Chapter 89: Preparations for a Fleeting Future

— Right after separating from Jyn and Page.

On the way to the blacksmith’s, Kalender couldn’t get Jyn’s strange behavior out of his mind, try as he might to wipe it away.

Truth be told, even if he already knew the answer he was going to give her, he found himself nervous to convey it when the time came. He had a few days to summon the courage, at least.

He found himself dragging his feet. He stopped at the sandwich collision warning sign before the corner, and after a moment, picked up the pace to head into the alley.

It was time to pick up a fresh batch of broken swords. He’d recycle them and turn them into something more powerful than peashooters. That he’d been armed only with handguns this whole time didn’t really bother him—he could literally use any other magic, after all—but a comment from Zee finally got him to do something about it: “You attached to those or something?”

The smithy’s door was wide open, allowing him a glimpse of another customer’s back. Kyn didn’t seem to be over the counter, so she must have gone deeper into the smithy to get the customer’s things.

He went inside and leaned on the counter, expecting a minute’s wait before Kyn got back again.

Beside him, Helma Kel—the Priestess of Love’s All Who Struggle Blessing was tingling, telling her that the man beside her was troubled by great matters of love…upon which the fate of the world rested?!

She turned her head so fast to stare at him in utter shock that it also spooked Kalender, and they both stepped away from each other.

“I-I’m sorry,” Helma said. She squinted, though. “Have I seen you before?”

Kalender found it curious that she’d even try and remember his face. “I don’t think we’ve talked, but you’re the Priestess of Love, right?”

“I am… Wait, sorry, my earlier reaction” —she thought for a moment— “Do you happen to be troubled by something? Love, for instance.”

That was a terribly direct approach, but Helma was putting the weight of her title behind it. It should be fine. He’ll bend.

On the other hand, Kalender was rightly flustered by the question, and for a long moment, he wasn’t sure about whether or not he should even answer. Even though she was the Priestess of Love, she was still a stranger, and considering everything that had been going on, should he be trusting her? What was her goal by asking this?

“Sorry, this is just out of nowhere for me,” he said. “Why are you asking?”

Helma took this as a “Yes, but why are you asking?” The outcome was enough for her to work with. “It’s my job, after all,” she replied. “I’m primarily a counselor here, sometimes a marriage officiant—ah” —she shook her head— “that’s not the point. I simply can’t leave people be when I feel that they’re walking down a rocky path.”

“Well, if it’s like that…” Kalender shook his head. “Sorry, but I’ve made up my mind about it.”

Troubled, but not indecisive. Helma’s advice might just muddle things at this point, and indecision was a deadlier adversary in these things than inaccuracy. There was no such thing as a pain-free answer, after all—just a committed one.

“Sorry I troubled you,” she said, and the two turned away from each other, going back to being waiting customers.

It was a good encounter, Helma thought.

“Thanks for the wait!” Kyn called out from deeper in the smithy. “Just like you asked, Master Ara-kel treated it with tender loving” —

Helma was plugging her ears at this point.

— “care and affection!” Kyn finally carried the wrapped sword out of the finishing station, and she saw Kalender holding in a giggle and Helma digging her face into the counter.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have announced such an embarrassing thing, but the damage was done. Kyn forked over the sword, and Helma left the place in a hurry.

“So,” Kalender said, exhaling as much funny air as he could so he could speak straight, “I hear the sword’s her lover.”

“That’s what she says.” Kyn chuckled. “Master seems to believe it, though, so there might be some truth to it.” Kyn thought for a moment. “Jyn’s not with you?”

“She went with a friend to the castle.”

“The castle! Is Jyn some kind of amazing bigshot?”

Kalender chuckled, waving his hands. “No, no, not at all.”

Kyn chuckled, too, but she saw Kalender’s expression turn droopy for a split second. She wasn’t sure about what she saw for a moment, but she was certain she had seen it.

“Anyway, I was hoping to take the unfixables and runoffs off your hands,” Kalender continued.

Kyn snapped out of it. “Oh, of course. Just wait a minute.”

She went to the back of the shop, first passing through a finishing station where there was a workbench with a pedal-operated cotton buffing wheel, a honing rod, and a set of leather stropping belts hanging from the wall.

The next room was the forge room, where Ara-kel’s work blended into her meditation. She was there today again, staring at the color of the metal inside the oven. Kyn took care not to make any sudden noises that would intrude on her master’s focus.

The next and final door out led to the back of the shop, where they kept sacks of charcoal, the rejects from bad forgings, and customers’ turned-in weapons; it would take longer to fix them than just to make a new one.

Kalender’s face a while ago still bothered her. He and Jyn were, in her eyes, close enough that they could get married any moment now—and yet, why did he make that face?

She returned to the counter with a bundle of broken swords. Placing them on the counter, Kalender grabbed the twine keeping the bundle together…but Kyn’s hands still hadn’t let go.

“Kyn?” he said.

She looked up at Kalender. “Is there something going on between you and Jyn?”

Again, there was that momentary frown. Unlike before, though, Kalender made no real attempt to correct it. “She asked me for an answer. I have one. I haven’t given it to her yet, but…I’m not sure if she’ll be happy with it.”

“Does…that mean you’re throwing her away?”

The direction she was taking this in was so wrong that Kalender stared at Kyn in genuine amazement that she would even suggest such a thing. “What? No? Why would you think that?”

It was Kyn’s turn to be amazed, hearing such a contradictory answer. “Huh? It sounded like Jyn proposed to you. Weren’t you going to” —she quieted down— “reject her?”

— The same as throwing her away?

Kalender shook his head. “It’s—there’s something else to it. I…” He took a deep breath, letting the words arrange themselves in his head. “I don’t need her to be anything else.”

“So” —

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t care for her. I love her. I trust her.”

“Then” —

“There’s something I want for her.” Kalender looked Kyn in the eyes. “She’s lost a lot, growing up, and it’s made like this…invisible bubble around her. Do you get me?”

Kyn looked at him for a while. “I don’t think I do…”

“She’s told me a lot about her life. She was the one sending back money for you and your other sisters, right?”

Kyn nodded, looking away.

“Was she ever there, though?”

Kyn’s mouth opened as she faced him, but no sound left it, and she looked away. Jyn certainly visited them on occasion, but Kyn understood that that wasn’t the heart of Kalender’s question.

Jyn always felt so distant, especially during the times Kyn hugged her; she never hugged her back.

A silence descended between the two of them, with Kyn thinking back to her childhood memories with Jyn, and Kalender thinking about the whole situation from the top.

Jyn’s ability to relate with others on the level of family had been well and truly stunted. Her sense of ‘normal’ simply didn’t exist, and all the good things she’d experienced so far all centered around one man: Kalender.

That couldn’t possibly be healthy. At the same time, the fact that Kalender was the only one who was seeing this was also not healthy, neither for him nor for Jyn. He was just one man, someone who couldn’t possibly possess everything that was happy about the world, and with the world itself putting a huge burden on him to oppose that which needed to be opposed, he was well aware that there was a narrow limit to what burdens he could take on for others, even for those right beside him.

He didn’t need Jyn to be anything else for him…but he did need her to be happy.

Kalender broke the silence. “Thanks, Kyn.”

She looked at him. She didn’t even know she was looking down at the counter before then. “Why?” she asked.

“I think I just realized, for Jyn’s sake, I really need your help.” He smiled bitterly. “I can’t be the only thing making her happy. That’s just too sad.”

Kyn nodded. “Yeah, that—that really is…”

Before Kyn’s head could tilt all the way down and trap her in a forlorn mood, Kalender asked, “Can I count on you?”

She looked up again. “What do I need to do?”

Kalender smiled. “Well, for starters, I think a sisterly date is overdue.”

He left that place with a bundle of broken swords and the promise of an ally.

… A promise that would take too long to keep …