Chapter Text
Angels with silver wings
Shouldn't know suffering
I wish I could take the pain for you
If God has a master plan
That only He understands
I hope it's your eyes He's seeing through
Things get damaged, things get broken
I thought we'd manage, but words left unspoken
Left us so brittle
There was so little left to give
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I stir, feeling warm and comfortable. I smell something sweet, but unlike the sickening sweet scent that was often present at the palace, this one is pleasant and soothing. With my eyes still closed, I move closer to the warm thing next to me, resting my hand upon it. It's soft, even more so than the pillow I'm resting on. I squeeze it, wanting to get a better feel of its softness.
"Uh-n" Hearing a not so pleased voice, I force my eyes open to see what is happening, and what I see are two beautiful eyes, the color of the moon. 'Seradina...'
Everything that happened yesterday comes back to me: the moment she saved me, our escape, the stairs, the encounter with the captain, going outside, discovering the grass, the sky, and moving so high that everything looked incredibly small. I remember feeling excited as I've never been before, but still I must have fallen asleep at some point, after she told me she came from the sky.
I focus back on her eyes and notice that she's staring at me with a troubled expression. I look back at her without saying anything, not knowing why she's making that face or what I can do to make things right.
"Could you..." she turns her eyes away, sounding almost embarrassed. "...take your hand away?"
I try looking at my hand to see what I'm touching and why it would bother her, but it's covered by a smooth, light yellow blanket. I let go of the soft object to move the blanket aside, but when I search for the object I was touching, I can only see a pillow in front of Seradina. I reach for the pillow, wanting to move it away and take a better look, but I hear her making a "Uhh..." sound as both she and the pillow move back.
I stare for a moment, and I finally realize that the 'pillow' is in reality Seradina's chest. Suddenly, I remember that the men from outside would always touch the princesses' chest when they were doing bad things to them, and that the sound she made earlier is also very similar to the ones the princesses used to do in those moments.
I hastily move not only my hand, but my whole body away from her, sitting up and pressing my back against the wall to get as much distance as I can between us. "I'm sorry!!" I say, almost panicking. Just yesterday I said I don't want to do those things to her, and today I'm already going back on my word.
She looks at me, her expressions ranging from surprised to confused to troubled to many other things. After a few moments she sits up as well, sighing, and that's when I notice that she's wearing nightclothes. I briefly look at my arms and see that I'm wearing nightclothes too.
"It's okay. It was a mistake, no need to fret so much." She says, but she's holding her chest with her hand, probably trying to make sure that I won't touch it again.
"I didn't mean..." 'to do bad things to you' I want to say, but I need a moment to try and force the words out. While I'm silent, she raises a hand to stop me.
"It's okay... it's just..." her voice is reassuring, but her eyes move all around as if searching for something. At some point she slightly widens them, as if she had actually found it. "...you just squeezed a bit too hard, that's it..."
I stare at her for a moment, finding her explanation a bit hard to believe. I didn't squeeze hard enough to hurt her. But she doesn't seem to be angry, and that's the most important thing.
"By the way, I heard third bell not long ago, but... are you hungry? Should we have breakfast?" She asks. That is a really good idea, for the bread I was eating yesterday wasn't enough to satisfy my hunger.
I stop, wondering at my own thoughts. I can't remember holding it anymore after the room started moving. "What happened to my bread?" I ask out loud.
She looks at me, showing both amusement and doubt in her expression. "Do you really like hard bread that much?"
After that we both get up to get ready for the day. She lets me use the restroom first, a small room with a chamber pot, and since there isn't anything to dispose of the waste, she has to do it using the same trick she used yesterday to clean me, saying it's called 'waschen'. That makes me remember that she used my waste to make the clothes we left on my bed damp. I ask her why she did it, but I immediately regret it, because she says that sweat and waste contain similar [compounds]. I have no idea what [compounds] are, but I know I don't want to be sweaty ever again. I immediately ask her to use her trick again to remove the sweat that formed during my sleep.
Once we are clean and dressed she makes the bed disappear, turning it into a table so we can have breakfast. My eyes grow wide as I stare at the furniture changing in front of me, and Seradina explains that the room we are currently staying in is the same room that yesterday allowed us to move, insisting that I have to call it 'Lessy'. I stare at her with my mouth open in amazement, and to prove what she's saying, she shows me how the room -'Lessy'- can change shape and size.
She then opens a plain box whose only noticeable feature is a big feystone and takes out of it various foods, all warm and fragrant. The bread is incredibly soft, making me finally understand why she seems to dislike the usual one, and the soup is so tasty that it alone would have been enough for me to feel fulfilled.
Following bread and soup, she puts on the table the glass we took yesterday from the kitchen. She opens the lid and takes a spoonful of the light brown liquid that she calls 'honey'. I observe how the liquid slides down the spoon, how she makes various movements with her hand to make sure it doesn't fall down. She tells me to open my mouth, and as soon as I do she puts the spoon inside it.
It takes a moment for me to actually feel the taste. When I do, my eyes grow wide and I stare at her, unable to speak because of my mouth being full.
'It's delicious... Honey is delicious...'
She pulls the spoon out of my mouth and I close my eyes, savoring the honey. When it's all gone down my throat I open my eyes again, wanting to ask for more, and I see her staring back at me, once again, with the corners of her mouth turned up. I started doing that expression after she saved me, but I see that she does it very often, and I like it when she does.
"Your expression..." She looks at me, raising only one eyebrow, but without moving her mouth. "...does it have a name?"
She points at her cheeks with one hand while taking another spoonful of honey with the other. "You mean this? It's called a smile."
"Smile..." I repeat. It has a nice sound too, it doesn't only look nice. "I like your smile." I declare, and her smile seems to broaden even more.
She moves the spoon toward me and I open my mouth to receive it. Only after my mouth closes on the spoon she speaks again. "Ferdinand's smile is the most precious, though."
I blink and, for some reason, I feel the tips of my ears grow hot.
When breakfast is done, Seradina makes me wear all the clothes and the amulet from yesterday, saying we should go outside while the sun is high and it's not too cold. As we get out of 'Lessy', I see we are inside another kind of room: there is a ceiling and low walls, high enough to reach the ceiling only in a few places, and the large windows have no glass at all. She says this kind of building is called 'gazebo'. Even inside of it the air is colder than what I was used to consider 'cold' at the boys' floor, but it is much more pleasant than it was yesterday night.
We go outside the gazebo and walk through the grass, that is not as tall as it was at the place where I first saw the sky. After walking for a while in the sun, I start sweating and ask Seradina to use 'waschen'. She does, but she says that I'll have to learn to live with being sweaty and taking a bath only once a day.
She suggests we sit down on the stairs to avoid sweating again. As I close my eyes to enjoy the warmth, I realize that just staying in the sun, without windows and decorations to block it, is already pleasant enough to make me feel good.
When we move back inside the gazebo, Seradina lets me take a look at the outer part of 'Lessy'. In front of it there's the round thing I saw yesterday: there are shapes that remind me of eyes, a nose and a mouth, however...
"It's ugly..." I tell her.
"Wha--? It's not 'ugly', Lessy is super cute!" she says forcefully, and I turn toward her. While her expression is not really scary, she is giving me the angriest look I've seen on her face so far.
'...After all the things I thought might make her angry but didn't, this is the one that does?' I wonder as she keeps talking.
"You only say it's ugly because you think it resembles a grun!" she pushes her lips forward and makes her cheeks stand out in an expression I don't recognize. Is she still angry?
I look at her for a few moments, and when I see that she is not showing other signs of being angry, I ask: "What is a 'grun'?"
"Oh! I promised to show you drawings of animals yesterday..." she says, all the anger gone from her face. We soon return inside Lessy, where she makes a rectangular, shiny thing appear out of nowhere and uses it to show me something made of a multitude of thin, dark lines, saying that it's the drawing of a grun.
"It doesn't look like Lessy at all..." I say, trying to imagine what something made of lines could have in common with that round, yellow head.
"I knew it! Isn't Lessy much, much cuter than a grun?" She seems happy for some reason, making me unwilling to tell her that I find them both ugly, so I try to avoid the question.
I run my finger on the drawing, following the dark lines. "What are--"
"Eeek!" she cries, straightening her back. I look at her, wondering what happened, but she stares back at me, blinking in surprise. "Sorry, I... suddenly felt like I was being tickled all over. Please continue."
I remember that word, Sesta is ticklish, but he learned to control his cries before he turned four. I never thought I would hear an adult cry because she felt tickled.
I move my finger on the drawing once more. "These lines--"
"Eeek!" she screams again. We look at each other, probably thinking the same thing.
I move my finger on the drawing again and this time she manages not to cry, but it's clear by the way she shivers that she felt tickled. I put all my fingers on the drawing, ready to quickly move them, but before I can do that she grabs my hand and lifts it.
"Stop! From now on, you are only allowed to point at the drawings, no touching!" She's looking at me with wide eyes, but she doesn't seem to be angry. I nod to show her I understood, even though I'm a bit disappointed. I wanted to try a few more times, at least to see if the white parts around the drawing can also make her feel tickled.
I finally manage to ask her what are all the lines. She explains they can represent both the outline of objects or their shadows, but for me to actually be able to understand, she has to show me drawings of things I know or 'portraits' of humans. After many drawings I'm finally able to imagine the animal she's showing me -a 'shumil', she says. To make sure I'm imagining the right thing, she shows me a painting of a woman holding the same animal.
As I look at her wondering why she didn't show the painting before the drawings, we hear the fourth and a half bell, and Seradina says it's time for lunch. As we had breakfast very late, neither of us is really hungry, but the food is so delicious that I end up asking for more. She even gives me some more honey as 'dessert'.
When we are done eating she asks me what I have been taught at the palace and 'gives me a test'. Or so she says. I don't know what a 'test' is, but she does nothing but asking me a lot of questions. She says that my letters are barely passable, my math is even worse than she imagined, and that my greetings are completely nonexistent. I don't think I've ever heard the word 'greetings' before, to be honest.
Saying that I will need to know them when I'll meet my new father, she teaches me all the seasonal greetings, starting from the autumn one. They aren't very difficult, but for some reason I wish I could avoid learning them. For my whole life I've desperately hoped that one of the men from outside would take me away with them, and now that it's about to happen, something I can't describe makes me hope he won't come. However, when Seradina praises me and my ability to learn and remember new things, I stop worrying about anything else and I give my all into learning everything she teaches me.
We stop only for the afternoon tea, and there is new food here as well, small sweet side dishes for tea that she calls 'cookies'. There are many delicious flavors, and I try each of them more than once.
After tea she makes me practice writing. I'm not very good at it, the letters I write look very ugly in comparison with hers, but she says she's impressed by my quick progress. When we start doing math and she shows me that numbers can be added and subtracted, I start eagerly playing with this new knowledge. It's one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played.
Time never passed so quickly, and soon it's time for dinner, with even more new and delicious dishes and a few more spoonfuls of honey. Before going to sleep, I ask her if we can watch the sky again, and she humors me, making the whole room become smaller and see through and moving it outside the gazebo, where we can see the stars.
This time we are laying on the bed from the beginning so it won't be a problem even if we fall asleep, or so she says. Even though we already slept like this last night, I have to say that I find quite strange that we both are using the same bed. Such an idea never ever crossed my mind, but she insists that this is how 'families' sleep. Despite its strangeness, though, I must say that feeling her warmth under the blankets is enough to make me feel at ease.
When I wake up, she is not next to me. I search for her around Lessy, even in the small room with the chamber pot, but she is nowhere to be seen. I start to panic, wondering what I would do if she wasn't around, but she soon reappears out of nowhere. She doesn't want to tell me where she went nor why she seems to be upset.
After she gets me ready we have breakfast, and the day proceeds more or less like the previous one: she teaches me one new thing after the other, makes me practice what I already knew or learned yesterday, praises me for my progress and gives me delicious food to eat. In just a couple of days she has made me experience more things than I ever did in the years I spent at the palace. I may have felt scared or upset every now and then since I met her, but I don't remember ever feeling so good. Just the knowledge that she cares for me and would protect me, should I need it, is enough to make me feel safe and warm inside.
'I really look forward to staying with her forever.' It's with this thought that I fall asleep.
However, when I wake up on the third day I feel unable to relax. I notice that Seradina, as well, is more tense than usual. And she isn't smiling.
We have breakfast in our nightclothes, and soon after she rushes me to get cleaned and get dressed -although she's the one who does most of the work. She makes me wear all the heavy clothes that she prepared for me when we escaped from the palace, making me wonder where are we going. When I ask her, she says that we are just going outside to wait for someone.
"...my new father?" I ask, remembering what she said the other day.
"Yes, he's coming at second and a half bell." She says, smoothing the outer layer of my dress. "Do you remember the greetings properly?"
I nod, looking her in the eyes. Seeing her expression, I have to bite back the question I really want to ask.
'Why aren't you smiling?'
When we get outside, Seradina makes Lessy grow smaller, and when it's just big enough for only one chair to be inside, it suddenly disappears. The feeling of unease that has been with me since I woke up suddenly gets worse, as if I knew why there was only one chair in Lessy, but couldn't bring myself to actually think about it.
We wait in silence for what feels like a whole bell or even longer, but I know it is not, she would never make us stay outside in the cold for so long.
We finally hear the bell strike the second and a half bell, and just moments later a man with long bluish hair and a tired face makes his way toward us. We stand up and he kneels in front of Seradina.
"I am very pleased to meet you. I am Aub Ehrenfest, I came here under the guidance of Dregarnuhr. May I pray for a blessing in appreciation of this serendipitous meeting, ordained by the fruitful days of Schutzaria the Goddess of Wind?"
"You may."
"O Schutzaria, may this new meeting be blessed."
I observe the man giving Seradina a blessing, just like she explained me. When he stands up, I move in front of him, kneel down and, after telling him my name and that I'm not yet baptized, I repeat the same greeting. Once we are done with the greetings, Seradina has us all sit down.
"I apologize for being unable to offer you even a cup of tea, however it's for everybody's advantage if we keep this meeting as short as possible." She says, her voice and expressions completely different from what I got used to in the past two days. "I believe Dregarnuhr has given you all the important information already?"
The man -my father- nods. "Indeed. I am to adopt this child, who is an illegitimate son of one of the princes, and hide him in Ehrenfest to protect him. In case of any conflict between the royals, Ehrenfest must remain neutral. In exchange, my duchy will benefit from this thanks to this child's high mana capacity of all attributes, and will also receive the words of a prayer that will facilitate the dedication of mana to the foundation."
"Correct. I am also to stress that this child must be treated with the respect a proper archduke candidate deserves." She says, her tone incredibly forceful despite the fact she's not showing any emotion on her face.
I see the man look at her almost fearfully, but she quickly changes the subject.
"These are the words of the prayer. I believe you know that the more people recite it at the same time, the easier it is for mana to flow?" She moves the thing she is holding -a sheet of parchment, she said earlier- in front of me, and as we practiced I run my hand on it and then stand up to bring it to the man.
He receives it, nodding slightly at me, and starts reading the content of the parchment.
Now, as we practiced, I should be sitting on the same bench as this man, but I hesitate for a while. I don't want to leave her side. Before I can make a decision, the man starts rolling back the parchment.
"I confirm receiving the prayer." He states. He then stands up and kneels once again in front of Seradina. "This was a very profitable encounter. The day will most likely never come when Dregarnuhr the Goddess of Time weaves our threads back together, but I pray that you live in peace with the divine protection of the gods."
Before standing up, the man looks at me and gestures for me to kneel as well. "Ferdinand, you have to say your goodbyes as well."
I look at the two of them without understanding. Seradina had told me that a man was coming to take me with him, she never said that she would not come along. I search her face for a hint, but I can't read her emotions at all.
She stands up and walks toward me, putting her hands on my shoulders. "Ferdinand, we have to part ways here. Do you remember the goodbyes we practiced?" I can feel her gently squeezing my shoulders, and it somehow gives me the push needed to do what is expected of me.
I kneel, crossing my arms in front of myself, and I feel her hands leave my shoulders.
"I pray that you live well with the divine protection of the gods..." my voice falters "...until Dregarnuhr the Goddess... of Time..."
"Aub Ehrenfest," her voice interrupts me. It's much less bold than it was moments ago, almost apologetic. "I am terribly sorry for this inconvenience, but could you give us just a moment?"
I feel him standing up even though I'm not looking at him. "Please think nothing of it and take all the time you need." He starts moving away. He seems much more patient than the caretakers at the palace.
She waits for him to go away, then takes hold of both my hands. I can feel between our palms the same magic tools we used to escape, the ones to prevent others from listening.
"Ferdinand, I'm really, really sorry, but I can't come with you." I look up at her, wanting to ask why she can't.
"I even went to ask Dregarnuhr, the same goddess you were praying to right now, if I could stay with you or take you to another duchy... but she refused everything. But I swear, we will meet again. And I will be there for you when you'll really need it." I can see that her eyes are starting to become teary.
"Be strong Ferdinand. Become the amazing man that I know you will be, only then we will meet again. Can you do that for me?"
I feel my eyes getting teary as well. I don't want to say goodbye to her, I don't want to have to wait who knows how many years to meet again.
I search her eyes and somehow understand that there's no other option than to part ways here. If that's what she wants from me, I'll be strong, I'll become an amazing man. So we can meet again one day.
I nod. "I will do it." I say, looking at her eyes with determination.
She smiles, even though her eyes look sad, and wraps her arms around me, squeezing me hard. I do the same, as much as my shorter arms allow me.
"Remember, Ferdinand. You have a right to find your own happiness. You can live the way you want." She whispers the words in my ear.
'Happiness, living the way I want... I already had those things, you have given them to me in those past three days.' is what I want to tell her, but I stop myself. I know... somehow I can tell by the way she is holding me that she, too, doesn't want me to go.
After a long moment, she moves away and tells me to hold my breath; this time I do it properly. Shortly after my eyes are clean, just like hers, but it seems she has another one of her tricks.
"I cannot give you a real parting gift, but I can at least give you this." She makes a shiny stick appear in her hand and starts moving it. I stare speechless as shiny lines appear in the air, and while she speaks the names of the gods that are used for greetings there are some lines that turn black, golden, green, blue, yellow, red, white. She asks for healing, purification, longevity, but also growth, protection, wisdom, and other things.
The shiny lines move together and start spinning and mixing over my head, then suddenly many colored lights start to slowly fall upon me. I turn my palm up to catch them, but they all disappear under my skin.
"This will protect you and help you when you'll need it. It's the best I can do for you right now." Seradina's voice reminds me that I have to go away, making the feeling of amazement disappear. However, I'm not as sad as I was a moment ago.
She pets me one last time before taking back the magic tool. Holding hands, we move to where Aub Ehrenfest is. She calls him and thanks him for his patience and understanding, before gently pushing me to move forward.
"Let's go, Ferdinand," he says "I'll let you know your siblings and your mother." I start walking away with him, feeling Seradina's warm gaze upon me.
We take a few steps, when suddenly the warmth that had become familiar to me in the past three days disappears. I turn around, wanting to see Seradina one last time, but she is no longer there.