After he brought me down to the room, he sat me in a corner.
Pulled the drape from the window and then made my bed.
He took his time, placing back the pillows I had thrown away, dusting them with care and making sure they would be as fluffy as possible before arranging them on the bed.
Once done, he lifted me up from my repose and sat me on the bed.
His expression complex, he put his hands on my shoulders — cornering me.
“Jeremy.” He said, “Where did you go?”
I didn’t answer.
First, I didn’t owe him an answer, but more than that, I was hungry and wasn’t too inclined to justify myself to him.
I looked at him with defiance.
‘Who do you think you are?’
“I won’t bring you to the library.”
“H-h-hey! Wait!”
‘That changed everything...’
‘Sneaky bastard...’
‘What do I do...’
“Tch- if I tell you, will you bring me to the library?”
“Answer me first,” Gregoire said, unimpressed.
“...”
I couldn’t quite order him like I usually did. After all, despite him being my servant, it wasn’t like I had any actual power over him.
I sighed.
The hallow had flown out of the cage, so I might as well take the opportunity and ask him about that “Crows” thing.
So I explained.
His face contorted, he shrieked, he pulled his hair.
These expressions weirdly made him like-able. He was like an open book. Inside the mask, I laughed.
It didn’t mean I liked him, but he was human, at the very least.
At the end of the story, he stood up and looked through the window to the outside and then fell on his bed, his feet unsteady.
“I will put a lock on these windows.”
‘Uh, I suppose this makes sense.’
I looked at him in silence, waiting for him to wake up from his daze and tell me what I wanted to know.
He stayed shocked for quite longer than I would have expected.
‘Hello?’
“I will put a lock on these windows.”
[…]
After watching him repeat these words like a prayer and tired of waiting, I finally said.
“Sooo, about the library..?”
I asked, hoping telling the truth had been worth it.
“Oh, the library… yes, you wouldn’t arrive there even if you had walked the whole day.”
“I had figured that much; I had no idea where I was going after all.”
“Yes. But no… I mean, even by carriage it’d have taken over an hour.”
“Oh — well... why did I tell you all that for then?”
“Jeremy, with all due respects, hadn’t I asked you to stay here..?”
“...”
“You need to take better care of yourself. No matter your current standing, you’re still a son of the Balmung”
At these words, I chuckled.
There was no way even he actually believed that, and even if it was true, I wasn’t sure that I wanted any part in it.
“Am I really?”
As if this was a genuine question, he answered, “Yes despite, what your presence here might make you believe, you have been sent here for your own protection, and the blood that runs through your veins can’t be erased”
This time, I guffawed.
“Gregoire,”
“I might look like this, but I am not stupid. No one would go to such lengths for a temporary measure... the only question left in my mind is why I haven’t been killed yet.”
The harshness of my words surprised even me, but I was right. This situation logically made no sense.
Gregoire looked at me, his expression conflicted.
I cared little for that, though.
No matter the reality of the situation, I’d accomplish nothing by ruminating on it. The mere idea of such a waste of time aggravated me.
I didn’t need them. I didn’t need anyone.
‘Well, I kind of need Gregoire though’
Still, there was curiosity, curiosity about why they were called “The Crows.”
So I asked.
This question stumped him for a while, as if he wasn’t expecting it.
Or maybe as if it was obvious.
Because soon, as if this was the most logical answer possible, “The Balmungs are envoys of the ruler of the night and mother of shadows, Oneiris.”
“What?”
I had never heard of such a thing, envoys of a goddess... what?
“What is a goddess?” I asked.
“Mmmmh... what?” He asked, clearly taken aback, “Then again...”
“… Duke Nathanael is not exactly her most assiduous follower.”
After saying these words, he thought to himself and sighed, seeming at a loss.
After that sigh, however, he did his best to explain this new thing to me.
“Oh, that exists?” I said, a bit confused, and also somewhat dubious.
He nodded.
Then, after confirming I had a general grasp on the concept of gods and goddesses, he gave me a primer on the beliefs of the dark factions.
Multiple divinities were worshiped throughout the continent. Their worshippers tended to pick by their elemental affinity, even though there were weirdos that prayed to gods of differing affinities. Among the most notorious in the darkness sects could be found Dianthea, Diana and Dariana, the triplet sisters of the moon and Hapsos, god of foresight capable of reading the chaotic flow of time and predict what would emerge from its darkness, still these gods were subservients to an even more powerful deity: the primordial goddess of the night and shadows, a winged deity and a motherly figure.
Oneiris.
As he mentioned her name, he pulled from the inside of his dress shirt a necklace that had been previously invisible.
Its chain was simple, and nothing to write home about.
Its emblem, however, was captivating.
A pair of gloriously wing overlapping a crescent moon. He held this necklace with the utmost reverence and when he was done showing it off; he hid it again under his uniform and continued.
Far from inspiring fear in her worshipper, she inspired adulation and was the most motherly of the gods, as well as one of the mightiest in the pantheon.
These wings that only the Balmungs could sport were the most obvious proof of their connection to her, and as quasi divinity, it was thus impolite to refer to them by their real names.
At least that’s how the stories went.
That’s the reason for which it had become normal amongst the commoners to refer to the Balmungs as “The Crows”, the envoys of this goddess. Kerrebus was apparently the name of the pet dog of the goddess, him too, a winged entity.
I couldn’t help myself bursting into a fit of laughter.
Gregoire, however, didn’t laugh one bit. For once, his face was serious, cold even — still it didn’t abate my laughter one bit.
“Son of Kerrebus,” he said, as if to emphasize our connection
“No matter how at odds you might feel about the Balmungs, you can’t disrespect the goddess and you can’t mock the very blood that flows through your veins”
“What? Because you believe such drivel?”
“Father? An envoy of the motherliest of goddesses? I wonder what kind of goddess would choose such a m—“
“JEREMY!”
‘What?’
I thought, a bit stunned. Far from laughing, I now looked at him at a loss.
This reaction diametrically opposed to everything he had showed me made me calm down.
I guess it’d be better to not mock other’s beliefs; I noted to myself.
Still, I didn’t want to apologize. After all, I hadn’t lied.. there was no way father would be her envoy, and did she even exist in the first place? Why the hell would she allow what happened to me if that were the case?
Despite my hardheadedness, I didn’t have to apologize.
He coughed, breaking the silence.
Before saying, his tone solemn and back to its usual reverence, “If you’ll allow.. let’s talk about something else, shall we?”
“… yes,” I answered meekly, me too didn’t want to think about that matter too much.
“As for the library,” he said, “it will be difficult to go, considering my work at the manor. At most, this could be a weekly occurrence if I asked to do the collections of goods and took you along—“
“I-is that possible?”
It seemed as if he had expected this reaction, as he sighed.
“If you so wish”
“Yes!” I said as I jumped to my feet, all dignified behavior thrown out the window.
If there was something — anything — that could be done to obtain power, I’d do it.
#
The next day was like watching well water.
This time, I decided I’d stay inside.
Not that there was much that I could do.
Gregoire had strained himself to make sure a lock would be installed on the window in record time.
Result: I either attended the celebration or stayed confined in the room.
My choice was obvious.
Still, before he left, I asked for stationery and paper.
I figured if I was to stay inside all day, I might as well write. Gregoire’s desk was much too big for my small body, and thus I wrote laying on my belly.
Or more so, I tried writing.
The paper in front of me remained untouched for a solid 2 hours as I stared at it.
I had nothing.
No insight, special plan, and having already ruminated and ruminated to oblivion whatever I had read the months before, there was truly nothing interesting.. or new that I could write about.
After that time had elapsed, my mind finally escaped from the white void of the blank piece of paper.
I shook my head.
‘Let’s write something’
I took the lesser-bird’s feather, dipped it into ink, and then I wrote something.
‘Hello me.’
I didn’t know what I would write about, and I didn’t know what purpose it would serve, but I wrote.
From brain to my hand to paper.
A simple flow.
Writing, writing, writing.
While I wrote, I didn’t reflect, only having an overall idea of what was being laid on the page and its implications.
Disgust.
Disgust.. and annoyance,
Disgust.. and annoyance, and hate,
and hope, and joy,
and confusion, and rage, and love
As I wrote, I didn’t see the time pass, filling a page.. then two.. then three.. then ten.
By the 11th page my writing became rougher, I was clearly going through multiple emotions as I wrote.
But I didn’t stop.
I was entranced.
At the end, the result of this brief possession was 25 full pages.
25 pages of emotional diarrhea.
25 pages of mental vomit.
Disgusting.
Still, when done, I felt somewhat lighter. The emotions hadn’t suddenly disappeared, but compared to the feeling of tiredness that I had felt during my last emotional outbreak, this felt refreshing.
Somehow putting into words the turmoil that I felt inside.
This simple act.
Made me feel better.
I didn’t read my pages, both since it was embarrassing, but also because I knew I had heeded no care to form and wondered if I’d even be able to understand myself.
After that day, this act became a habit for me. Every night about an hour or two before bed, I’d sit at the table and write.
That day, however, that first day after I finished writing.
I took a deep breath and exhaled.
‘Ok now to the trash,’ As I took my heavy stack of paper to the trash, my foot stopped moving.
‘No.’
Somehow, I felt like I shouldn’t throw it.
No matter how embarrassing
‘Then…’
‘… I need to hide this somewhere.’
As I stood there, paper in my hand, scanning the room for a suitable location.
‘But where .?’
‘Definitely not the night table...’
‘Not the bookshelf either...’
‘Oh, wait.. the bookshelf!’
As that thought crossed my mind, I stepped back a bit to see the shelves clearly.
Sure enough, there stood a box.
A big black satin box perfectly suited for my purposes.
As I opened it, I found a fairly substantial amount of what seemed like letters.
Polite as I was, however, I didn’t read them.
Instead, I dumped them onto the floor.
The satisfying noise of fluttering sheets of paper brushing against each other filling the room for a few seconds.
My new box — now emptied and ready for usage — I placed my notes inside neatly.
Before sliding it under my bed inconspicuously.
‘Good!’
I said to myself proudly.
I looked around myself. Gregoire probably wouldn’t like his letters on the ground like that.
I collected them and threw them in the trash bin. Leaving the ground clean and pristine.
“Ah,” I sighed.
With satisfaction, I slid into my bed.
Boredom making me sleepy.
‘Hopefully I’ll see the library soon’
##
My dreams were hazy.
This nap, far from resting, had felt exhausting. A threatening aura, keeping me on edge the whole time.
“Urgh,” I groaned as I woke up, tears in my eyes and back sweaty.
There stood Gregoire, his face as placid as ever, but his body releasing a rather weak yet threatening pressure.
It seemed as if he had been waiting for this very moment.
“Oh, young master,” said Gregoire, his placid face suddenly adorning a glacial smile. “Slept well?”
“Y-yes I did..” I said, shriveling back under my covers.
“Good.. “
He paced the room. “If the young master doesn’t find it distasteful, would he be kind enough to put back the box where it was?”
Somehow emboldened under this pressure, maybe because I could feel that there was no real threat in his words, I replied.
“No, I like the box,” the shyness from earlier gone.
I wouldn’t allow anyone to take what I had made mine.
He looked at me, as if to probe me, but soon he added.
“Well, if the young master so desires, the box shall be his,” he then sighed.
I looked at him, dubious.
‘Wait, that’s all?’
‘Really?’
“Gregoire” I said.
“What were these papers?”
He looked at me, various emotions passing through his eyes, before sighing, “Something I should have gotten rid of a long time ago.”
‘Uh?’
He didn’t answer to that, and seeing his eyes, I knew I shouldn’t dig deeper.
“...”
As he said that, I realized the bin was empty.
He had really got rid of them.
After that event, a few days passed.
My perception of Gregoire, unclear. On one side, he was clearly bringing me where I wanted, and acting as my guardian; on the other, he was such a wimp I had a hard time respecting him.
And it didn’t help that whatever he did to his son would forever tainted my vision of him.
We were both in the cart. In one hand, what looked like a big textbook in the other, a pair of glasses who shone with a fluorescent bluish hue… mana? Not the usual kind.
“What is that?”
Gregoire’s eyes were in a daze, hardly looking at the book he had opened in front of him.
As I asked my question, he seemed to wake up from a dream and told me. “Apologies young m- Jeremy… did you perhaps say something?”
At these words, I sighed and asked again, “Yes, these glasses, what are they?”
“Oh- these. They are ID Scopes, “
As if he expected the follow-up question of “what are those?”
He explained further. These glasses were a requisite for item identification, necessary to find the cream of the crop and prevent being duped. I had a hard time imagining the last person in charge having such an artifact with him, leaving me to wonder how necessary they could be — but more importantly, how did they work?
He didn’t know how they worked, either.
All he knew was that when he wore them, he could “feel” that something was wrong, or feel the difference between similar items and pick the one he liked best.
This method wasn’t the most accurate, but when one knew what to “feel” for, this accuracy could be increased to where only the most intricate transformation magic could fool their wearer.
With transformed objects — the primary use of transformation magic — the glasses clearly revealed the original form of the object.
“Ah — cool… can I wear them?” I said, barely containing my excitement.
He thought for a while, looking at the glasses, then back.
“Sorry… but no.”
“Uh?” I asked, not used to refusal.
“Please, I’ll be really careful!”
I had to try these. A magic item?
These things were rare!
To my knowledge, this wasn’t easy to get, even for the Balmungs.
“Sorry... I am not quite sure why, but something is telling me I shouldn’t.”
“But—“
“No.” He said, his voice sharp as a sword.
Freezing me in place.
‘What?’
If there was a single word to describe him, it’d be inconsistent. His easy-to-read expression from the past now seemed like a lie.
Now that I thought about it, before I became his “son”, wasn’t he always emotionless?
What was up with him?
I looked at him, all these questions floating in my head, before groaning.
These things were important for sure, but I was more angry at having my candy stolen from my sights.
I threw a tantrum.
“Give me give me give me give me give me” I yelled, and yelled, smashing my tiny fists against his body.
This went on for a good 10 seconds before.
Aura.
He unleashed a weak, but threatening aura — he meant business.
I stopped in reflex and backed off.
My eyes were wide as saucers. Was that anger?
Had he outright shown anger?
His face was still impassible.
‘What the hell are these glasses’
At that moment, I labeled Gregoire as a threat, and sat down, better aware of his limits.
###
Looking at the front window of the coacher we were riding, I saw a crummy and disheveled building, standing out from the rows of otherwise pristine and well-maintained constructions.
It’s wall overrun by black climbing vines, it’s walls that seemed to have been white at the beginning were now closer to a brownish yellow. In its door-frame, a door was clearly missing, replaced instead by a big red cone.
The windows hadn’t been washed in a while, dried bird droppings making them nearly opaque.
A truly appalling sight.
Over its “door” or better said lack thereof, a big wooden plank who seemed to have lived 3 times and to have been hanged back 10 times that bore the inscription “Moonlit Atheneum”
“Atheneum?” I thought out loud.
I didn’t recognize the word.
“This is the library you were looking for.” Gregoire replied — back to his usual persona.
“Wait... that thing?!”
“Yes, the librarian has truly left the place to rot. No one really ever visits the place.”
“I wonder why.”
“Hahaha, indeed who would visit such a crummy… it’s not that simple though,” he added.
“Uh?”
“None of the citizens here can understand what these books mean, and those who are would not need such a place to start with.”
“Oh, I suppose so.” I said.
“Are the books in that place that complicated?”
“Oh yeah, they are mainly books on the study of magic…”
He continued, but my eyes lit up as I lost track of the rest.
Study of magic.
‘Hahahaha!’
I had looked in the wrong place.
No wonder I had found nothing.
Yes, this time …
This time, surely!