Chapter Text
The Perfect Cup of Tea
Chapter 1
Heiter's cottage. Thirty years after the death of Himmel the Hero.
Frieren watched as the woman brought in tea. Her relatively tall frame was offset by a quiet, obedient, almost haughty manner. Her footsteps were quiet and dainty, like the last patters of rainfall on a rooftop before the sun came out. Even her mana signature was near undetectable.
After laying the small tray on the table, she placed a cup of tea in front of Heiter, the host, and Frieren, the guest. Then, she was off again, heading back into the kitchen like some silent, well-trained servant. There was no chatter or excitement. She exuded an air of grace and elegance.
“Thank you,” Heiter called after, with a smile as warm as the tea.
“Who is she?” the elf asked.
“Her name is Fern. She’s a war orphan from the Southern Lands. I took her in when she was just a girl. Now, she’s about to turn nineteen.”
“Hmm.” She rested her head on her hands. “It’s not like you to volunteer to help people. You’re supposed to be Heiter, not Himmel.”
Absentmindedly, she picked up the cup of tea and blew away some of the steam, only for her jade green eyes to widen in surprise.
The tea had a sharp aroma, but not in an unpleasant sense. Rather, it was the opposite. The average cup of tea didn’t have much of an aroma at all, let alone one so lovely. In fact, it was so lovely that Frieren doubted if it was really tea. Perhaps it was some divine liquid that only bore a passing resemblance to tea.
It smelled like… what did it smell like? What was that smell?
Heiter smirked and leaned forward. “Let me guess. You’re thinking to yourself, ‘what is that smell’, aren’t you?”
Frieren just raised her eyebrow.
“That, my old friend, is the smell of a perfect cup of tea.”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said.” He took a sip of his own brew and let out a long, satisfied sigh. “Taste it.”
She did so, and just about died.
Frieren had tasted thousands upon thousands of cups of tea in her lifetime. The mere thought of how many made her brain hurt. Let’s see… a cup or two a day, which makes seven to fourteen a week, and she’d been alive for well over a thousand years…
It was a lot.
Every moment she spent drinking ‘tea’ up to that very moment had been in vain. It was like she’d spent her whole life with a dislocated shoulder, and only now had it been popped back into place. She couldn’t believe she’d gone this long without experiencing such a taste.
It was therapeutic. It was smooth. It was warm. It was aromatic. It was rich. It was flavourful. It was herbal. It was…
It was just as Heiter said. The perfect cup of tea.
The elf set it back down on the saucer, her eyebrow raised.
Heiter chuckled. “Now you know how I feel.”
She glanced over into the kitchen, where the master brewer, Fern, was cutting vegetables.
“Did Fern really make this?”
“She did.”
Frieren exercised her sixth sense- mana detection. The cup of tea had a signature before that of aroma and taste. A kind of magical footprint.
“Magic?”
“Indeed.”
“Teach me the spell immediately,” Frieren said, without missing a beat.
The priest laughed. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. It’s not mine to teach.”
“What do you mean?”
“Fern will be able to say.” Still smiling, he called her back into the living room. “Fern, could you come back in?”
The girl peered over her shoulder. She put down the knife, removing herself from the chopping board and made her way back over. “What is it, Heiter-sama?”
“You don’t have to call me ‘sama’ anymore. You’re an adult.”
“Yes, Heiter-sama.”
This time, Frieren took a closer look at her appearance and countenance. Her purple hair was long and silky, reaching well beyond her shoulders. She was already much taller than the elf at nineteen, and she peered at Heiter’s guest with an impassive poise far beyond her years.
The slight flicker of curiosity, of shyness, would only have been noticed by someone who knew her better. Heiter, who’d lived with her for over a decade, could see it. Frieren could not.
“I believe Frieren here has something to ask you.”
The elf took another sip of her brew. “Apparently, you know a spell to brew the perfect cup of tea.”
Fern nodded. “I do.”
“How did you find such a legendary level spell?”
A moment of hesitation. Her eyes fell to the ground. “It’s from my mother. I showed signs of magic when I was very young. It was the only spell she got to teach me before she died. Mother said it was passed down through generations of our family, all the way back to the Mythical Era.”
“I see. Will you teach it to me?”
“Heiter said you would ask that.”
“Then you’ll-“
“He also said I shouldn’t teach you.”
Frieren turned to her old friend, a question in her eyes. He was chuckling again, the amusement in his eyes brighter than the sun pouring in through the window.
“You’re messing with me, you corrupt priest.”
“I am indeed.”
“You know I can’t resist finding new spells. This is just mean.” The mage sounded genuinely upset.
“Come now. I said that Fern shouldn’t teach you right away. There’s nothing stopping her from teaching you in the future. Isn’t that right, Fern?”
“I suppose so...” Her voice was doubtful.
“If you really want to learn the spell, I imagine you’ll have to earn Fern’s trust. Why, she hasn’t even taught me the spell yet.”
Fern seemed a little worried at that. She stepped closer and put her arm on Heiter’s shoulder. “It’s not because I don’t want to,” she protested, but her voice wasn’t wholly convincing. “It’s because mother told me it was special. Her mother passed it down to her, and she passed it down to me. I think she wanted it to be mine. As a gift.”
Heiter didn’t seem to mind, nor question her motives. “And what a lovely gift it is. Almost as good as a pint of ale."
Jade green eyes, with over a thousand years of age behind them, met purple eyes which had only known nineteen. This time, Frieren picked up a little more of the feeling behind the unusual impassivity. She saw a little of that curiosity, and a little wariness. A little uncertainty.
They didn’t know each other yet. Wariness was only natural.
No matter how dearly Frieren wanted to know the spell, she had no intention of prising it out of the poor woman’s fingers. It was a gift that she treasured, to be used at her discretion.
“Perhaps you’ll teach it to me, before I leave. If not, I’ll be happy just to have tried a perfect cup of tea, for the very first time.”
Fern’s eyes widened, and the first hint of what may have been a smile broke through the impassive clouds. “It doesn’t have to be last time you taste it, miss. Would you like another?”
She blinked. “You’re quite sharp, aren’t you? Alright.”
“Thank you.” The girl gave a little bow. She didn’t sound that pleased but enjoyed praise as much as anyone else. “What about you, Heiter-sama?”
“Of course I’d like another.”
And then she was heading back into the kitchen, carrying the tray under her arm. Heiter had already finished his tea in the time they’d been talking- it really was a wonderful taste. Within a few more long sips, the brew was gone from her own cup too. She found herself looking down at the empty china; never had Frieren yearned so much for to a cup to refill itself.
“And you get to taste this every day, Heiter. A corrupt priest doesn’t deserve such good fortune.”
The warm chuckle she’d come to expect from him didn’t arrive. She looked up in confusion.
Heiter had gone silent. There was a look on his face… a look that even someone as dense as her could identify as sadness. His eyes were also focused on the empty china before him.
He looked as if the emptiness which she herself had rued were cutting far deeper.
“Is something wrong?”
“You know, ‘perfect’ can mean bad fortune as well as good.”
“It can?”
“Yes. The more perfect something is, the more you miss it.” But his sad words were there and then gone, erased with a returning smile. “I suppose that’s why it was so hard to quit drinking.”
You corrupt priest. Those were the words that convention demanded pass her lips, but they didn’t abide.
She tilted her head, not quite sure what Heiter had been alluding to.
“Forgive an old man his ramblings.”
“I don’t think you were rambling, Heiter. You sound like you have something on your mind.”
He guffawed, though it came out more like a rasp. “That’s true. It’s a happy coincidence you decided to visit me. I’d been planning to send a letter anyway.”
“Great minds think alike.”
“Do you really want your mind associated with mine?”
She thought about it. “… Probably not.”
“Hmm. If I had to guess, I would say you came because you wanted to pay your respects, before heaven calls my name.”
“Something like that.”
“Your instincts were spot on. Let’s not pretend: I only have so much time left.” The sad look was back. “Only so many more perfect cups of tea. Someday soon, Fern will make my last without knowing it.”
Frieren didn’t quite know what to say to that. She noticed he said it quietly. Quietly enough for Fern not to overhear.
“In which case, our interests happen to align.”
“How so?”
“You are forever in search of new spells, and Fern has a legendary one right here. She has real talent for magic, Frieren, and wants to pursue it after I’m gone. There’s no one I’d rather train her than you.” A clink of china. “Fern won’t teach you the spell unless you earn her trust, and perhaps more. You’ll have to take her on as your apprentice.”
“On second thoughts, I shouldn’t have come. You’re too corrupt to deserve my respects.” Convention got its way.
Another raspy chuckle.
“Of course you should have come. A perfect cup of tea will always be worth it.”
Heiter's cottage. Thirty one years after the death of Himmel the Hero.
They’d just returned from Heiter’s funeral. They poured liquor on his grave and were now sitting in his cottage with scarcely a word between them.
There had been one singular moment of silent communication, upon stepping back through the door. Their eyes joined and somehow, Frieren knew exactly what was being offered: tea. She nodded and Fern went away to make it, returning to the table with two cups a little later.
This table and these chairs had seen much use over the past year or so. Her original intention of paying her respects to Heiter, already long since fulfilled, didn’t result in her leaving. Heiter’s intention was for her to take Fern on as her apprentice- that much she knew for sure.
What was odd was that Fern had never expressed her opinion on the subject. Whenever Heiter brought it up, she kept quiet.
Now Heiter was gone and the only opinion that mattered was hers.
The elf was halfway through one of those perfect cups of tea. She was growing dangerously enamoured with them. Perhaps that was why she’d come back with Fern to the cottage, wordless all the while, when her first plan had been to leave on her own.
“Hold old are you again, now?”
Fern raised her eyebrow. “I was nineteen when you came. It’s been a year.”
“So you’re twenty? Sorry, I wasn’t sure if I’d lost track of time. You might have been older.”
“Are you saying I look old?”
Frieren had a feeling she’d committed a serious faux-pas. “Even if you were, I’d be older.”
Fern stared at her.
“And uglier…?”
Something unexpected happened.
For the first time, she made Fern chuckle. The elf recalled her laughing at things Heiter said, in his final days. She possessed a musical kind of laugh, much more animated than her voice’s usual tone, as if a glacier were melting.
“Maybe you’re not as dense as I thought.”
“Likelihood is, I’m as dense as you thought. But I have my moments.” She shifted in her seat. “I at least know that human women don’t like aspersions cast on their age. My master taught me that.”
Fern looked surprised but let the quiet retake control. They sipped their drinks.
“A part of me thought you would leave right after the funeral.”
“A part of me thought the same.”
“Why haven’t you?”
The elf pondered it. “Well, Heiter said I should take you on as my apprentice.”
“But you don’t want that. I heard you talking it over with him. You said nineteen was quite late for an apprentice mage to start, no matter my talent. You said I would hold you back.”
“I said both of those things,” she admitted. “One of them’s not really true, though.”
“Which?”
“I can’t deny your talent. You have the most magical aptitude I’ve seen from a human in a long, long time. With a little specialised training, you’d be able to handle yourself against mages far more experienced. Demons too. It would be a worthwhile investment. In that case, I have no particular objection to taking you on as my apprentice.” Frieren drank deep from her tea. “The question is whether you’re willing to be my apprentice, not whether I’m willing to be your master.”
Fern hand reached up to her chest, where a pendant that belonged to Heiter hung. “… You’re right. That’s the real question.”
“It’s not like you’re a girl. You can do whatever you want with your life. Whether you’d like to dedicate that life to magic is entirely your decision, and so is whether I should be the one to teach it.”
Another chuckle, even more unexpected the previous.
“I’m surprised you’re in such good spirits.”
“Why? Because Heiter died?”
“Of course.”
“You don’t seem in bad spirits either.”
“… I don’t think I’ve fully processed it yet.”
“It’s the same with me. In case you couldn’t tell, I am sad, but I don’t have any regrets. I got to live my whole childhood with Heiter.” A fond, bittersweet smile crept onto her lips. “He was the family I thought I’d lost. When we meet again, in heaven, he’ll be smiling too, and so will I. I may as well do the same now.”
“That’s very mature,” she said, impressed. Even a little jealous.
The last time someone she cared for had died, her regrets had been many in number.
Fern was twenty years old, but she’d probably learned more about Heiter in their time together than Frieren had managed in decades upon decades. The thought of looking back on Himmel without regrets was sweet and sad and beautiful. Perhaps she wouldn't need to go on this journey, this retracing of her steps, if she had such a mentality. If she could look back on relationships the way that Fern seemingly could. Was it the human way, to stop themselves living with regrets, or just hers?
“Now I want to know what I did to make you smile.”
Fern shook her head. “You’re just so transparent.”
“Hmm?”
“The real reason you’re willing to take me as your apprentice isn’t because of my talent. It’s because you still haven’t earned my trust. You still don’t know the spell to create a perfect cup of tea.”
The thousands year old age frowned childishly. “Of course I want to know the spell. But if Heiter and Himmel would have taken you in- did take you in- then so must I.”
Fern leaned forward, resting her arms on the table and her hand on her palms. She smiled at the elf. It was a smile that would have made the heart of someone less immune flutter.
“Does collecting obscure spells really matter that much to you?”
“It’s my whole life. You’d have to be ready for that.”
“… I don’t think I would mind too much.”
“Why?”
“Because I love magic,” Fern murmured. “At first, I picked it up because I needed something to be good at, and I was good at magic, but-“
“You chose it all the same,” Frieren finished.
“Yes. It’s true I don’t understand you at all, but I know we have a love of magic in common.” Hesitation. “To be honest, I’m not sure what I’d do if I didn’t become a mage, but there’s more to it than that. I don’t understand you, Frieren-sama, but… maybe I’d like to.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I grew up on fairytales of you and the Hero Party. Heiter told me so many stories. He said you made the journey to defeat the Demon King ridiculous at times, but always fun. I can tell he loved you very much. I think I’d like to learn why. There must be much worse to do with my life than learn magic and go on a fun adventure.”
“So you do want to be my apprentice?”
A slight flush appeared on her cheeks. “… Yes, if you’ll have me.”
Frieren smiled at her and leaned forward too. “Then make me perfect cups of tea every day. One day, I’ll earn your trust, and that spell too.”
Their eyes locked. Fern was smiling back, still a little shy, a little wary, but those feelings were different to a year ago. Plainer.
“Alright. Treat me well, Frieren-sama.”
She reached out her hand, and the elf took it, as she knew humans liked to do. Fern’s palm was warm, her skin smooth. Their eye contact was brief before breaking, like two people staring at themselves in the mirror, unaware someone else was the other side of the glass.
She felt nice. Nice enough that Frieren almost rued it upon letting go.