Chapter 122: Poetry
“Of course I do!” Lano seed delighted that soone was actually willing to listen to her talk about such an impractical hobby. She turned at once and moved with practiced ease through several nearby bookshelves, quickly returning with three or four not-too-thick, old-fashioned volus in her arms.
“This one, Echoes in the Forest: A Collection of Ancient Elven Ballads, contains quite a few deciphered short poems. A lot of them seem to praise nature, virtue, or heroes, but the wording is beautiful, and you can also catch glimpses of how they thought.”
“And this one, Studies on Fragnts of the Silver Moon Chronicle, is a set of research notes based on rubbings from several stone tablets suspected to date back to the Elven era. There are so guesses in it about the evolution of Ancient Elven word roots. It is rather mind-bending, but it might prove useful.”
“Oh, right, and this one—Supplent to the Wanderer’s Notes. It was written by a human explorer several hundred years ago. He claid to have found and recorded so incomplete Elven inscriptions in an ancient ruin, and the back includes his personal interpretations… It is hard to say how much of it is true, but it is still quite interesting as a story.”
She introduced them as if listing treasures from mory, her pale pink eyes shining.
Ryan accepted the books and thanked her.
“You’re welco, Young Master Velt.” Lano returned to her usual smile. “I wish you success in this exploration, and I hope you discover sothing worthwhile. Ah, didn’t Cosette co with you?”
“She’s in the dormitory.”
“I see… That child has been doing well lately, hasn’t she? If I get the chance, I’d like to chat with her again.” Lano seed to have ford quite a good impression of the quiet little maid.
After exchanging a few more simple pleasantries, they parted ways. Ryan took the books to be registered for borrowing, then left the library.
The dormitory was very quiet at night.
After eating the dinner Cosette had prepared—still abundant as ever, though she was clearly sowhat distracted with their impending separation—Ryan sat down at the desk and opened the first book Lano had recomnded, Echoes in the Forest.
Cosette finished cleaning up the dishes, dried her hands, then curiously drifted over and knelt on the carpet by Ryan’s feet, tilting up her little face.
“Master, what book are you reading?”
“Poetry. Lano recomnded it,” Ryan answered casually, his eyes still on the yellowed pages.
“Big Sister Lano recomnded it?” Cosette blinked her light brown eyes, seemingly recalling that pink-haired maid who always smiled and was so pleasant to speak with. Her interest imdiately deepened.
Ryan glanced at her. Suddenly, it felt a little wasteful to sit there reading dryly by himself in such a quiet night.
“Do you want to hear it?” he asked.
Cosette nodded at once, hard enough that the warm glow of the desk lamp trembled in her eyes.
So Ryan began reading aloud in a low, steady voice, reciting those Elven poems that had been translated into the Human Common Tongue.
At first, most of the verses were praises of the Elven race’s ancient wisdom and harmonious way of life:
“Starlight on the forest boughs wove a net of wisdom,
Marks upon the stone tablets told of the people’s glory.
We took knowledge as our shield, and deftness as our spear,
Guarding this ever-singing land, where leaves were lush and springs ran clear.”
The diction was beautiful, the mood ethereal, filled with pride in bygone prosperity and deep affection for the holand.
Cosette listened, utterly absorbed, her chin resting on her knees, her gaze slightly dazed, as though she could truly see that ancient and beautiful Elven world described by the poems.
The next few had similar thes, praising the sages and craftsn among the Elves, extolling how their skills had allowed the race to flourish all the more.
By the third and fourth poems, repeated images and sentence structures began to erge. The object of praise narrowed from the broad wisdom of the entire race to a small circle of the most outstanding sages, describing how they united, led the way, and longed to guide the Elves toward a more perfect future.
As Cosette listened, her long lashes gradually began to droop.
She seed a little tired today as well. During the day, she had probably secretly spent a long ti practicing the basic magic Ryan had taught her. The repetitive, lingering, and faintly obscure cadence of the poems was like a gentle lullaby.
Her head drooped lower and lower, until at last it tipped softly to one side and ca to rest against Ryan’s leg, while her breathing gradually grew long and even.
Ryan’s voice stopped.
He lowered his head to look.
The little maid had fallen asleep there on the carpet at his feet, curled up just like that.
Her maid dress, faded from many washings, had ridden slightly upward with the way she sat, revealing a slender stretch of calf wrapped in pure white knee socks. Her little leather shoes were still on, but her whole body had completely relaxed.
Her chestnut hair had co a little loose, and several strands clung to her slightly flushed cheek, rising and falling gently with her steady breathing. In sleep, her face was utterly unguarded. Her lips were even parted just a little, making her look more childish than usual, and… more lovable.
A feeling made of quiet peace and a faint warmth spread through Ryan’s chest.
He gently closed the heavy poetry collection and set it on the side of the desk.
Then he bent down, one arm slipping behind Cosette’s back and the other beneath her knees. With the slightest effort, he lifted her into his arms.
This girl was truly so light. Even before he had started magic–martial training, lifting her had never cost him any effort, and now even less so.
In her sleep, Cosette let out a soft little murmur. Her head instinctively burrowed closer into the warr part of Ryan’s chest, and the tip of her nose twitched faintly, as if checking for that familiar, reassuring scent. One of her hands unconsciously clutched a bit of fabric at Ryan’s chest, bunching it into a tiny fist.
Holding her in his arms, Ryan walked steadily toward the small room that belonged to Cosette.
He moved very lightly as he pushed open the door, walked to the bed, bent down, and carefully laid her onto the neatly made bedding.
But when he tried to pull away, the little hand clutching his clothes tightened instinctively, and she mumbled sothing indistinct, like sleep talk.
Ryan paused. Then, using the gentlest force, he pried apart her slender fingers one by one before finally freeing himself.
He pulled the thin blanket up over her chest. Cosette rubbed her cheek against the pillow and let out a satisfied little hum, sinking into even deeper sleep.
Ryan stood by the bed and watched her for two seconds. Then he turned, silently left the room, and gently closed the door behind him.
Returning to his desk, he sat down again and turned the lamp back on. The orange pool of light spread across the tabletop once more.
He did not continue reading Echoes in the Forest. Instead, he opened another of Lano’s recomndations, Supplent to the Wanderer’s Notes.
This one was more miscellaneous, more like an adventure novel, and the so-called Elven inscriptions quoted inside were fragnted and incomplete.
He skimd through it quickly until, at the bottom of one page, he saw a passage the ancient explorer had singled out on its own, with a rough copied sketch and a tentative translation beside it:
“Beneath brilliant feathers there may hide the beak of a venomous insect;
In the depths of a clear spring there may settle the bones of the forgotten.
Trust not the form first seen,
Doubt not the falsehood of appearances.
What is seen is not what is,
And what is denied may yet remain.”
The poem was far more obscure than the earlier hymns.
Do not trust the surface. Do not let first impressions mislead you. What you see may not be true, and what you reject may not truly be absent…
It seed to warn later generations to beware of disguises, yet it also seed to hint at sothing deeper—a paradox concerning perception and truth itself.
Ryan stared at those lines for a while, then closed the book.
Outside the window, the night was as dark as inkstone-black, and from the distant tower ca the bell announcing the hour for sleep.
He rubbed his brow, stood, and turned off the lamp.
The room fell into darkness. Only the sparse starlight outside and the faraway glow of the streetlamps filtered in, sketching the blurred outlines of the furniture.
It was ti to sleep.
Whatever hidden taphor or clue those poems contained, tomorrow would still be another day requiring his full effort in training.
And with every passing mont, the ti remaining before he stepped into the unknown Starfall Ruins was falling closer and closer to zero.
User Comments
0 comments from readers