Chapter 641: An Elf’s Tale, Part 4

Eshwlyn was awoken suddenly in the early glow of the morning.

A figure basked in blue light, Tilina in a low whisper, in a bleak tone, rousing her, and only her awake. “It is time,” she said, wearing a distant gaze that barely even met hers.

The apprehension, the fear, the crushing pressure clamping beat of her heart, all at once, they flooded back into her. Eshwlyn took a deep breath, felt the stream of air coating her lungs colder, dryer... autumn had ended, and winter had begun again.

“You will follow me to the courtyard,” Tilina went on, her eyes strangely tethered to the intricate patterns inscribed in the blue carpet by her feet. “Master will be expecting you there.”

Eshwlyn stared at the crimson-haired Knight, quick flashes of last night’s incident popping into her mind. Somehow, Tilina looked even more worse for wear. Not a single mark on her face, not a single strand of her hair astray, immaculate beyond all measure, and yet a thick air of misery clung onto her like a dark cloud shrouding the light, and like thunder, like rain from within, it was visible for all to see.

She pretended she couldn’t see it, asking instead, “And what of my sister?”

“Leave her, wake her, say farewell. I don’t care what you choose to do with her,” Tilina answered, turning and striding away soon after, more weary than impatient. “Just hurry with it, I wish not to loiter.”

.....

In her slumber, Lenora lightly stirred, and as if at instinct, held tighter onto her sister by the waist. The bed was a crumpled mess of tangled limbs and white hair intermeshing. It seemed like only a few minutes ago they were still wide-awake deep into the night, neither of them wanting to sleep, for a single second to even pass any longer. In each other’s arms, not a single sound between them but the silence of each other’s breaths.

Now Lenora had never looked more peaceful, and never more had she resembled her former self than when basked in the blue hue of early winter, blissfully asleep... blissfully unaware.

Perhaps a little selfishly, a little greedily, she wanted to keep her that way for as long as she could. Whatever happens next, she thought it best if she was spared of the sight.

Discreetly, Eshwlyn did her best to untangle herself without disturbing her sister’s sleep. Drawing her arms away, scrambling out of bed, she could already hear Lenora’s outrage in her mind if only she knew; how it was not fair for her to do that, how it was not her decision to make...

But Eshwlyn made it anyway.

For possibly the final time she would be able to, Eshwlyn looked down at her sister... an obvious mistake, because now her body absolutely refused to move a single inch away. Yet closer to her, how easily she found her muscles sway, slowly leaning over, lowering her lips to her sister’s forehead, planting a kiss, blinking, her eyes burning wet.

“I’m sorry,” Eshwlyn whispered. “Ai’nora, Lenora.”

Lenora.

She always thought the most fitting name for someone like her. So different, so caring, so kind, loving... so many diffrent words to describe her, but in Elvish, in their tongue, you only needed one.

Nora.

“No need for your sword,” Tilina said, watching Eshwlyn almost reach for it from outside the doorway. “The procedure requires only you as you are.”

So leaving her blade be, Eshwlyn promptly joined the gloomy Knight onward through the empty halls of blue. The sound of silence was an all too glaring presence among them, one that neither Elf dared to interrupt. Both too deeply encumbered in thought to even try.

Closer and closer, her heart beating faster and faster, turning a final corner, reaching the end of a familiar hall. How many more steps did she have? How many more seconds were there left? Just how many...

“Your courage is to be commended,” in a mutter, Tilina stood paused before a set of closed doors, her head slightly turned back at her in the smallest glance. “But just be forewarned, courage is not what will save you now.”

“What?” Eshwlyn asked, the sudden broken quiet catching her slightly off-guard.

“I hope you to fail,” Tilina continued, speaking aloud and without any sense of purpose. “I hope you succumb to the Conversion’s adverse effects. I hope dearly that Master is wrong about you.”

“Tilina, I...”

“As an Elf, I hold a tremendous amount of respect for you,” She spoke over her, hearing nothing, heeding nothing. “You are potentially the greatest of our kind. Perhaps in the right circumstance, equal to that of the Bright Lord Himself. And for that, you are a marvel to behold in my eyes. But as a Knight...”

Tilina then finally looked forward at her. Her golden eyes dead of its bright luster, empty of life, of vigor, and within swirling only an infinite pit of hatred and spite.

“I sincerely wish you would just die,” she finished.

Then before Eshwlyn had the chance to say anything, Tilina sprang open the door, and in a harsh stream of cold air and morning light, she found herself being guided towards the inevitable. The expanse of the courtyard her stage, the ring etched at its center her fate.

There were already people present before them. A curious number of onlookers perched in the balconies above, and outside the circle, was a familiar robed man who was busy rifling through the infinite pages of his hovering black book. Eshwlyn scoured around, twice, thrice, the imposing figure of Wilvur nowhere to be seen. Then for a fourth, and feeling her chest grow heavier, it seems Terra was not anywhere within sight either.

historical

“Master will be here arriving shortly,” Tilina said as if reading her thoughts. “In the meantime, I suggest you pay your respects to the attending Magus while you wait.”

“Where will you be?” Eshwlyn quickly asked.

“Away,” Tilina drearily answered. “I have no more orders left to fulfill. Escorting you here, that was the final command requested of me.”

“Final?”

“Perhaps,” she flicked those same lifeless eyes at her. “That all entirely depends on what happens next.”

The Knight had already begun to move away, when Eshwlyn quickly turned towards her, unable any longer to repress her questions, “The Conversion. Tilina, I implore you. What can I expect? When Master arrives, when the ceremony’s begun... just what exactly am I entailed for?”

The faint crunch of grass momentarily halted, the light sway of crimson locks stagnating as the breeze gradually died away. The back of TIlina’s head moved an inch, slanting, contemplating, before with another inch, leveled itself again.

“Pain.”