The mood continued to be tense around the table.
Once the camp as it currently existed had been cleared of infected, they had found themselves a corner of the staff tent and sat down around the field table there. Ehtra was not capable of tasting regular food, yet she was quite capable of brewing a delicious tea. Instructions for that had been drilled into her by her seniors.
“When is bringing suffering to others justified?” Lucifrena suddenly asked. The angel stared directly at him when she asked the question, her li green eyes drilling into him in pursuit of his answer.
An answer that John had to contemplate slowly. “Impossible to say with any certainty. Although I have to object to the framing of the question. I did not bring suffering to these people – I denied them alleviation within my ans. One is immoral, the other is amoral.”
“You consider not alleviating suffering amoral?” Lucifrena probed.
“It categorically must be. Inaction is neither good nor evil, though I am also of the opinion that living an amoral life is both undesirable and soul-killing, so do not mistake saying sothing is amoral as calling it acceptable. I am rely calling it not heinous.” John shook his head. “To the spirit of your question: I cannot tell you for certain. I am no ideologue that acts on pre-set axioms nor am I without my principles. What I do, I do with a goal in mind and sotis that requires to act in unpleasant ways.”
He picked up the cup of tea in front of him as the signal that his explanation was over. If she wanted to reprimand him, she could do so while he tasted the pleasant sweetness of the hot beverage. It was a fruity blend.
“I see,” Lucifrena said.
John put down the cup and turned it so the decorations on it lined up with the marbling of the table. “No condemnation?”
“I can hear that you condemn yourself enough.”
The words made John shift the cup a bit too much. The hot liquid spilled over the rim and scalded his hand. Ehtra was there imdiately with a handkerchief cleaning him before he could even try to take it off him. “Careless creature,” she muttered.
Any imdiate response he had, John swallowed. He was intensely irked by her comnt because of how true it was. Condemnation would have been easier to deal with, because it would have allowed him to rise above the expectations of soone who didn’t understand the bigger picture. “What would you have done?”
“Provide all aid I could from the mont I could.”
“And what if that ant Delicia wouldn’t have been able to test her concoctions?”
“I would not have considered the what-if… Please, I can, uhm… sense your anger?” Lucifrena raised her hand, to stop him from answering imdiately. “No ruler am I, no commander of forces, for I am not cut from that cloth… I’m a disciple of the king of kings. I live within my limitations.”
“You imply he lives outside of his?” Ehtra hissed in his stead.
The grey angel glared at the golden one, who squird uncomfortably, but did not yield. “I am suggesting this… yes,” Lucifrena said slowly. “Understand that there was only ever one man truly fit to rule and he died for our sins.”
This irked John’s pride again, although there was enough of cultural Christianity stuck in his brain not to actually take offense to being called lesser to Jesus. “So, you’re not calling wrong, just incompetent?” he wondered.
“We live in a fallen world. I disagree with what you did, but it is the best that you could do and you are the best for your position.”
John was flattered and insulted simultaneously, which really just added to the complicated mixture of emotions he was now feeling towards Lucifrena. It wasn’t quite the first ti that he encountered this, though. Whenever Lorelei judged him by the standards of the Order, it was a similar thing. What he was being judged by was what they considered, individually, to be the highest good humanity could strive for, one that no one would ever truly reach.
‘This might be why religion isn’t for ,’ the Gar thought. ‘A goal I cannot clear doesn’t sh with my mind.’ “So, you are not angry with ?”
“I was… displeased,” Lucifrena answered with just a hint of hesitancy. “Such is my feeling and I have expressed it. The wrong was righted. I shall hold no grudge.”
Finally, the eyes of the golden angel drifted to the side. When he wasn’t being stared at, he had to admit that the woman was stunningly gorgeous. He felt that way twice as strongly because of her resemblance to the woman in the adjacent chair.
Lyndell did not care much about physical boundaries. She almost sat shoulder to shoulder to the golden angel who she had modelled her appearance on. There were manifold differences between them, all of them existing on top of a shared base. The shape of their faces, the height of their bodies, even the dinsions of their busts, waists and hips were all the sa. Obviously, Lucifrena appeared as a black woman with blonde hair, human without anything to give away her true nature, while Lyndell was a grey-scale mushroom woman with curved forehead horns.
Just a stray glance in Lyndell’s direction caused the primordial entity to tilt forwards. She got so close to Lucifrena that their noses almost touched. Reflexively, the golden angel backed off, pulling her head back like a cat that had sothing on its nose. Lyndell followed, until Lucifrena had to decide between falling over or staying put.
“C-can I help you?” she asked.
“I am beyond help.” Lyndell’s voice carried with it the darkness of her long loneliness. She put a hand on the side of Lucifrena’s face. To study it, she caressed the skin gently. “You fascinate .”
“T-thanks?” Lucifrena stamred.
John failed to suppress a snort of amusent. With a snap, Lyndell turned her neck too fast and too wide. Everyone else around the table winced once, then a second ti when she popped her neck back into its socket. “What was amusing?” she asked.
“Lucifrena just sounded like Gno there.”
“Where is my mood kindred?” the golden angel asked.
John gestured in the general direction of the Guild Hall. “If you wish to find her, you no doubt will. Just take to the air and scan for moving masses of earth.”
“Now that I have the ti, I will,” Lucifrena said. “I would, uhm… like a less pushy conversation?”
Lyndell absolutely missed the social cue she was given. She was still very close to Lucifrena. For the mont, she was staring at John though. “We had an agreent that you would guide to those of my forr kin that I was to slay,” she yanked the conversation back to the initial topic. “Yet you hid from infections that hurt people that could still be saved.”
“What really annoys you more, mushroom creature, that you did not get to kill them earlier or that you did not get to help them?” ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs, ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴠɪsɪᴛ novel{f}ire
“Vengeance is the darkness that makes my soul, yet I yearn for a part in a brighter tomorrow,” Lyndell answered in forlorn tones. “I wish that I desired to aid more than I desired to destroy. What I know is that your choice has carved into my admiration for you, John. I wish to understand what drove you to this.”
John sighed. “I already explained myself.”
“There remain questions in my mind.” Lyndell tilted towards him now, letting Lucifrena get a bit more comfortable in her chair. “You would have condemned them to suffer until the end of this war, if necessary?”
“Yes and no,” John answered. “Because I was beyond certain that my Delicia would find so cure long before then.”
Lyndell blinked. Her expression softened, a barely present frown lifting into a neutral expression. “So deep is your trust in yours that you take on the burden of making others suffer?”
“The burden there is hardly on ,” John answered, for as much as that was worth. Of course there was a burden, but he was not going to advertise it when he had to just live with the decision and others had to suffer the consequences.
“You condemn yourself regardless,” Lyndell stated. “…I want to be yours.”
The addition had John confused for a mont, then his mind managed to get back on track. “I am aware. I cannot even entertain any such wish at this ti.”
“Why not?”
“It’s just not right.”
“…Leave us.”
John raised an eyebrow at the sudden demand. He glanced to Lucifrena, who gave him an uncertain shrug. Truthfully, he wanted to talk more to the golden angel. She had been a disciple of Jesus himself and he had a warranted interest in what the man had been like in person.
That conversation could wait. When faced with a forlorn beauty staring at him, all he could do was sigh and oblige. “You know where to find ,” he said, finished his tea, then stood up.
“Do not make trouble,” Ehtra warned her.
‘I think she’s more interested in now than she was before…’ John pondered as he walked away. He had brought her to the camp to show her that he made decisions at tis she would likely disagree with. Well, he hadn’t constructed the situation with that goal in mind, but he had taken it as a side benefit. It was a test of her humanity and a potential crack in whatever image she had of him. ‘I was fine with whatever outco as long as she understood who I truly am better. Still, what tilted her towards this one? Am I even reading her right?’
‘You are reading her right,’ Ehtra comnted on his thoughts.
‘You are saying she is indeed more attracted to than before?’ John asked, just for clarity.
‘Yes.’
‘And what makes you so certain of that?’
‘…Never tell anyone I said this. Swear it!’
John’s conspiratorial mind was highly engaged by the sour woman’s flustered demand. ‘Alright, I swear upon my love for your ass.’
‘Pervy Master creature!’ Ehtra hit him with one of her grey wings. The Astrotium feathers were fluffy, failing to do any damage. ‘T-the answer… urgh… t-the… uhm… hmm…’ Starting, stamring, stopping, and then starting again, the First of Hatred managed to worm her way around giving an answer for a whole minute. ‘T-the answer is t-t-that I totally don’t love you or anything! Idiot!’
‘…I love you too, but that doesn’t answer anything?’
‘Urgh! Man thing! Listen – I spend a lot of ti… c-contemplating what makes you… tolerable to call my Master.’
‘She spends a lot of ti thinking about why she loves ,’ John translated in his head.
‘And because of that, I can recognize when other idiots fall for the parts of you that aren’t horrid character flaws.’
‘And because of that, she recognizes what good qualities I have and what won are attracted to.’
‘Lyndell loves, just as I do – I an as so do! – That you, uhm, c-can put so much trust in one of your w-won that you would… risk the soundness of your own mind. It’s rare to find soone so stupid that they would actually love soone that much and that… that’s sothing to cherish. To be leaned on so much, it gives purpose when one is used to being all alone.’
John did not have to translate that. He had enough experience with won and people at large to understand this. He hadn’t quite considered that last part in the case of Lyndell specifically. Was it truly that important for her to have soone that would rely on her?
The question answered itself when he asked himself the simple question of what was next for Lyndell. After this war was over, the primordial entity had nowhere to go, no one to visit, not even mories to dwell on.
‘Two goddess of genocide, a species apart, and yet so similar in so aspects,’ John realized. Eliana had been like this as well in her early days, when Thana had not been fully ford yet. A confused bundle with no mories, only confusion and a trauma too deep to forget. She had been infinitely eager to latch onto whatever social circle she stumbled into first. Lyndell was evidently the sa, holding onto her infatuation for any sense of purpose greater than the swamp of revenge that had swallowed her existence once before.
Realizing all of this put John in a conundrum he had found himself in a few tis before.
Lyndell needed him a lot more than he needed her, especially once this war was over. This was a natural imbalance between them that made everything that followed a bit difficult. However, he was not a believer that romance had to start on equal footing, nor did he think that depending on soone else for emotional stability was bad. All he owed to his own moral code was that he acted sincerely.
‘I’ll have ti to work this out,’ he thought, then turned his mind elsewhere. ‘Fianna, can you do a favour and keep watch over Lyndell?’
‘Affirmative, Sir,’ she answered.
“What is our next destination?” Ehtra wanted to know. She had finally recovered from their hidden conversation enough that there was only a faint blush remaining on her face.
“We’re getting back to the Palace,” he answered. “I’m of no use out here and you probably don’t want to leave Leryala alone for long.”
“No,” Ehtra confird. “I do not.”
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