Chapter 25 ∞ Return

The abbot, Master Len, decided to pass the time by playing a board game oddly similar to chess with me. It didn't take me long to know the rules, moving around my pieces and getting hilariously defeated. I could sense he was going very easy on me, but I couldn't help it! I was not very good at mathematics and this game sort of required that. I ended up scratching my head but still persisting, even though I was still quite bad at it.

It was fun, though. This might sharpen my dull brain a little.

"Evyionne," my mistress called, bursting into the tea room and breaking my concentration. She looked a little worn out. "Come on, darling, we ought to go back already."

"So soon?" I pouted.

She sighed. "We'll come back again another day," she told me. "But for now, we must return to Venerya. Your mother will be dearly worried if we don't go back now. You know how she is."

Master Len stood from across me as I tried pulling myself out of a state of laziness that suddenly washed over. I willed myself to stand, but felt no motivation to do so at all.

"Thank you for indulging me on my request, Veronika. Please trouble yourself next time with another visit and do drop me a call once in a while. Should you need anything, I will be here to help you," the abbot said.

"Yes, Abbot." My mistress bowed deeply before him before walking forward to give him an embrace. "Thank you for today, and for looking after Evyionne."

"She is a very smart child," the abbot said, looking at me with the kindest eyes. "She reminds me of you when you were young."

My mistress smiled and held out a hand to me. I took it with no protest, considering I have been here for technically the whole day. I kept a look out for whoever might've left that note, but save for the old monk Myrrh appearing and trying to teach me whatever that stuff was about the seven dragons, nothing so particularly significant happened. I did, however, get to know more about the situation in the other continent. That might've been the purpose of my visit, but I still wasn't sure.

I looked around for any sign of the one who'd left the note, but I found nobody. I was a little tempted to go to the refugee camp back there, but what was I to say to them if I did come? I had no reason to be there other than to look for somebody I didn't know. How was that any reasonable?

We then left the Temple of the Gods, bidding our goodbyes. Master Myrrh had gone off to confine himself in his room after the fight between himself and Mistress Veronika ended, so I was not able to thank him for his attempts of roping me into martial arts. I had fun with him, no matter how short our encounter had been.

The ride back had been quiet and uneventful. I immersed myself with the GV—geodevision—and all the things I could watch through it. I was glad the television version technology of this world finally got introduced, though I heard they still didn't have enough resources to produce stuff into watchable films.

Oh well, it wouldn't be long and they'd be having their own Hollywood.

When we landed on Venerya, I made sure to hoist my hood around my head after remembering what the abbot, Master Len, said to me about the rarity of my appearance. I was more conscious of things now, more aware and more knowledgeable of the world outside—though I felt I still didn't know enough.

"Evy!" Mistress Liane exclaimed upon seeing me. She ran forward and scooped me into her arms. However, she couldn't quite lift me, considering I wasn't the child I was once was. She looked at me in frustration and stuck with hugging me instead. "Agh. I missed you, little button! How have you been? Did you enjoy your time out? How was it? Your mother was quite not herself with you. I think I heard her crying last night."

Hellenia came forward, hitting Liane's head with a folded fan. "Don't spout nonsense."

"Ow! Did that sound like nonsense to you, Evy?"

I smiled and shook my head. I looked at my mother, saw the bags under her eyes and how weary she was, and dove forward into her arms for a hug. I missed her warmth and I missed her fussiness. It was just a day, but it felt longer. While I enjoyed having my time to see another place, I also felt more comfortable being home.

"Go get changed. I prepared your favorites," my mother lovingly told me, sweeping back my hood and caressing my hair. "I hope you had a nice time?"

"Yes, I did. Definitely."

I left my mistresses and proceeded to my room, opening the doors to my bathroom to take a bath. I hummed under my breath and rounded the dividers, screaming when I saw someone in my tub. My face flushed and my heart, I think, just catapulted out of my throat. The intruder had been hesitantly settling into the water, only to be startled senseless by me barging in and screaming out my stomach.

I ran out of the room, shut the door close, and slammed my face into my palm. I recognized the silvery lavender hair and the scarred skin. I'd nearly forgotten he was in here at all, but why was he in my bathroom?!

"Oops, oops…haha…" Mistress Marian came marching into my room with a guilty face—and a knowing smile—and some clothes slung on her arms. "I had him use your tub because the heating wasn't working anywhere else for some reason. Veronika wasn't around to do the handywork and Marga is out to get some supplies for her experiments, so…Well, I thought he'd be done before you come back, but hey…" She gave me a wide grin. "So, what, did you see it?"

"What the heck, mistress!"

"Just kidding, just kidding." She patted my shoulder. "It's not like you haven't already seen it before."

"Oh dragons above," I muttered. It wasn't about what I had seen and what I hadn't. Although, yes, that might be a part of the reason. However, I was not a tidy girl by nature, so my bedroom was more messy than I liked to admit—not to mention the clutter of perfume bottles I currently had on my desk and the dump of crates on the corner along with the pile of books.

I sighed. This was so embarrassing. I felt as though all my dirty secrets were bared for another person to see.

"He dearly needed some cleaning, darling. Sorry about this. I made sure he didn't touch anything." Mistress Marian gave me a wink.

This woman, really! Stop it, just stop!

I retreated out of my room, indignant about the whole ordeal. I got that the situation called for it, but why did it have to be my room of all places? Because I had the best plumbing in the house?

It was true. I did have the best plumbing in the house. Compared to my mistresses, I spent nearly half of my time taking a bath whenever I could. I took a dip in my personal bathing pools whenever I felt like it because it relaxed me and helped me calm down. I would never end a day without having taken a splash.

I was pacing in the hallway when Mistress Marian left my room. I glared at her.

"Okay, fine, fine…Trust me when I say there truly is a problem. I don't know if it's a clog in the system or some sort of other thing, but…" She shrugged. "We don't have a choice. He had to take a bath at some point and it was today."

I rolled my shoulders and was tempted to lash out some more, but my anger would hardly do anything of use. "When will they fix the stuff?" I asked.

"Your Mistress Veronika will see to it," she told me. "Marga is out doing her own thing at the moment. I don't really know when she'll be back."

I sighed. Not in the mood for another argument, I waved my hand dismissively and proceeded to the garden to clear my mind. I recalled the Movement thing that that kung fu guy, old monk Myrrh, showed me and tried to recall the stances he demonstrated until he hurt his knees. My mistress said a certain degree of enlightenment was needed to control one's domain of affinity, so maybe I ought to start training on this now. The profundity of each step carried key to understanding the so-called 'language of the universe.'

My Mistress Veronika insisted on the swords. I think I would agree with the old monk regarding her ineptitude with teaching. If she'd only taught me the Movement something before instead of training me with weapons first, I probably would've been already able to execute it by now. Six years wasn't short, after all.

I sank beneath the willow tree, beside the black spot that my frost had left behind a couple of nights ago. Right now, I was feeling the urgency to learn and familiarize myself with my abilities so that I could control it better, but I truly didn't know where to start. Veronika was still probably tired from the trip, too. I wouldn't be able to count on her to teach it to me at the moment.

Figuring that nobody was around watching and having rested for a while, I decided to close my eyes and feel the energy around me. This pool did not compare to the saturated lake of energy in Temple of the Gods, but it was better than the diluted general surroundings.

With my mind far calmer and no longer embarrassed, I recalled the first stance. It seemed to be just simple breathing, both hands lifting air upward from the stomach and heaving down once more. And the next one after that? Nah, not sure. He went bending on his knees, one hand reaching towards the ground while the other sat on his shoulders…I think?

Either way, I didn't think I'm doing it right. I wasn't gathering the energy into a ball like I was supposed to.

I sat back down, discouraged, and decided to pass the time sitting idly and enjoying the sun. I felt that, once the trouble came rushing in, I wouldn't have the time to be doing this at all.

I bathed in the peacefulness and leaned back to relax.

"Evy." My Mistress Lili came up to me. "Why don't you go have some food first?" she said. "The table's all set and ready. You can clean up after the boy is done."

"That's a good idea," I said, rising to my feet and heading to the dining room to have an afternoon snack. We had some food when we rode the seikelwern—or the Skyhorse—but I felt like having some good, homecooked stuff. I did miss my mother's cooking, even if it had just been a day.

I sat before the dining table with my mother, helping myself to the food she'd prepared. I was still full, so I went easy on the servings and focused on the flavor. I was probably going to get fat like this, but that didn't matter. I still had a good metabolism.

"So how was he?" I asked my mother.

"The boy, you mean?"

"Mm-hmm."

"He's recovered extremely fast, actually. I'm sure you've already noticed. It's been barely two weeks, but his wounds are almost healed."

"What about his tongue?" I queried.

"I don't think he can grow it back, darling," she told me.

I wasn't asking whether he could grow back a limb or two, but okay. That worked too.

I spent the next hour telling my mother all about my adventures in Lovarda, telling her about the docks, the Temple, and the old monk Myrrh. I didn't bring up anything about what I heard from that man…Papi, if recalled his name correctly, regarding the Lovaskan Ranges and my ancestry. I was quite tempted though, because I wanted a confession out of her.

Yes, I knew the truth that I wasn't really her daughter, but I wanted some closure and freedom from the guilt I was feeling from acting like I didn't.

I didn't realize I was beginning to push around the food on my plate until she asked, "What's wrong?"

I looked at her and felt the emotions bleed into my face. "Nothing," I said, flattening my features so that I wasn't so transparent and vulnerable. But it was a little too late. She'd already seen it.

She sighed. "What is it, Evy?"

"That man on the docks," I began. Was it okay to bring this up? Was it, really? "He mentioned a parent of mine coming from the Lovaskan Ranges. You aren't from the Lovaskan Ranges, are you, mama?"

I saw her face twisting into a frown—her brows and the areas around her lips, in particular, seemed suddenly mangled by sadness and shock. She lowered her gaze, the fork dropping onto her plate with a clang. Her fingers trembled and she laced them together in front of her, lips resting on top as she looked ahead and continued to sink into her thoughts.

"Mom…" I trailed off.

Should I have pushed it?

Then, like an angel's saving grace, Mistress Marian came striding into the room. "Look what I got for everybody!"

I looked towards the doorway where she halted and saw her tug someone into our line of sight. The boy—well, he really didn't look so young. I'd say a manboy, because he wasn't quite a man yet, still. Nonetheless, he was tall and was dressed in some of Mistress Kora's male clothes. He had silvery lavender hair that fell loose around his shoulders—fresh and glossier looking now that he'd washed it. His face was still hollow from malnutrition, but he was definitely better-looking than when I first found him. Ah, and those eyes. Silver violets—almost platinum, really. They were worn out, I noticed, even a little defeated.

My eyes met his but he quickly lowered his gaze.

Unfortunately, the atmosphere wasn't so very good between myself and my adoptive mother, so the cheerfulness of Mistress Marian dotted off in an awkward note. "Ehh…what happened?"

My mother rose from her seat. "I'm sorry. Please give me a moment."

She left the room, tearing through the space between the manboy and my mistress. They followed her weary form as she fled and I saw the confusion rise on their faces as they wondered what had transpired in the room.

I brushed my hands down my thighs and mustered a smile. "I probably shouldn't have asked her what I did," I told Mistress Marian. My heart was wrought with guilt. This wasn't right. I was putting her through needless torture. I should probably just tell the truth and reveal everything—including my reincarnation, but the explanation was so troublesome and I had a lot of doubts in my mind. "There are still a lot of snacks though and I can't finish these all by myself. Would you like a share?"

"I'd love to, darling, but I'm busy at the moment," she told me. "I ought to sneak picking some flowers from the garden because the ones I have in my room have wilted. You know how tricky that can be." She winked at me.

I sighed. "You do know how this is going to end, right?"

"Kora can never kill me. Not to worry." She then patted the manboy on the back—I should probably stop calling him that in my head though, because it was kind of awkward.

She then left the scene, leaving the guy standing on the doorway awkwardly.

"Do you have a name I can call you?" I asked, lifting a teacup from the tower where they had been stacked upside-down. The clink and the brush of porcelain resounded in my ears and I calmly set it on the spot right across of me before calmly pouring him some tea. It was still quite hot, so the steam was rising well and curling up, diffusing the faint aroma of jasmine and mint in the air.

Maybe I could make a scent based on this tea?

He nodded and opened his mouth. However, as if remembering that he could not speak, he closed it once more.

I smiled awkwardly. "Can you write?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Alright, just a minute." I stood and ran to get some pen and paper. It wasn't really hard for me to get my hands on some and I really got back to the dining room within just a minute. I put the pen and paper in front of him and rounded the table to get back to my seat.

He took the pen, shot me a few glances as though hesitant, and wrote down a couple of letters. His print was clumsy and unpracticed. It was as though he hadn't been writing for very long. I was unconsciously expecting a nice handwriting, considering my mistresses had beautiful ones. Mistress Lili, in particular, learned the art of calligraphy so nearly everything she wrote was elegant and nice to read—well-suited for a book or invitation cards.

I had to rework how I thought, even so. Not everyone was like my mistresses.

He pushed the piece of paper towards me.

I had the paper turn and face me. He used the classic Veneryan alphabet. "Ma…un?" I looked up. "Ma-un. Maun?" I played with the name on my tongue until I got the pronunciation right.

He nodded again.

I opened my mouth to ask him what happened—why he ended up on our doorstep, what exactly he went through to suffer those injuries, and a couple more questions. However, looking at how weary he was and his bruised and beaten body, I decided not to. Besides, this sort of stuff would be tiring to write down and I didn't want to stress out the poor guy by having him indulge my curiosity. Instead, I decided to set a plate for him and share the snacks my mother had fixed for me.

We all had our problems. I didn't think this was the time to bring up the bad things of the past. I tried to have my adoptive mother tell me the truth just now, and it didn't exactly end on a good note. I wouldn't want another person fleeing the room from me.

"You can stay here as long as you like. Don't worry about the mistresses. They aren't so heartless as to throw anyone out," I told him. "They might not look like it, but they all got good hearts."

He looked at the snacks I'd piled on his plate—some sweet and sticky rice cooked in brown sugar and coconut milk along with mango pudding set on a crumbled biscuit layer. They went well with the tea and were my favorite treats. They were a little heavy on the stomach though, so I couldn't eat a lot.

I watched at him poke at them experimentally. He didn't seem sure if he could taste the food just yet, so the moment was sort of nerve-wracking for him. However, from what I could remember, they'd only partially severed his tongue. He might have trouble moving food around his mouth, but he should still have some sense of taste left.

I could tell that he was tempted to wolf everything down when he realized he could still taste them. However, out of embarrassment. he took it slow. Seeing as he wasn't so comfortable with me watching him eat, I decided to stand and leave him be.

"Just help yourself with the food," I told him. "I'll go get changed. If you need anything, I'm sure you know where to find me."

The bathroom, for sure, was already vacant this time.

Remembering what had transpired earlier, I had to shove my face into my hands once again.