“If you say, ‘best night of sleep I’ve had in almost ten-thousand years’ one more time, I will purge you from this planet without a hint of hesitation.”

Aryn who’d just stepped out of his bedroom in their shared house, fully prepared with the line felt a bit deflated after this immediate threat. Had he become that predictable?

The two had now been living together for over a month, the period of awkwardness that once existed quickly vanished as they found their rhythms in the odd friendship.

At first neither was exactly sure what would become of them now that the fighting was over, Noel was offered an honorary position in the royal guard but she readily denied it. The same was true for Aryn, he’d been offered governorship of the newly formed territory where the demons once resided, the ancient city alone is probably worth billions in tourism revenue, but no amount of gold or resource rights would sway his quick decision against it.

Of course, this is royalty we are talking about so it’s not as if the two could entirely forgo rewards. Refusing the first offer is seen as a move of modesty, but a second refusal might as well be considered treason. There’s only so much goodwill one can shrug off.

“I’ll be pretty busy today so I might not see you till tomorrow, anything you need at the market?”

Aryn’s shocked expression was precisely what Noel was going for.

“Your joking, right? You said you were coming, if you don’t I’ll have to change my whole speech!” Aryn frantically panted ripping the speech from the table and ripping it up in frustration.

“I’m kidding. I’m kidding.” Noel quickly backpedals with a guilty expression, she had expected only a slight pout, the outburst was a genuine surprise out of the normally iron-hearted armory bearer.

“I knew you were.” Aryn shrugs unfolding the paper with a nonchalant grin.

Realizing she had been had Noel was almost tempted to forgo the opening ceremony like she claimed, but she knew that was far too shortsighted of a move. “The fact that they left such a swindler in control of so much of humanity’s fortune is a huge mistake.”

“Hey, you don’t have to tell me that, I’ll remind you that I expected to be tortured or interrogated, not rewarded and celebrated.”

Indeed, Aryn had retained the hero’s vessel despite the iffy argument over the ownership. Perhaps this was a show of good faith from the royal family, but half the reason is probably the fact that the two can no longer be considered separate entities.

In truth it should be the possession of the hero, but ‘what’s a hero after the war is over?’, or so she says. In any case, since the vessel itself is now Aryn’s body, and the hero wasn’t interested in pursuing the riches inside, there’s not much anyone could say.

Besides, many of the treasures are about to be shared with the public, so even the most persistent nobles didn’t have much ground to stand on in their complaints.

▐◊▌▐◊▌

The structure Aryn received as part of the arrangement was a manor on the outskirts of the city which mysteriously lost its owner sometime during the finale of the war. The implication was obvious, but nobody ever seemed willing to state the fact aloud.

The various bedrooms, parlors, and den’s were arranged into individual exhibits. Some rooms would focus on a specific period, like the one which conceptualized the world Heather lived in with a variety of drawings and mockups. Other’s compared the craftsmanship of simple artifacts like swords, and the changes that occurred over generations of mastery.   

The room that drew the most interest however was either, the demonic history book, or the ‘final bearer’s tale’ which was embarrassingly etched on a huge stone monolith without the caretaker’s knowledge.

Once the ‘honorary first group’ finally arrived back at the well adorned central lobby of the museum, they could tell Aryn was awaiting their opinions.

The look of anticipation was clearly written across his face as he glanced between the two he was most well acquainted with amongst the various special guests.

“I think it was fascinating! I’m curious now about the defense system this highly advanced period possessed. ‘Magic explosions without the need for a mage’ was your conjecture, right? I wonder what type of device could be capable of that? And where did they source all of this mana they piped into their homes?”

“Is that ‘infinity flask’ exhibit truly refilling the capital’s well like it said on the plaque?”

“Idiot! Why do you think the wet-works team has been frantically galloping around these past two weeks?”

That was an incidental occurrence. Aryn wanted an interesting way of showing off the spare infinity flask but he had no way of dealing with the water fast enough. A single mention to the prince, and engineers had set to work carving a vast water channel for the museum. It was also the prince’s idea to add a mention of this fact to the plaque explaining the exhibit.

“You’ve done excellent work.”

The youngest prince who had originally tasked Aryn with this job looked genuinely amazed by the progress. He thought maybe Aryn would write a book or dictate the story to a minstrel, wasting his reward and even relinquishing countless treasures was never within his expectations. He felt a bit guilty, as if he was the only one who had truly been rewarded for their joint efforts.

“All the jewelry is so beautiful! But is that giant diamond as dangerous as it said on the plaque?”

Beside the now blushing prince was a chirpy young woman with glimmering eyes. Aryn couldn’t help but look at the two with a wry smile whenever in their presence. In Aryn’s mind the man had chosen a rather fitting reward given the circumstances.

Remembering the woman’s questions after exchanging a few more coy grins, Aryn nods a response, “It is. It nearly killed me once already. If it fell into the wrong hands it could become the most dangerous weapon in the world.”  

“Aren’t you worried then?! Won’t this museum be cursed or something?”

The prince beside this former maid girl seem to share a worried expression as he realized what the object truly was. And then he noticed Aryn’s smug expression and thought about it a moment longer.

“Is it a replica?”

“Maybe.” Aryn shrugs with a nonchalant expression “Ah, right. I wanted to say a few words to commemorate this event while everyone is still gathered.”

Retrieving the speech with a flick of his wrist, Aryn chuckles and an idea dawns on him.

He would clear his throat then hold the speech card up to begin, only to squint momentarily and then quickly retrieve a pair of glasses to ‘better sell the speech’, as Lotil would have eloquently put it. It felt natural seeing as though she never had a chance to enact that final play of hers.

With little time to spare Aryn quickly began the first stage of the performance, and even produced the case the King’s butler had placed on him, only to find it mysteriously empty apart from a small scarp of paper. Perhaps it was another copy of his speech?

Oh well. I’ll worry about that later. Forget the glasses bit.

“First, I’d like to thank you all for coming. We’re honored to be joined by not one, but three members of the royal family. Princess Liallia, Prince Leo, and of course Lady Hazel. We also have champions of war, Lord Talos, General Hauk, Hero Noel. I want to thank you sincerely for taking the time out of your busy days to celebrate here with us.  

This is obviously a celebration of more than just this petty inauguration though. Today we all once again celebrate the same thing we have been for the past two months.

This victory we attained; it’s more than just an end to a war, everyone must have realized that by now. This museum itself shows just how much of our history has been without our control. How much of humanities efforts have been squandered by outside forces. But today that’s different, today we are living amid our own history for the first time. And it will be the same tomorrow.

It may be true that we no longer have the security of spoon-fed visions, but we also need not fear the eyes hidden-in-plain-sight’s shadow any longer. We are no longer within someone’s plan, so our history is ours to craft. I think that makes it even more fitting that this city’s first museum would be one dedicated to history.

I hope that people can learn from this museum, so that someday we’ll truly see these artifacts as our past.”

Aryn felt like his former-liege would’ve appreciated the no-nonsense nature of this simple speech he’d written for the occasion. He couldn’t help but remember again the, still pocketed away, words that were originally written by the now legendary king. He must have wrote them despite knowing that they would never be read.

Chuckling to himself Aryn retrieves the crisp folded sheet from within the ancient glasses case, hoping to find a few final words to add from the old King himself.

Unlike the letters left in the hero’s vessel however, he immediately realized these words were never meant for that audience. Shaking his head with a startled expression and folding it back up rapidly, Aryn, with hollowed expression, hastily nods to a nearby assistant who instructs a variety of former maids and butlers to begin distributing glasses of a pale wine and an assortment of small cakes and cookies.

Of course, as instructed, one lone tray was filled with nothing but shortbread cookies, but it was unclear why Aryn looked towards it with such an assortment of emotions while clutching that small scrap of paper.

End