Nearly an hour later, and Galen sat against the rocky wall of the cavern. As the effects of the Ether Intolerance medication wore off, he was trying not to feel too annoyed by the results of his sparring matches against Tufani.

  Though they’d tied in their first sparring match, since then, he’d been on the losing end more often than not. He found they were surprisingly even if Arts weren’t involved. With Redian, he had an insurmountable advantage with the heightened instincts and muscle memory it provided. He tried not to use the Sentient Weapon too much, however. He wanted to improve his own base skills too.

  In their spars, if he won one too many times for Tufani’s liking, she’d start to use Arts out of competitive frustration. And since they were using practice swords, he couldn’t use Redian to even the odds.

  Given he himself was rather competitive, the results left him with a bitter taste in his mouth.

  They were even without Arts or Redian’s involvement, but with Arts, Tufani won eight times out of ten.

  He scowled at the elf girl as she sat next to him, looking far too pleased for his liking, “Just wait until I learn how to use Arts on my own.”

  She smiled at him, having been put in a good mood from her recent win, “I don’t think I have much to worry about on that front. Unless you learned how to do Concurrent Casting, I’m confident I’d have enough time to counter your Arts. If not prevent you from using them altogether.”

  He wanted to argue, but he couldn’t what with her being right and all.

  They both rested, neither saying anything further for the moment. He closed his eyes and smiled. Something about being next to her put him at ease, in spite of him being bitter about losing their most recent match.

  After a minute or two, he opened his eyes and glanced to Tufani. She had an arm on one knee and had her eyes closed. She appeared to be meditating or doing something similar.

  Heck, maybe she’s just taking a nap, he thought.

  The idea started to appeal to him, and he closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall, I guess it can’t hurt… to take a quick… nap…

  He drifted off.

  It lasted for what felt like a mere moment before he was nudged awake.

  “Ngah!” he jolted, wiping the drool from his mouth.

  He quickly turned to see Tufani, who was giving him a flat look.

  “…how long was I asleep for?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

  “Twenty to thirty minutes.”

  “Ah, so I got a proper power nap in. Got it!”

  She frowned, “Power nap?”

  “Yeah! You’ve never heard of it?”

  She shook her head.

  “Ah well,” he cleared his throat as he explained, “maybe it’s not a thing known in Avani. In my world, it’s what we call a short nap one takes during the day to restore mental alertness. The nap itself is anywhere between ten to thirty minutes.”

  Tufani raised a brow, “Does that actually work?”

  She sounded rather curious.

  “You want to try it?” he asked.

  Her lips drew to a thin line as suspicion crept into her eyes.

  He gave her a flat look, “If I was going to do something to you, I’d have done it way before now.”

  Her look of suspicion remained.

  He met her wary gaze with a questioning one of his own as he pointed out, “You know, I trusted you enough to be able to fall asleep.”

  Which was true, he found. He did trust her. Surprisingly so.

  With that, she seemed to cave, “Fine. If you do anything to me-”

  “I won’t!” he groaned with exasperation, “and besides, even if I tried, we both know you’d wake up before I could. If you won’t trust me, then trust your freakishly keen senses.”

  That seemed to finally assure her as she closed her eyes.

  Galen tried to stay as quiet as possible for her sake as he kept track of time.

  Just as he’d started counting, Redian spoke in his mind, “Well, now-”

  He cut off the sword, If you’re going to start chatting now, then help me keep track of the time so that she doesn’t oversleep.

  “Overprotective much?” the Sentient Weapon snickered, “but you got it, boss!”

  Then, in an overly robotic voice, Galen heard, “Timer set for twenty minutes.”

  He raised a brow, You can set timers?

  “I’m a sword given sentience via an artificially created mind that can do lots of cool and neat stuff,” Redian reminded him, “stuff that’s significantly more complicated than setting timers by several orders of magnitudes. So, to answer your question… DUH!”

  Oh shut it, Galen responded, though he had a smile on his face, anyway, I guess I’m glad to have you here now. I’ve been meaning to ask-

  “About why I’ve been aloof giving you advice on how to better use Ether?”

  Yep, exactly, Galen confirmed.

  “The answer to that question is very simple, boss,” Redian seemed far too smug and teasing for his liking as he continued, “if I had interfered too much, then you and that elf girl wouldn’t have had as much time to interact and grow closer to one another.”

  HAH!? Galen questioned, his face growing red.

  “Face it, boss! You’ve enjoyed-”

  It’s not like that! he interrupted.

  “Yeesh, boss! You sound like a tsundere,” Redian snickered.

  Where the hell did you hear that term fro- Galen froze, his face growing pale, No…

  “YES!!!” the Sentient Weapon confirmed his fears, “I have discovered the forbidden knowledge! The section of your memories regarding ANIM-”

  Galen cut off the mental connection.

  It took mere seconds for the sword to start knocking, and rather politely, at the mental door separating them.

  He waited a solid minute before reopening the connection, making sure to warn the sword immediately, Choose your next words carefully, Redian. Choose wrong, and I might stop polishing your blade!

  The sword was quiet for several moments. When it finally spoke, it said in a serious and slightly deeper tone compared to its usual voice, “I was imprudent… perhaps I did go a tad too far.”

  A tad? Galen asked.

  “I beg for your forgiveness, master!” Redian pleaded.

  He got the distinct and bizarre impression Redian was performing a dogeza in his mind. How a sword would even do that was beyond him.

  Don’t call me master, please, he sighed, and fine, I forgive you-

  “Yay!” Redian cheered in an obnoxiously high pitched and overly cutesy tone, “thank you, Galen-sama-”

  Galen slammed the mental connection shut.

  Greeeeaat! he thought with a feeling of sudden mental exhaustion, the last thing I needed was Redian learning about that. Not because it and of itself is innately bad, but because of the horror Redian and the knowledge of anime and manga combined could bring…

  He was not looking forward to the next time he was going to be talking with his Sentient Weapon. He just hoped the sword didn’t suddenly become an otaku.

  He frowned, realizing that he’d lost track of the time given the horrendous revelation earlier. He sighed, and simply began to count the time starting over, figuring he’d just wake Tufani up in about ten minutes.

  It turned out, however, that he didn’t need to. A few minutes later, a sharp “Ding!” was heard in his mind, and it could be nothing else but the timer Redian had set going off.

  It was a strange feeling, hearing that sound in his head.

  Nonetheless, it was time to wake her up. He moved to shake her awake, but the instant his hand touched her shoulder, she immediately opened her eyes and came alert. He immediately withdrew his hand, and she looked at the shoulder he’d touched.

  She then looked to his hand and frowned.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Surprisingly, she flushed and brought her legs up to hug her knees, “Nothing…”

  Okay, that was unexpected, he thought.

  He cleared his throat, “So, how was it?”

  Tufani took a moment to assess how she felt, “I feel… surprisingly alert.”

  He smiled, “Yeah, it’s shocking how effective it can be. It doesn’t always work, at least, not for me. But the times it does, it’s awesome.”

  She nodded her agreement.

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  They sat in comfortable silence for a while, neither saying a word.

  Eventually, it was Tufani who broke the silence, “You… you asked about my mother…”

  Galen eyed her, nodding. He noted a sudden bout of melancholy coming from the elf girl as she stared ahead blankly. He recalled Tufani explaining her story to Aleksi and the other Rebellion leaders, particularly about the parts regarding her mother…

  “We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want-”

  “It’s fine!” she cut him off quickly, “your ignorance on this topic is rather annoying given the role you were summoned to play. I won’t suffer it any longer.”

  Galen didn’t respond, choosing instead to listen.

  Tufani took a deep breath, “My mother… she was, as you guessed, someone very important to the elves. However, I should clarify that she was one of the most important, powerful, and influential figures among our people. She fought in the Human-Elf war all those centuries ago.”

  He made a choking sound, causing her to give him a raised brow.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Uh…” he swallowed, “didn’t the Human-Elf war predate the Great Fragmentation?”

  “Yes.”

  “And wasn’t the Great Fragmentation over half a millennium ago?”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Well, doesn’t that make your mom over five hundred years old?”

  “She was over six hundred, actually.”

  He made another choking sound, which made Tufani frown, “Why do you keep making that sound?”

  “Well, I’m shocked!” he rubbed his face with his hand, “damn uh… now I’m questioning…”

  He gave her a concerned look, “Um… how old are-”

  “I’m fourteen,” Tufani cut him off, giving him a flat look.

  He let out a sigh of relief, “Okay… okay good!”

  She gave him a questioning look, but he didn’t elaborate. Instead, he asked, “So… your mom. If you’re fourteen, then that means your mom was six hundred when she had you…”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Isn’t… isn’t that a bit old to be having kids?”

  Tufani narrowed her eyes at him dangerously.

  “…please don’t smash my face in,” he pleaded.

  She huffed, “Only because you said please.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend!” he clarified, “I… hell, I don’t know the first thing about your people. I’d… I’d appreciate it if you could enlighten me. I don’t like being ignorant about these sorts of things.”

  She met his eyes, and he hoped she could see the sincerity behind them. He must have passed muster, because she sighed and began to explain, “Very well. To answer your earlier question, no, six hundred years old is not beyond the normal child bearing age. Elves can have children up until around the middle of their seventh century of life. Winds, my people don’t even start to show signs of aging until that seven hundred year mark.”

  “Whoa…” Galen gasped, his mind struggling to wrap his mind around such a massive lifespan, “if… if I remember right… your people can live to one thousand years, right?”

  “Almost,” she clarified, “we can live close to a millennium. My mother told me no elf has ever managed to reach one thousand years before passing. Some pass away in the middle of their ninth century if they live that long. Though, those are noteworthy. Most enter the grave in their early nine hundreds. Some, however, also pass in their eighth century.”

  Huh… in that case, the elves of this world have a lifespan around as long as the first few generations of humans in the Book of Genesis, he noted.

  “Going back to what I was saying earlier,” Tufani continued, “my mother fought in the Human-Elf War. Over the course of that war, she became one of Vindanna’s most powerful warriors. And she, unfortunately, was present in the final battle in Axis Mundi when the Great Fragmentation occurred and separated the Realms. That left Anila, a large number of our people, and our allies stranded here, surrounded by the humes’ forces. Inevitably they lost, in spite of my mother’s best efforts. Those who were not killed were captured and became the First Generation of slaves for the Dominion.”

  “I see…” Galen contemplated what he was told, “but… why does it surprise you that I was never taught about her?”

  “The reason is very simple,” she looked him in the eye, “my mother, Anila Tufani, was the arch-rival and direct nemesis of your predecessor, the First Champion, during the Human-Elf War.”

  “Really?!”

  She nodded, “Yes. She told me stories of the First Champion. They did battle many times against one another, and were bitter enemies. Your predecessor was quite brutal, ruthless, and bloodthirsty from what I was told.”

  “I… I wouldn’t know,” Galen admitted, “all I know of him was from historical records and documents that the Dominion let me study. And their accounts were horrendously biased. It was basically propaganda.”

  She sniffed, “Why am I not surprised? Though, it confuses me that they didn’t make any mention of my mother in their records.”

  “I think it makes sense that they didn’t.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, considering how propagandized Athanasius and the Dominion made their history, they probably excluded your mother, the First Champion’s rival, to make him seem all the greater in the eyes of the people. The histories I read paint him as someone unrivaled, someone so great that he single-handedly turned the tide of the war in favor of humanity.”

  “Void, I want to argue that point. But there’s some truth in that claim. Even my mother told me that his summoning was the start of a massive turning point in the conflict.”

  Galen gave her a smile, which made her raise a brow at him.

  “What?” she asked.

  “From what you’ve told me,” he answered, “your mother sounds amazing.”

  “Yes, she is… She… she was…” Tufani’s voice cracked towards the end, her stoic expression quickly becoming mournful.

  She suddenly sniffled, and blinked her eyes rapidly as they became watery before she shut them tight. She turned away from him and wiped at her eyes. “I’m fine,” she tried to assert, even as her shoulders began to visibly shake, “I…”

  Her words were cut off by a sob that wretched Galen’s heart.

  Tufani had been so intense and stoic the entire, short time he’d known her. She’d begun to seem unflappable to him.

  Yet now that same girl was bursting into tears before his eyes.

  “Tufani…” Galen licked his dry lips nervously, “have… have you given yourself time to grieve for her?”

  She shook her head, and tried in vain to collect herself as she answered in between sobs, “There… there hasn’t been time. Void! There ISN’T time for this!”

  She tried to stand on shaky feet, but it was as though all her energy had left her, and she stumbled back down. She slowly wrapped her arms around her knees and simply cried.

  Galen felt as though someone were stabbing his chest with a knife. He reached out a hand to try and comfort her, but hesitated. He felt a knock on his mental door, and he opened it.

  Redian, what-

  “Hug her you idiot!” Redian snapped at him.

  Galen was taken aback at first, but then resolved himself. He scooted closer to Tufani, and she raised her head upon sensing his motion. Before she could do anything else, however, he pulled her into a tight embrace.

  She stiffened in his arms, even as he began to rub at her back soothingly.

  “It’s okay to grieve, you know?” he whispered to her, “it’s part of the healing process. You won’t ever be able to move on if you don’t let out those feelings. If you don’t vent them. Hell, repress them long enough, and you’ll explode.”

  She hissed under her shaky breath, “What do you know?! What do you know of loss?!”

  “Right before I was summoned to this world,” he answered patiently, “I saw my younger sister die before my eyes…”

  She stiffened again at those words, not responding.

  “A natural disaster struck my home the very day I was summoned,” he continued, “an earthquake. My parents were out of the area, thankfully, having gone to visit my grandparents. I was left with my younger sister, Serenity. She was with a friend when the earthquake struck. I managed to find her, but our home had been destroyed amidst the disaster. Then, the ground splintered between us, and we were separated. Just then, the sky… it… it began cracking, as though it were fracturing glass. Then, over my head, it just broke, revealing a void that began to suck me in. As I was pulled in, the last thing I saw of my world was the ground breaking apart at Serenity’s feet. And the last I saw of her, she fell into a chasm, swallowed by the darkness as she fell to her death.”

  He paused, taking a shaky breath, his embrace of Tufani unconsciously tightening from the emotion of recalling that day, “I… I lost my younger sister the very day I was taken from my world against my will. I lost her that day… and hell, I suppose I haven’t allowed myself to fully grieve her either. I… I kept trying to distract myself so that I wouldn’t have to face the fact that I… I failed her that day. I should’ve been able to do better. To protect her. But I failed… I failed. Now, all I can do is find a way to return to my world, so that my parents won’t have lost me too. And… and so that I won’t have lost everything I’ve ever known and loved. So I know, Aria. I admit that my life has been nowhere near as difficult as yours. But I know about loss. I know…”

  He felt her move in his arms. She raised herself up so that they were at a more even level before she returned his embrace. She then began to cry in earnest into his shoulder. His own chest felt tight, and when he felt her rubbing at his back as well, he felt like a dam burst within him as he finally let himself grieve.

  They sat there, both crying their eyes out, each venting the pain of having lost loved ones, and comforting each other through it.

  ***

  Aria didn’t know how long she and Daxton spent in each other’s arms crying. But she knew that he’d been right. She’d needed to release the grief. To finally vent the feelings she’d been bottling up.

  She hadn’t realized, however, that Daxton had needed to as well.

  She was surprised at how comforting his presence was, and at how she’d wanted to comfort him in return.

  When they both finally began to calm down, she’d pulled away first. Her cheeks were flushed, but it wasn’t only from her sobbing. She had to admit she did feel a bit better. The pain was still there, of course. She doubted it would ever fully fade, that she’d ever be able to move on from her mother’s death. But for now, the burden did feel lighter.

  “Feeling better?” Daxton asked her, his own eyes bloodshot from crying.

  She nodded, before quickly turning to avoid meeting his eyes, her ears turning red.

  “You don’t have to feel embarrassed, you know?” he chuckled, scratching his cheek bashfully, “if anything, I should be the one who’s embarrassed. I’d meant to try to comfort you, but instead, you wound up doing so for me.”

  “We comforted each other,” she corrected, her blush deepening.

  He nodded, though he seemed confused by her reaction.

  Void… didn’t he understand?! He’d held her in his arms for winds’ sake! Again! And she’d returned the embrace!

  Not only that, but he’d also called me by my given name… she remembered.

  “Did I… did I do something wrong?” he asked, looking worried.

  Void! Winds and Void! How can I be annoyed if you look so genuinely concerned?! she thought with aggravation.

  She sighed, and fanned her face with her hand, “In a sense… yes. But, I admit you did so without knowing.”

  His look of concern only deepened.

  She sighed again, and mustered the nerve to meet his eyes, despite the embarrassment she still felt, “Listen… elves normally don’t like being touched. In our culture, physical contact is considered a sacred thing. We rarely exchange physical touch even with each other. Such a thing in our culture is reserved for only family, very close friends, or… or romantic partners.”

  She saw him blush deeply as his mouth hung open. Somehow seeing his embarrassment helped her to calm down as she continued, “When it comes to the people of other races, we elves are even more averse to physical contact. To the point that avoiding touch becomes an instinctive move. If one from another race tried to even shake hands with us, we would slap the hand away. Most of the time it isn’t even anything personal or malicious. It’s merely done out of instinct.”

  She saw him frown as he pointed out, “But… you haven’t acted that way towards me.”

  Her embarrassment returned, the blush returning to her cheeks and ears as she once more failed to keep eye contact. She put her hands in her hair, as though trying to cover her face with her locks, as she explained, “Yes… well… my mother… she explained to me that there are… exceptions. Cases where an elf, upon meeting another elf or even someone of another race, would not instinctively shy away from physical contact. This is culturally seen as a good omen by my people, as such scenarios have almost always led to lifelong friendships or… or even…”

  She couldn’t bring herself to finish that such a situation can also lead to a romantic relationship. However, judging from how Daxton’s entire face turned beet red, he’d caught on to what she’d left unsaid.

  “…Oh…” was all that left his lips as he too became unable to look at her.

  The silence became awkward. Incredibly so. It became even more the case as moments passed with them unable to look at the other.

  Eventually, he broke the silence by awkwardly clearing his throat, “Uh… that aside… um… I want to thank you.”

  She frowned, “What for?”

  “For allowing me to grieve as well. For returning the favor when I… when I comforted you earlier, I mean. I… I did comfort you, right? Or did I fail at that too?”

  She looked away from him, “You did… bring me comfort, I mean…”

  The atmosphere turned awkward again, and Aria just couldn’t take it anymore. “Argh!” she angrily rubbed at her hair as she shot to her feet, “we’ve rested enough, don’t you think? We should get some more training in. Just because you can’t use Ether anymore for today doesn’t mean we can get other practice done!”

  “R-right!” he stammered as he shot to his feet.

  They both went to the middle of the cavernous chamber before starting what had to be the single most awkward spar Aria had ever had in her entire life.

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