“How long?” he asked. He knew full well that a good day never last. But he was hoping that it had, you know, a more reasonable duration. More than a mere half morning. Sadly, and as pronounced by the piece of split log clattered on the opened doorsill in front of him, it simply wasn’t mean to be.

“Since the first bell, young master... ” the scullery maid answered —stuttered— lost for words. “I know little miss is strong, but this…” He sighed. She didn’t need to pause. Even without that one ebb, her downcast eye and her quavering voice already told him everything.

“I see…”

It was ironic really. The day was sun-basked, the humidity was on all-time low, and just few meters away behind both of them, Doris was scrutinizing the table in front of her with all the focus she could muster — sponging every word Mrs. Crombe uttered. Yet out of the door, the rapped thwacks kept repeating themselves Lifted. Chopped. Lifted. Chopped. Lifted. Chopped. Just like that without a single thud of failed splits.

“...this is because what happened yesterday right, young master?” her quaver took a downturn. He could hear her breath — choked. Choked and trembled. Rapid and ragged.

“Jeane…” he turned to her, unsurprised when he noticed that the wooden floor had taken a darker note, a shade deeper. Water — tears from the maid’s eye were dropping all over the boards.

So even as his heart, beating and in pain, he could only swallow his sigh. He couldn’t afford to expel it. Not now. Even though he wanted to do it so, so much. As much as he hated it —the social construct that his gender and his position had both bestowed and burdened upon him— It was a fact most terrible that as per this moment, he — he needed to be her anchor. Otherwise and after yesterday, well, everything would just fall apart.

Priorities. He heard his [Calm Emotion] self spoke — sourly this time. Dissecting the realities of emotional and financials and planning and other countless multitudes that would arise if this episode resulted in the maid quitting her job.

So with all his hate redirected to that rational bespoke, he did one correct thing he could. He screamed her name.

“Jeane!”

“Y—young master?” The maid turned to him. Her eyes glistened like a swimming pool in mid-summer. Shocked, surely. He never raised his voice, it was always ‘please’ and ‘could you, would you’ with him, but this time instead of 'hello' and 'what can I do for you', he needed to be firm. So he did just so. Stiffing his eyes like an American bald eagle painted in cubist and with lies he convinced himself to believe, he bored his eyes to her — assuring her that everything was just an... “...accident.”

“Y—young master?”

“Accident, Jeane,” he said it once more. “It’s an accident. No one could predict that yesterday could ever happen. No one.”

For a moment he considered pressing her shoulder, giving her a firm shake just enough to shake her. That was the way with depression he heard; the mind was trapped in a bad place — unmoving. Constantly playing loops of self-blame of what might have been. But knowing that ...stopped. His hand couldn't reach her. He couldn’t...

So, he crouched down instead. Meeting her downcast chestnut orb, smiling to her drenched cheeks. Whispered. “She might look like this right now, but,” he said, biting his lips, forcing a smile. “Both of us came out fine, didn’t we.”

“Worse things could have happened, Jeane.”

“Worse things…”

“W—what do you mean young master?” the maid managed to ask between her sob.

 

“I—” his tongue caught for a moment. “I saw it.”

It was a scene he wished he could forget. But like this morning, it wasn’t meant to be. The snapshots burned themselves on his mind’s eyes. Like ketchup on a good shirt, they had stained his mind forever — turning into an unwashed part of his memories. And no, he didn’t mean the storm, the monster, or the earthquake. Those were horrific, true, but in the end they just damage the buildings —things. Replaceable stuff. Things that could be rebuilt. What he meant was those that couldn’t. The ‘what happened to the people that didn’t manage to escape’.

The aftermath.

It was stratified — classed. Like nightmare versions of wrestling weight class, the perpetrators —or the sinners as Tobias put it— were differentiated into several categories.

The ones who just fought with each other got off lightly. Bruises, swollen ankles, swollen shoulders, inflamed fists —walking in a limp because their calves hurt— those kinds of things. Painful, but acceptably painful. Even that man — Jeff, the one who started all of this. He got off with a broken nose, a broken fist, and maybe, he wasn’t quite clear since it was after sundown, a broken bone in his lower arm. Likely a clean crack or two on his ulna. Nothing protruding, nothing infected — nothing major. It’d heal with a proper cast and a proper rest.

But those small mercies only afforded to those who harmed themselves and others. The former was too bad because no one cared while the latter was well, because Lord Thesiphe didn’t. The great spirit only cared about those who harmed the building.

And for those people, only one fate awaited them...

Burnt. They were burnt... Sometimes on their arms, sometimes on their face. But they were burnt all the same. The exposed red flesh; the flayed epidermis. He couldn't shake the image of their skins; white like a wrong oil paper; filled with blister of liquid and pus...

And that wasn't all, if their sin was too great, if they damaged the surrounding too much, if they incited his anger, his wrath then what descended upon them was not just those lesser extradermal damage. Beyond the fire-branded skins, the black and red would dance as one sickly, sickening pair. Crawling, slithering on their victim as hues of bloodied charcoals. A third-degree.

“Let me talk to her, okay,” he said closing the memory shut. The wails and howls of that night. The running — amok of countless first responders administering first aid. He remembered one particular guard, vomiting by the lake. He remembered the other guard, scraping down a hand from the rubble piles. True, he heard that no one was dead, but were those did were any better?

He was lucky.

“We were lucky…”

“...young master.” the maid trailed. She must hear what had happened too. The news traveled and it traveled past. Her makeshift tent when he and Clar found her waiting with Leo was just four bends away from the clearing.

“How about helping Doris?” he gave her another smile. A wan one this time. “She just started learning how to make the sourdough. We’d have a big dinner tonight. All of us. So for now just help in the kitchen.” he said. “I’ll handle this, okay?”

“...yes, young master.”

So with the finality of her footsteps; the soft dull taps echoing against the flooring, and a thank you, barely heard, he made his way outside; wincing as the sun, bright and streaming, greeted him.

“Clar!”

“Master!” the girl jumped, wiping sweats on her brows. She beamed as she circled the logs in front of her — the one that was the size of her torso. “Look!” she lifted her maul and almost comically chopped them down, lifting herself a half meter in the process.

“Oh!” he responded, smiling. She had cut the log like pizza. Except you didn’t go a half then a quarter then an eighth. Instead, you go one-eighth, then two-eighth, then three-eighth until the whole circle was cut along the grain. What unique though, was how she cut it. The log didn’t exactly split until the final eighth. It just stood there until the final cut when she’d slam the center of the log with the back of her maul, collapsing the whole wood into eight perfect slices.

“Rod taught you how to chop the woods?”

“Yes! Brother Rod’s awesome!”

“Y—young master...” the man greeted him. He didn’t see him at first, his tall stature obscured by the high firewood’s bundles. The man look abashed; sheen of sweat was pouring from his tanned skin. His knotted front, untied, opened to allow a wide berth of wind. His sleeves also, rolled up until the base of his forearm, but still a bit front of his elbow.

“That’s a lot of wood!” he tutted nonetheless, admiring the stacks that might as well be piles. Piles and piles and piles. As tall as his own coach driver’s height and as wide as the cistern and the well added together. Two of the stacks were taking at least a sixteenth of the backyard’s space.

“Mrs. Crombe doesn’t have to worry about filling the fireplace until next moon then?” he smiled.

“Y—yes.” the man said.

He waited for him to say more, you knew. Like good adults were. Heaping praise to the girl saying she was helpful and he’d glad if she would help him again, you knew the standard encouragement people said to a well-meaning child.

But instead, he was met with a man who continued to pick up the chopped woods and tying it to bundles. Repeatedly.

CHOP.

“Clar, chop the wood~”

CHOP.

“Clar, chop the wood!!”

He closed his eyes. It was shameful really, but he had ...this pride. Pride that in a moment of need, that even though he couldn’t pull that much praised temerity, charging to the beyond and end — which the society admired for its bedazzling blaze— he knew he could grasp the other point of the spectrum. Be stoic.

Be composed. Be strong. Unruffled. It was after all how he passed everything in this world; pretenses and lies. Masks of what he was not.

Thus it was the moment like this; when the feelings were torrents instead of streams, when his trained duchenne, crumbling, failing; when the smile became too much to bear that he ...ceded. Ceded that he didn’t know anything.

Rod. As the man tied the next scattered piles that was littering the floor, he — he glanced. Stared. To him. To Clar. To him. Again, repeatedly, and curved. His straight lips broke into frowns.

He… understood. The man was begging him. Begging at his soul. His eyes, like Jeane, were downcast. Yet unlike her, guilt-ridden, worry-stricken; his — his was one of steel and determination.

 

Like a friend, in a bar, after a funeral. A shoulder, offered, never once leaned on. Till she passed, till the end, till heart dried and withered. There he’d be, picking you…

“...from the down.”

CHOP.

“Brother Rod,” the sad sound said, looking at the friend.“Where’s the other firewood? Clar already chopped all.”

“Umm, it ran out little Clar...” said the friend, also sad, the observer observed, but trying it best.

“Ran out?”

“Yeah!” a smile, the friend flashed. The sound was currently a glass the friend knew, so with a careful hand, it pushed her gently. “Now how about helping me bringing up to the shed?” the friend said, trying to move the sound from its wrought. “We need to dry it for two weeks before it could be used.”

“Eh... B—but.” the sound hesitated, looking at its own hand, to its maul, and to the floor. The observer saw that the friend saw the sounds’ eyes. It trembled a bit from clarity, but the sadness was too strong. Too strong even for the sound. So, the friend pushed again. “Yes, little Clar?”

“But there are still lots of trees left!”

“There is one, there another one!” the sound said, pointing at the browns, at the lesser brown, at the dune-colored ones that meant for decoration. All were wiry and little and no more than a stick-thin, the observer observed. Cherry sized, the friend saw.

“Wait a bit brother Rod, Clar will—”

—chopped it down.

“Clar...” the observer pushed itself up — smiling at the friend. Saying that it got this. “A moment please.”

“Yes, master?” the sound replied. For she respected the used-to-be observer. “What is it? Clar needs to chop more firewood for Brother Rod.”

“Clar.” the used-to-be-observer said, staring at the sound’s eyes. “Brother Rod already has too much firewood.”

“B—but. There—there are still trees!”

“Clar...” it said again, crouching down to the sound eyes’ level “Are you okay?”

“W—what does master mean? Of course, Clar’s okay!” her eyes, those that looked little like marble balls with toothpaste swirls, stopped for a moment — bulged; her voice, usually pitched and peachy, now hoarse.

“Wait!” she said, turning his back to the used-to-be-observer, her master. “Is there enemy? Is that why master asks if Clar is okay?”

So the used-to-be observer closed his eyes, he pressed it so.

“Clar is okay, master!”

Force and everything, lids and wrinkle until it winced, until it shut, blunted by the pain.

“Where are the enemies? Clar will fight it!”

He lifted his arms. Lifted his arms in a distending, staggering, wide, open—

“Master?”

—hug.

“Clar, it’s fine. It’s fine.”

Reaching her. Her entirety.

“M—master?”

“It’s fine, Clar. It’s fine…” he pressed his arms even tighter, brushing against her heavy shoulder, her pain-pulled back. Hugging her — feeling the warmth of her body, her heaving breath, her thumping heart, the backyard, how it still with silence; the sun, basking both of them, ruffled by the wind.

“I—it’s not fair.” he heard her sob. “It’s not fair!!!”

“Clar can’t do anything!”

“Hey, hey, hey… Clar is amazing,” he said, leaning on her shoulder. It was warm and tense and drenched and it broke his heart. “Don’t Clar won the duel with Apie yesterday?”

“Apie went easy on Clar!”

“Clar—”

“And master gave Clar so much mana!”

“Clar I’m…”

“Clar’s useless, master. Leo should be the one who guards master, instead.”

“Clar!” he yelled at her, shaking at her, pressing her. “You’re not useless! You’re strong!” tears began to stream from his eyes. “Strong…”

“How many times do I need to say it until you believe it, little lady...”

“But Clar couldn’t od anything to that monster! Clar couldn’t help master when master got threatened!”

“Hey, hey, hey… It’s an accident. No one— “

“But Clar should be the one who master relied on when there is an accident!” —could predict it...

“Clar...” he should have known. It wasn’t just the expectations that heaped upon her. It was hers. Her mind. Her inner sense of responsibility. Her raison d’etre that she had made for herself. Or maybe, horribly and worse, what the summoning spell forced her to feel. What an awful, terrible burden.

Why, why he brought her here?

Focus, Euca, he forced himself to say. There was no time for self-pity. She was his responsibility. Do not say you wallowed yourself in the dredge when a little child, innocent and wrong-free dragged to this muck because of you. Use your brain.

Think! Think!

“Hey, Clar..” an idea suddenly popped up in his mind. His heart screamed against it, gainsaid it — condemned it. But it was the best he had. So he spoke. “How about this...?”

The girl looked at his face, her tears dried and her cheek red. Balm and salve. Glasses instead of Lasik. Symptom management instead of complete cure. He hated himself for it — hate, hate, hate. But he did it anyway, she needed it, and time waited for no one.

So with the most empathetic face he could muster, cursing at himself, he pushed a smile, pressing his hand against her shoulder. “Do you remember that tall big man in the adventurer’s guild? Sir Telin?”

“...who?” the little girl asked.

“The man that dueled with you, Clar. The one with that big wooden sword?”

“...yes, Clar remembers,” she said, turning his head down. “...Clar lost to him too.”

“Clar...” he looked at her, this time without the part of the brain which responsible for ‘revised truth’. Saying that she didn’t lose, well, she did lose. And although his heart aching, tearing, she didn’t need empathy right now, she needed a way. Light at the end of the tunnel. Road to get out. She needed to know how she could be better.

“..so, Clar lost to him?” he said. “That’s fine!”

“...master?”

“Look Clar, even though you lose to him, you’re still young! Look at me, do you remember how long I train until I could finally make that rainbow-colored staff?” He talked about his Aeon Staff, of course, the hours he spent on that thing...

“...long?”

“Very long.” he nodded. “How about that squeaky boots? That made lots of noise, remember how we got beaten again and again before we manage to take it from that stupid frog?”

“Yes.” she cracked a smile for a second. “Master hair got slimy.”

“My point is Clar.” Don’t mess it up. Don’t mess it up. “It’s normal for people to train to get better.”

“Really?” her eyes flickered. Good!

“Yes.”

“In fact,” he lowered his voice, whispering to her left ear. “Master lost his power too.”

“What?! What happ—”

“Shh!!” he put his index finger on her lips. “It’s a secret.”

“...sorry,” she whispered back. “What happened, master?”

“Clar remember the portal when Clar got here?”

“Yes? That master calling Clar right?”

“Well, master also got through the portal. But the portal took the master power away.”

“Ah! Bad portal! Clar will break that portal so master could get his power bac—”

“Shh, Clar!” he stopped her from running away. “Look, the portal — the portal is ...nice.” ugh.

“Eh?”

God, please forgave him for lying. “Master is running away from ...something bad. Very bad. The portal can save master, but, it came at a cost.”

“Look,” he flexed his skinny bicep. “No more strength.” No more avatar body.

“But it’s fine, Clar.” he pressed her shoulder again. “Master is training again. So I could be strong again.”

“...master.”

“Do Clar want to be strong too?”

“Yes!” she nodded, fervently. “Clar wants to be strong too!”

“Then Clar needs to train also!” he smiled, berating his rational self that dared to complain about his shop would have too much downtime since his only employee was only a part-timer now. “We’ll check with Miss Mira when Sir Tellin opened his Class and if he wants to give a one-on-one class to Clar.”

“Okay!”

“Now how about we have lunch then?” he smiled. “I heard everyone making lots of sandwiches again.”