkie ? We shall see.” Rhalyf took a few sticky pieces.
The caramel was still warm enough to pull and create long strands as he pulled it towards him.
He nibbled on a piece before his eyes widened almost comically and he shoved the rest into his mouth. “That is… oh, that is…”
“Have some more,” Gemma offered.
Seeing an Aravae shoveling caramel corn into his mouth was not something Finley had ever expected to see.
Especially as some of the pieces stuck to his chin, nose and cheeks.
Tutting, Finley reached over and brushed them off.
Rhalyf went very still when he did this.
The Aravae’s dark eyes–which he had not made rheumy with age, something Finley would have to tell him about later–tracked him carefully.
“What? You’re a mess. Can’t have our Gran look a mess!” Finley found himself chuckling awkwardly.
Rhalyf said nothing. Even Gemma was blinking at him a little strangely.
He quickly brushed his sticky fingers against his pants.
He’d poked Rhalyf before in his Gran disguise.
He couldn’t help himself. That amount of magic–that show of power–but touching him this time felt different. He couldn’t have said why.
It’s so absurd! It isn’t even his body I’m touching!
He was saved from further weirdness when Rhalyf’s eyes suddenly left him and darted towards someone else past his left shoulder.
He turned around and looked. There was a cloaked and hooded figure.
But if they were trying to hide the fact that they were an elf, they were doing a poor job of it.
She–for it was a she–turned her head and he clearly saw short, honey-colored hair and wide blue eyes in a face that faintly resembled Aquilan’s.
“Elasha,” Rhalyf murmured. “Now what are you doing here?”