Chapter 342: Young Or Old, Everyone Deserves Love
Lillian pulled back from the embrace, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.
"I-I’m sorry." She sniffled. "I’m making a spectacle of myself."
"Nonsense." Shia said firmly. "You’re allowed to feel joy, Lillian. We both are. We’ve earned that right."
Lillian nodded, still sniffling.
But then she noticed Shia studying her face with an expression of intense curiosity.
"What?" Lillian asked, suddenly self-conscious. "W-What’s wrong? Does my weathered face look even uglier than usual after all that crying?"
Shia shook her head slowly. "No, no. In fact, it’s the exact opposite."
Lillian blinked. "What do you mean?"
Shia’s eyes widened.
"Your face, Lillian. It looks...younger. There’s a vitality to you that wasn’t there before. A vibrancy, a glow. When did you start looking like this?"
Lillian’s hand flew to her cheek. "I don’t...I haven’t..."
"Your skin is smoother." Shia continued, genuinely fascinated now. "The wrinkles beneath your eyes are fainter. And there’s a luster to your hair that I haven’t seen since we were both young maidens attending our first harvest festival."
She reached out to touch Lillian’s face, her expression one of pure amazement.
"What happened to you? What did you do to yourself?"
Lillian began to blush, the color rising to her cheeks in a way that made her look even younger.
"It can’t be magic." Shia mused. "We all know there’s no mana left. And it can’t be some enchanted fruit—we’ve been eating the same things for the past month, and I certainly don’t look like this."
"So what is it? Did Luca bring you some special product from his world? Some cosmetic that we don’t know about?"
Lillian was now fidgeting uncomfortably, her ears turning a vivid shade of crimson.
"Tell me, Lillian." Shia insisted, her curiosity reaching a fever pitch. "We’ve been friends for over two centuries."
"There are no secrets between us. You know that."
Lillian took a deep, shuddering breath. Her gaze darted away from Shia’s, unable to meet her best friend’s eyes.
"It’s...Luca." She finally admitted, her voice barely above a whisper.
Shia’s confusion deepened. "Luca? What about him? Did he give you some kind of treatment? Some..."
"No." Lillian interrupted, her blush deepening to an almost comical shade. "It’s not...it’s nothing like that. It’s..."
"...intimacy!"
She finally blurted out.
"It’s the effect of...of being intimate with him!"
Shia’s brain seemed to freeze. She stared at her friend, her mouth slightly open, trying to process what she had just heard.
"Intimacy." She repeated slowly. "When you say intimacy, you mean...?"
"Yes." Lillian nodded frantically, her ears now so red they looked like they might catch fire. "That kind of intimacy. In bed. With Luca."
Shia felt like she had been struck by lightning.
She took a step back, then another, her mind racing.
She looked at Lillian, this pillar of the community, this strict and proper elder who had always insisted on the importance of discipline and she saw her as if for the first time.
"You and the Hero?" She finally managed. "You two have..."
"Yes." Lillian said again, her voice strained. "We have. Multiple times, actually."
Shia’s jaw dropped.
"But you’re an elder! We’re elders! We’re supposed to be above such...such...and you did it with him? With that young human?"
"With someone who could be our great-great-grandchild?"
Lillian’s face burned even hotter.
"I know how it sounds, Shia! I know! But you don’t understand what it’s like!"
"When you’re with him, you forget everything. Your age, your status, your responsibilities...all of it just melts away."
"He makes you feel young again. He makes you feel...wanted."
Shia was shaking her head, though she wasn’t entirely sure why.
"But you’re the one who always talks about maintaining dignity! You’re the one who lectures Ivy about her slovenly habits and insists that elders must behave with proper decorum!"
"I know." Lillian whispered miserably. "I know. But I couldn’t help myself. No one can help themselves around him, Shia. He’s..."
"...He’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before."
Shia’s mind was spinning.
"How?" She finally asked. "How did this even happen? How did you end up..."
Lillian took another deep breath, steadying herself.
"It happened near the lake." She began, her voice carrying a distant, dreamy quality. "I was washing some dishes, and Luca happened to be passing by."
"There was no one else around, and we started talking."
"Talking." Shia repeated skeptically.
"Just talking at first." Lillian insisted. "I had my elder demeanor, of course. I spoke to him as I would speak to any young person—with patience, with wisdom, with the proper distance."
"He was so much younger than me, after all. He was practically a child in my eyes."
She nodded, understanding. "I do the same with him. It’s hard to see him as anything other than a child, given his age."
"At first, yes. But then..." Lillian’s blush deepened. "Then he started making jokes. And teasing me. And looking at me in that way he does..."
"...that way that makes you feel like you’re the most fascinating person in the world."
"I-I tried to maintain my composure, but it was impossible. With the way he talked the way he made me feel...I couldn’t help but relax. I couldn’t help but feel young again."
Shia listened in growing fascination.
"And then." Lillian continued, her voice trembling slightly. "We started talking about elves and our customs and...and other things."
"And...I don’t know why, but something came over me. This question just popped into my head, and I asked it before I could stop myself."
"What question!?"
Lillian looked away, her ears burning.
"I asked him...I asked him if sucking my breasts the other day had been a bad experience for him."
"I told him that I knew he probably preferred younger, firmer, more...more upright breasts, and that what he did with me must have been—"
Shia’s mouth dropped open. "You asked him that?! You actually said that to him?!"
"I know!" Lillian wailed. "I don’t know what came over me! But it just came out, and I immediately regretted it."
"I was about to take it back, to apologize, to forget the whole thing ever happened."
"But..." Lilian’s expression shifted to something tender, awed. "Luca got serious. Not angry, but...intense. He said, ’That’s not true at all. I enjoyed every moment. Your breasts are perfect—soft and full and responsive. When I sucked your nipples, they hardened so beautifully. The taste of your skin...’"
She trailed off, shaking her head.
"He went into detail, Shia! Explicit, loving detail!"
"And the more he spoke, the hotter I felt. My body...it remembered what it was like to be desired. After two centuries...And then..."
She trailed off, her face burning with a mixture of shame and pleasure.
"And then." She finally continued. "He grabbed my hand and pulled me into a bush nearby. He said he wanted to prove to me just how much he loved my breasts—and the rest of my body as well."
"And I knew what was going to happen. I...I knew I should have refused."
"But you didn’t." Shia said again, a strange note in her voice.
"I couldn’t." Lillian admitted. "The things he said he wanted to do to me, Shia...I couldn’t resist. And so we went into the bush, and..."
She gave Shia a shy smile.
"And you can imagine what happened after that."
Shia was struck speechless.
Shia processed this, her mind reeling.
Her best friend, the strict disciplinarian who’d spanked Ivy just last week for laziness had engaged in passionate bush trysts with a man centuries her junior.
Then another realization struck.
"Wait." She said slowly. "The other elders...recently, they’ve all seemed...happier. Livelier. I thought it was just relief after the male elves were dealt with, but..."
Lilian nodded, a conspiratorial gleam in her eye.
"You’re one of the few who hasn’t, Shia. Everyone else...we all have our stories with Luca."
"Everyone?" Shia breathed. "Elder Ferris? Elder Kaelen? Even Elder Viona with her strict vows of—"
"Especially Viona." Lilian confirmed with a giggle that sounded utterly girlish. "She was the most hesitant. Now she smiles whenever Luca walks by."
"We all pretend nothing’s changed—maintain our dignified airs in public. But in private..."
She leaned closer. "We compare notes."
Shia covered her mouth, torn between shock and burgeoning curiosity.
"But...we’re old, Lilian. Our bodies have aged. How could he possibly—"
"Ah!" Lilian held up a finger. "That’s the magic of it. Luca doesn’t see age. He sees...essence. The woman we are beneath the years."
"And he has ways...his touch, his energy...it revitalizes us. Not to youth, but to...wholeness."
She took Shia’s hands, her expression earnest.
’"I’ve lived two centuries! I’ve known lovers! But never...never like this! He looks at you with such complete adoration that you forget every year you’ve lived. You feel cherished. Precious!"
A long silence stretched between them, filled only by distant laughter from the joyful side of the hill and the fading roar of the wood chipper from the other.
Finally, Shia whispered, "So if I wanted to...I could also..."
Lilian’s smile widened instantly like she was waiting for this question.
"Go to him. Be honest. He’ll know what to do. And Shia?" She squeezed her friend’s hands. "Don’t think of it as improper. Think of it as...reclaiming a part of yourself you thought lost forever."
The temptation was undeniable. Shia felt it, a stirring in her own body, long dormant.
A yearning not just for physical touch, but for the feeling of being seen as something other than "Elder Shia, grandmother of Selma, keeper of traditions."
Lilian, sensing her friend’s internal struggle, changed tactics.
"Come." She said, linking arms with Shia and leading her away from the hilltop. "I’ll tell you all about the things Luca did to me. It will help you prepare, to know what to expect."
"B-But is this appropriate?" Shia stammered.
"Of course it is!" Lillian waved her concerns away. "We’re just two old friends talking. There’s nothing wrong with that."
"First." Lillian began, her voice dropping to a whisper. "He kisses you all over. I mean everywhere. And the way he does it...it makes you feel like a little girl again, special and cherished and so very wanted."
Shia’s ears were burning. "I see."
"Then..." Lillian’s voice grew even softer. "There’s his...you know...His equipment. Down there."
Shia felt herself grow warm. "What about it?"
"I’ve lived for two centuries." Lillian declared. "And I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s not a physical thing that should be on a human’s body."
"It’s something else entirely—massive and absolutely magnificent. When you see it, you’ll understand exactly what I mean."
The two of them continued walking, their conversation filled with hushed confessions and shared giggles.
Anyone who saw them would have been shocked—two esteemed elders, acting like young maidens in the first flush of romance.
But perhaps that was the point.
Because in the end, Elna’s dream had been just for the young.
She had dreamed of her daughters and granddaughters living lives unburdened by oppression, full of joy and love.
But Luca had created something more.
He had created a future where everyone could enjoy themselves—not just the young, but the old too.
Those who had already lost the prime of their lives, who had resigned themselves to fading into obscurity, were being given a second chance.
They were being shown that age was no barrier to love, to passion, to feeling alive.
And that, perhaps, was the greatest miracle of all.
—
And so ends the tale of the elves.
A story of oppression and freedom, of death and rebirth, of darkness and light.
A story that proves that even in the darkest times, hope can flourish.
And somewhere, in the space between the leaves and the stars, the spirit of Elna smiled down upon them all.
For this was the world she had always dreamed of.
