Intermission: Book 2 act 1 side story.

Túeth’s POV

Túeth woke up in the children’s bed. She had gone to sleep cradling her daughter’s comatose body. She could hear the light breathing of the human children, snuggled in close to her chest, close to where Aerien was still being cradled in her arms.

She had felt numb all of last night. She had gone down the stairs, taking Aerien along and allowing her human to follow on foot. Those tiny human children seemed rather mobile. She had heard that humans typically had a harder time walking than an elf child at the same stage of development, a counter balance for the fact that they developed so much faster. Since they grew so fast, they were unable to control their rapidly growing bodies as well as an elf child. However, this child moved every single bit as well as the elven 6 year old it looked like in terms of height and development.

Thanks to this, Túeth thankfully did not have to worry about Aerien’s human, and it followed along behind her dutifully. When she got downstairs to the children’s room, she gathered both of the humans to either side of her and sat on the bed, ordering them to stay by her side and close to Aerien.

Master Eirlathion had said her spirit was badly damaged. With her in this state, all she could do for her daughter would be to make sure she had plenty of spirit energy. If Aerien ran short, she really could loose her. That was why she couldn’t let go of her daughter for even a second. When she could fade and vanish at any second, Túeth wanted to give her daughter the one thing she had never given her. The one thing she always craved and cried over when she refused it. All this child had wanted was simply to be with her mother, but that mother was always too frightened to give it.

Túeth was numb over everything that had happened. She could only stare down at her daughter. Her mind flashed back to the horrible night that resulted in her conception. On that night, the entire village was lost. Everything she had known was lost. The people of this village were kind enough to help her, giving her what she needed to recover. They were overjoyed at the fact she was pregnant, but she knew that they could only be the children of one of the tainted men who violated her.

These girls... they were nothing but a reminder of that horrible night. They were also grey elves, destined only to die once they were discovered. For these reasons, she had never allowed herself to become attached to them. Now, as she held her daughter, she wondered if maybe Aerien might not have had such a severe reaction if she had allowed her to experience her mother’s warmth.

She always cried out every single time Túeth entered the room. She did not know or care about the dark thoughts her mother harbored toward her. She cried out for this unfit mother for no reason other than the fact that she was her mother.

As Túeth confirmed Aerien was still in her arms, she began to rest more easily. She had remained with them through the night. A part of Túeth, a dark part that disgusted her, wondered wither or not it would really be a bad thing if she had vanished. She clutched her daughter close to her chest as her body shook with that thought. This dark part of her had kept cropping up even last night as she stared at her comatose daughter limply laying in her arms. She found herself eyeing the weak child’s neck on several occasions, and every time a cold shiver would run down her spine that she could even have such thoughts.

A short time in, her other daughter, Gaerien, had crawled onto her lap with a face of apparent concern for her sister. This child was not even a year old, and she was already showing emotions like that. A normal child her age would not even be able to do anything other than sleep and occasionally cry. They wouldn’t even be able to supplement themselves with solid food, so they required an incredible amount of spirit energy in order to remove their need for food. However, both these girls were able to move about and do so much more than a child their age should be capable of.

Túeth had thought at first it was only Aerien that was so unusual, but it was starting to look like Gaerien only went unnoticed because she was the more quiet of the two. In this time of weakness, Túeth actually felt immensely greatful for her other daughter. Seeing her look with so much concern for her sister and going up to hold onto her hand, that heart melting moment was all that it took to banish those dark thoughts she was having from her mind. She couldn’t possibly harm this child when she saw her sister looking at her like that.

“Gaerien, I’m such a horrible mother.” She had said to her as she pulled the child in for a hug, holding the both of them, one in each arm, until finally Gaerien became restless and started trying to get away. It was only then she noticed how Gaerien had glared at her. Those eyes her daughter looked at her with. She was only an infant, but it was as though her eyes held a condemnation in them. It was like she knew all of her own mother’s sins, and was judging her guilty for all of them.

A moment later, tears started to fill her eyes and she began wailing loudly and flopping her legs and fists about on the mattress. This shocked her. Where was this sudden behavior coming from? Túeth tried to reach out for her loudly wailing daughter, but every time she reached her hand forward Gaerien directed a swinging arm right at her hand and batted it away.

Before when it was just a look, Túeth was prepared to dismiss it as just her imagination. But, now that she clearly showed her hostility toward her mother, there was really no doubt. Gaerien was also really smart, just like Aerien. But, unlike Aerien who always cried whenever she wouldn’t show them love, Gaerien seemed to really hate her. Well, it’s not like she didn’t have good reason. Could it have been different if she showed them love back when Aerien was begging for her? Maybe the reason Gaerien hated her now was because she kept turning her back on them.

Yes, Master Eirlathion always talked about how frighteningly smart Aerien was. Well, there was no doubt about it now. Gaerien was also every single bit as terrifyingly smart, and now thanks to her mother’s mistakes she was clearly going to also be every single bit as difficult to deal with as a result.

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Gaerien’s POV

Honestly, how is it possible for everything to fall apart suddenly like this? Who sends an assassin in to attack an infant of all things!? Gaerien was shocked by the events that had happened recently. She was still reeling to catch up with it. And also, what are her divine powers for if she can’t act? If that assassin had come after her instead of Aerien, she could have simply filled him with divine energy and destroyed his spirit. There would have been no need for any of this to have happened to Aerien.

Now, THAT WOMAN was here and wouldn’t let Aerien go. Gaerien never really understood why her sister was so attached to that woman, just because she was their mother in this life. Ever since Gaerien had first seen her she had hated her. No, it was even long before that.‘It would have been better if those girls were dead.’ That prayer was constantly reaching Gaerien’s ears for almost her entire life up until this moment. And, the very second this woman walked into the room for the first time, Gaerien immediately recognized her energy. She had finally found the source of that prayer.

She seemed to be riddled with guilt over her own past thoughts. Clearly she was weak of mind and of spirit. Gaerien almost derived some pleasure over how much the woman was torturing herself over her earlier transgressions of thought. Having been tortured for moths with an unseen source that wished for her death had caused her no end of mental anguish. She was unsure of what she would have done if it weren’t for Aerien being there for her to talk to, and how she kept her mind occupied with all those exercises in order to “improve her neural pathways.” The distraction this provided gave her a much needed reprieve from that malicious prayer and kept her from going crazy.

Gaerien thought the torture would be over now and she could just enjoy the sound of her suffering thoughts. However, after this, she had to watch the younger side of her sister pining after this woman, and the weak coward ran from Aerien every single time no matter how hard she begged and cried. The kid was different from the Aerien she knew, but the kid was still a part of her sister. Really, it was almost like having two sisters in one, even though one of them was masculine in spirit. The point is, the kid was really torn up about being abandoned by her mother.

Gaerien was never going to forgive this woman for abandoning them and wishing death on them. She was aware that she had her troubled past, Aerien had even figured out a part of it on her own without needing to be told anything. She didn’t even know the half of how tortured this woman was though. However, none of that past mattered. She had a hard time? Well, how about the children she abandoned!?

There were mothers on Earth who abandoned their children to the church to be raised as nuns or monks. Those were women who knew they couldn’t care for their children, but still wanted them to have a chance to live. There were also mothers on Earth who abandoned their infant children in the wilderness or in trash heaps. Those were women worthy of contempt. Going by the thoughts this woman had, thoughts Gaerien had to be constantly subjected to for the entirety of this life, the only reason she had not abandoned them to the trash heap was because she gave birth in this village where the other people went to eagerly care for them.

It had been all Gaerien could do to let this woman who wanted to call herself their mother NOW of all times to hold her. The only reason she did it was so that she could be in contact with Aerien, so that she could communicate with her and figure out what was going on. She was so glad the old man seemed to be perfectly fine. That side of her sister was not in any danger. However, it seemed the state the kid was in was pretty bad. She was being kept alive only by the constant attention and supervision provided by the old man.

She had teased the old man when he said he was going to keep them together, but in truth she really couldn’t have been happier. For one thing, she needed her sister in order to use the meditation she had decided to practice. She wouldn’t be able to make any progress without her. So, there was definitely some self interest here. However, Aerien was also the only real source of companionship she had felt in this world. The boys from Earth were Ok at best, but they were just too young to be interesting.

Aerien was not all that much older than the boys in her past life, but she was someone who had made a point to live a lot of life and fill themselves with experiences. In the short mortal life of 60 years, Aerien in her previous life had gained a level of wisdom that would easily allow her to verbally joust with the gods. If she were a few millennia older, no, if she could gain that much in just 60 years then she may only need a few centuries to gain the depth of experience necessary to be indistinguishable from the gods of the various pantheons before that one selfish god showed up.

Yes, keeping them together would be ideal. It would be especially good if they could all be together in the fae queen’s castle and away from that woman. She couldn’t convince the kid before. Maybe now she might be able to convince the old man it was better to just cut that woman out of their lives. Now would be the perfect opportunity for it too. Once they are taken by the fae queen, it would be a matter of special effort to include that woman as well.

Author's note

Yeah, I actually meant for THIS to be the last chapter of the village in chaos arc, but then when I finished it I realized it absolutely did not advance the plot at all and was completely necessary. I still put in the work though, so now I'm including it as a side story.

(I guess this means the intermissions are side stories for this book. I will try and make the next side story a little more meaningful.)

Subscribers' quote of the chapter

"No don't abandon your mom! I mean yeah she's troubled and was tempted to kill you but she never acted on it."

-meowingLexi

"I have faith in love! They will become a normal family in the future!"

- Lord Fufundra

"She needs to talk to Aerien and figure this out. I mean yeah death prayers aren't healthy for anyone but leaving your mom behind when your sister said she wants a relationship is even worse."

- meowingLexi