It was time to leave the city. He had accomplished a lifelong goal. He was still in shock that it had been possible, that something that had seemed so out of reach had finally manifested. That the solution had been with him this entire time, carried in the books he had brought with him. It felt a bit, well, anticlimactic, really. His entire life purpose, finished at the youthful age of twenty. He sighed, feeling a bit bereft. Wait, he perked up, he still had immortality to endeavor. He had not yet achieved the immortality aspect of godhood, there was still a way to go, he thought, bolstered. Though perhaps the talismen were useful for that as well. Could he write one for eternal life, would that work? It seemed too easy. Perhaps just meditation. There was still plenty of meditation he needed to practice, if he wanted to see the soul world continuously. Well then, it turned out there was still more to study.
He packed up his books, his left over talismen, his painting supplies, until his entire apartment was on his back. He huffed, a holy man, not an athlete, after all. How to get out of the city from Tuzo's attention. He put his pack back down, pensive. Voche might have a suggestion, she was certainly shady enough.
‘How would I get out of the city unobserved?’ Voche raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask for more. It was one of the things he appreciated about her, she had a keen intuition for when to respect peoples’ privacy. That and that she never took offense to his lack of social grace. ‘Well, it depends who you’re hiding from,’ she glanced at the birds perched across the road from her shop. Ah. She simply didn’t need to ask. Still, it was polite of her not to say. ‘I could assist you. Give you a friend discount for my services.’ Elske wasn’t sure that would be too much of a discount, but her offer to help was appreciated. ‘What did you have in mind?’
Voche’s plan turned out to be having him stowing away in her wagon. They set out in the middle of the day, trying to avoid appearing at all guilty. ‘Why do you even have a human-sized secret compartment?’ Elske grumbled, as he grumpily contorted himself into the restrictive space. Voche just smiled mysteriously, counting out the talismen he had given her as payment. He hadn’t disclosed their very real abilities, she wouldn’t be able to read them anyway, but they would be useful to her just the same. ‘Comfy? Good,’ she said without giving him a chance to reply to the negative. She tucked his pack away under the tarp, hiding away the last of his visible existence from the outside. Elske watched from a crack in the wood as she walked up to her pair of llamas, gathering their macrame lead ropes in order to guide them out of the city.
Elske would much rather have been walking on his own, cart riding was not a comfortable experience, even with the suspension of her large wheels and the pillow beneath him, he still felt as if each bump of the road was quaking the whole cart. Voche walked casually, bidding a cheerful goodbye to all of her acquaintances in the city as she left. He knew it was better to appear as nonchalant as possible, but he wished she could move it along a little faster, his legs were already cramped, the space was designed with someone quite a bit smaller in mind. Several birds followed Voche for a bit, but when they seemed satisfied that Elske wasn’t with her they left off, flying back to presumably wheel around his apartment. He sighed a breath of relief seeing the last one go, though he knew it would still be a while yet until it was safe enough to come out.
If he thought the road out of the city was bumpy, he was mistaken, he thought morosely, jostled roughly once again by the gravel of the mountainous path they were currently ascending. Though it was between two mountains, it was still quite the steep rise, and his back was sore from leaning against the rear panels. ‘I think, I think it might be alright to come out now,’ he said to Voche, raising his voice a little to make it heard over the muffling of the wooden cart and the sound of the wheels churning. ‘Are you sure? We can see the city from here,’ she replied, turning to glance at his general position. ‘I think it’ll have to be good enough. I can’t feel my feet.’ Voche laughed, ‘alright, let me just adjust some things.’ She busied herself moving around her wares, making room for the door to open. ‘Ah! Fresh air!’ He said in relief, taking a deep breath. He stepped out from the cart to promptly fall on his face, his numb legs not supporting him at all. Laughingly Voche helped him up, giving him a rough dusting as she did so. ‘Alright holy man, are we separating here?’ she asked, her smile in place but her eyes already saying a fond farewell. ‘I think so,’ he hugged her tightly. Though the woman would be slippery and her veneer of positivity hid a very shrewd mind, she had been there for Elske when he needed a friend, and he deeply cared for her.
He had accomplished his life-long goal. Created a practice of meditations that allowed a person to see the pure souls of the soul world, created a method of magic without using the god-practice of absorbing ghosts, he had claimed the powers of a god himself, perhaps even achieving immortality. He had a lot to be proud of. Things he had dreamed of doing since he was a child. Things he had only half believed he could achieve.
Through the process he had made some sacrifices, most significantly leaving his family behind. He missed them, missed his mothers and Orre. And now there was nothing calling him away. There were still things to discover of course, questions to ask, meditation to do. There would always be more. But he could continue his work back with his family, now that the baseline hypothesis was so well established. Now that he was, himself, his own study. So, it was time to head home.
