Chapter 240: Fulfilling The Obligations, Part
It was going so well. I was asking the questions, Irene was giving the answers. In a manner of a few words exchanged, things so quickly spiraled out of control.
Suddenly, we both had questions lining the tip of our tongue, and none of us carried the right answers to topple them back down. How the hell did...? I don’t even know anymore.
Torem? A demon lord? Not from what I’ve seen, not from what I’ve heard. Last night, I saw an old man and his awfully peculiar little girl. I saw happiness, I saw kindness.
I saw Ignis.
Whoever the hell this Morti was, that’s clearly wasn’t who I saw. Maybe we were talking about two completely different individuals, after all. If that’s the case, then that begs the ultimate question...
“Who the hell was Ria’s real father, then?” I asked out loud, one more mind-boggling headache away from bashing my face against the table.
Irene slowly, dubiously spoke, offering up a vastly different tale from the one I lived and knew, “Ria never had a parent, she’s similar to me in a way – she was adopted young... an apprentice sorcerer by the name of Silas found her and took her in. That’s – that’s what she told me.”
.....
“Found her?” I raised my gaze, mirroring the disconcertment in hers. “Found her where? Took her in after what?”
“Wandering in a place- argh, somewhere! I’m not entirely sure. Ria never went into detail. Look, you’re talking about things dating back to the early days of Kronocia. I know just as much as you do of that point in time, trust me.”
Blanks left unfilled, back again wandering blindly around speculations. This was honestly getting a wince bit tiresome, honestly.
“Well, Ria can lie whenever she likes, but her memories can’t,” I said, grasping what little sense I could make of the situation. “She can’t have two completely different backstories... one of them has got to be a lie.”
“Or maybe they’re both true,” Irene muttered, once again deep in thought. “Why lie? She had no reason. More reasonable to assume that they both happened... perhaps one before the other.”
“So, what – it was Torem first, then she was adopted by this Silas guy?”
“Reasonable enough assumption.”
“Oh my God – this woman’s a headache!” I exclaimed, falling limp into my seat.
Irene had sympathy glimmering in her eyes. “Welcome to my world.”
“Alright, just tell me... tell me just what it is that make’s this girl tick,” said I, on the verge of pushing in a dent in my skull by how hard I was stroking it. “What made her become the person she is today?”
“My time with her is a tiny minuscule moment compared to how she’s lived,” Irene bluntly said. “I’m really not sure if I’m the right person to be telling you this.”
“Well, tell me something at least,” A thought popped into my head. “Humans? I saw human bones in the dream – scorch marks. Ria... she doesn’t like humans? She kills them?”
“Yes, of course, she does,” She sounded so casual saying it, like it wasn’t a big deal. “She’s a phoenix.”
Probably wasn’t too.
“So what?”
“There is no such thing as a phoenix in our world,” There it was, the kicker. “Not a natural one, at least. It’s not a race like the Elves, the Feys, or Humans... they’re not natural. They’re not a species we have. By all means, Ria isn’t even supposed to exist in the first place.”
Isn’t supposed to...?
So what was that I saw? The cave, the home... the burning, the swirling, her first moments into the world. For someone so non-existent, she sure does have a lot of presence, doesn’t she?
“I asked my Father once what she was, I was curious. He just told me she wasn’t a natural being, an existence excluded by the grace of the Divines... she’s man-made, a human creation. A by-product of magic unknown.”
I looked back up at her. “Torem?”
“Let me finish,” She shot up an impatient finger. “Supposedly, Ria’s an experiment of sorts. Experiment of what, I don’t know. But her creation, her birth, whoever it was that made her – it goes against the first and most important cardinal rule of the Seven Churches. They have this stupid decree in place that ensured nobody is allowed to meddle with the fundamentals of life itself.”
Seven Churches of the Divines. That name there keeps getting tossed around lately. From what I’ve learned of them so far – deploying Elf-hunting sorcerers, committing mass genocide against the seemingly innocent demon race – they sounded like absolutely delightful people.
I took a gander at guessing these fundamentals. “No creating a completely new being from out of nothing?”
“That’s one, yes,” Irene affirmed with a nod. “Get caught breaking any, you’re executed. No being under the skies is permitted to ever dabble in the mystical arts of the Divines.”
“Why’s that?”
“Firstly, because frankly, it’s completely impossible. Secondly, if anybody ever has access to the knowledge to do as the Divines did, said person would essentially be unstoppable, all-powerful ... and say if everybody has that know-how?”
Okay. That is indeed a frightening hypothetical, alright.
“The Seven Churches are complete imbeciles, but even they know that self-annihilation is just one magical breakthrough away. Taking away the chance to even try is the smartest thing they’ve ever done. Your parents are the only ones that ever came close – and just look how that turned out, hm?”
“Hey, blame the sinner, not the sinner’s kid,” I spoke up to the unjustified scrutiny in her eyes. “I had nothing to do with that.”
Irene shook her head, took a last sip, “In Ria’s case... she’s an anomaly to the world – both yours and mine – existing outside the influence of life and death, she’s an affront to the Divines’ will. She can’t show herself to people, they don’t know what she is and when some eventually do, then she’ll be hunted – and make no mistake she has been hunted... a long life like hers leaves plenty of room for mistakes... and as you know, she isn’t exactly the most cautious of people.”
I sat there, continuing to just listen, continuing to just learn.
“So, yes... she’s killed. There has to be a reason she was alone when I met her, why I didn’t see any of her children with her. One phoenix is already hard enough to hide from the world... and then you make it two, three? It was only a matter of when, there was never an if. Living that way, how can you possibly not have any hate?”
“She doesn’t hate me,” I said. Don’t even know why I said it, probably wanted to assure myself or something.
Irene gave a look, even she could hear how gratuitous I sounded. “Of course she doesn’t. She’s had decades, centuries, that scar had time to heal... that hate’s bound to dwindle eventually.”
Heal, huh? If she’s healed, then what the hell is happening now? Why am I caught up tangled in her web of memories? Healed, maybe... but it seems that scar’s not gone completely.
She had so many, lost so many... her children. Wait... her children. Children?
“Hold on, if she’s manmade, what does that make her children?” I shifted myself up, placing both hands on the table “If she was created artificially, and if she was the only one... where did her children come from? How does she breed?”
“That’s...” Irene blinked, twice, thrice... a hand cupping her chin. “Huh...”
We both stared at each other, the question now wreaking havoc in both our minds.
“Crossbreed?” I suggested.
“Not possible,” Irene shot me down. “She’s... let’s just say she’s incompatible with the other races.”
“How would you know?”
“She told me.”
“And how does she know?”
“Take a guess.”
Know what? How about I just pretend I never asked in the first place and leave it as that. Cause that’s a whole ‘nother realm of questions that shouldn’t be discussed somewhere so... public.
“Alright, so where did they come from?” I asked once again.
“I don’t know, I’ve... I’ve never really thought about it before,” She responded, sounding just as clueless. “My best guess, maybe... maybe they were created artificially too.”
That name popped into my head again. “Torem?”
Irene groaned, her eyes staring slightly miffed. “Seriously, why are you so hung up on this – ”
Something interrupted her midway – a vibrating table, a ringing phone up against the wall. The privy detective she was, Irene already swiped it into her hands before I could even take the slightest glance.
“Shit,” She said, a frown on her face, lowering her phone to her lap. “They need me at the station. I gotta go.”
Not another word, another look, she called for the bill, paid the check, a hefty tip to the side, and scooted off of her seat, walking away in haste.
“Hold on,” I called out after her, reaching for her hand before abruptly realizing that really wasn’t wise, so I called out even louder. “Weird spot to end it, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” She replied, not even glancing back. “But we’re still going to end it here. Unlike you, I have a job to go to.”
Okay, suddenly, my balls are getting kicked. Why?
“But Ria – ”
“Look, I’ll tell you this,” Irene turned her head slightly. “If she is Torem’s daughter. If we are talking about the same Torem. Then we are talking about a man who has killed millions of his kind, a man who has stripped away his own humanity, a man who went on to become the first-ever recorded demon of Kronocia. I ask you... does that sound like the same kind, gentle man that nourished a baby Ria?”
I thought about it for a moment, then I thought about it some more. “Well, when you put it that way...”
“You’re meeting her tonight again anyway. It’s better you ask her yourself,” She began to walk again. “And tell her ‘hi’ for me, it feels a bit lonely not having her hang around my neck nowadays.”
“Will do,” I muttered faintly, turning back to my half-eaten waffle.
There’s some food for thought too that needed digesting. I’m probably going to be here for a while, moping for a while. So much to think about, I’m not even sure where to begin.
The more I know about her, the less I know. It’s like high school maths all over again... butunlike high school, I can’t cheat my way to an A+ here, nope. Gotta work for it this time.
“One more thing.”
I looked up from my plate to find Irene closer than before, standing mere inches from the table. In her hand, she was squeezing her phone tightly. On the other hand... her fingers were digging into her palm.
“I forgot to ask,” She said, her eyes, though aloof, were drifting, staring elsewhere. “What’s your favourite color?”
That came so out of left field I don’t think we’re even in the same field anymore. Seriously, a short game of twenty questions was a bizarre way to end things off.
Nevertheless, I played along.
“White.”
“And?”
What, I need a second color now?
“Green,” I quickly said.
.....
She nodded, “Don’t forget,” Her eyes met mine for a fleeting second. “Tomorrow evening, you better be there.”
And with that said, the tracksuit-wearing detective finally made her departure from the waffle house, leaving me to ask, arguably, the most puzzling question of all.
The hell was that about?
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l