[Severed Divinity] 84. Perspective

Jorin was cycling by the lake outside Welco’s mansion, his short, salt-and-pepper hair glinting in the sunlight. By the height of the sun, Isen estimated it was around eighth bell.

Isen saw a pile of belongings next to the cultivator, probably his stuff. Not wanting to interrupt Jorin’s cycling, he crept in close—

“You’re up,” Jorin said, his eyes snapping open.

Isen froze. “Good morning.”

Jorin stood to his full height and walked to Isen, looming over him. Then, he pulled Isen tight to his torso. “You gave me quite the scare.”

Isen flinched at the man’s touch, but eased into the gesture, hugging Jorin back. “I’m alright.”

Jorin stepped back. “Did you already speak with Kelsina?”

Isen nodded.

“Get dressed, then.” He gave Isen a look, then turned to the side, giving him some privacy. No one else was in the glade.

Among the bundle of cloth were fresh underclothes and one of Isen’s uniforms—Jorin must have retrieved them from his room. Even his tier two pin was fastened onto the fresh uniform’s breast. His belt was there, along with his sheathed weapons and pouches, though they all looked half-ruined, like someone had taken a grater to them. He’d need to replace them as soon as possible, before they fell apart. As he fastened the Blade of Erasmus to his belt, he resisted the urge to rip off a strip of cloth from his uniform to cover the tattered holes in its sheath.

“What about my boots?” Isen wondered.

Jorin turned around. “They were ruined when you arrived, burnt and abraded. You’ll need to get a new pair.” He inhaled deeply. “Isen, is there anything you want to share about last night, anything I won’t hear later from Welco or Kelsina?”

Isen shook his head. “I think it’s best you just wait for the patriarch to wake up.”

Jorin didn’t press him like Kelsina. “If you insist.”

“Relatedly... It’s rank day, but I think we all know how unstable the situation in Eldrassin is. Kelsina said we should just... not worry about any of that.”

“And you disagree.”

“Why should we act like everything’s okay when it isn’t? Welco almost died. The clan would fall apart without him. The situation is only going to become more dangerous.”

Suddenly, Jorin’s expression darkened. “Isen, you almost died.”

Isen just stared at him. Ironic, coming from you, he thought. “Your point?”

“You’re so young, so full of potential. Enjoy rank day and leave the rest to me, Kelsina, and the patriarch.” He frowned. “And Allezin, if he sticks around.”

Isen’s knuckles turned white from how tightly he clenched his fists. Leave things to the adults? Isen wished he had that luxury, but apparently without him, things fell apart.

Perhaps sensing his anger, Jorin entered a loose combat stance. “Care to spar?”

“Not really.” Still, he took his place across from the older cultivator.

“You hold an outsider’s perspective, so I can see why you might think our traditions and ways of doing things are frustrating.”

Isen advanced, unarmed, on the cultivator, jabbing toward his jaw. Jorin flowed with the movement and offered a riposte, which Isen dodged. Isen stepped back and for a moment they watched each other, unmoving.

Isen burst forward again, and the dance continued.

“You’re a bit better at fighting unarmed, but I still get the sense you’re holding back. Don’t.”

There wasn’t an easy way to explain why his nails were sharp enough to cut steel, so Isen didn’t have much of a choice. Still, as he fought with Jorin, he focused on control. How he moved his body, how he reacted.

“Do you know how old the world is, Isen?” Jorin suddenly asked.

The boy cocked his head. He didn’t.

“Millions of years, at least. So why is it, when we have gods that can live forever, and elves that boast the same, that most only live to be a few thousand years old?”

“Millions?” Isen asked, keeping his voice level. If the world was that old, then why did they not have more tier fours or tier fives? Were they just hiding? Had they gone somewhere else?

Had they killed each other?

“Millions,” Jorin confirmed.

“I thought the world was thousands of years old,” Isen confessed. Not all of existence, of course, but the new era—the one following the era that Legacy came from. “Shouldn’t we have done more, with more time?”

“Time leads to accumulation of power,” Jorin said, and it felt like a recitation. “Power leads to destruction and rebirth.”

Isen frowned. “So, what, high tiered people fight and wipe everything out?”

“Sometimes, but not necessarily,” Jorin replied. “Time itself also causes change. Continents break apart, jungles turn to desert, rivers turn flatland to canyon, oceans give way to land. We would find the world millions of years ago unrecognizable.”

Lady Jin had never talked about anything like that, and neither had Teacher Conrin.

“We all reach for eternity, but even those that supposedly grasp it disappear with nothing to mark their passage. At least, nothing that we know about,” Jorin added. “Do you know why I’m telling you this?”

“Not... exactly.”

“Because you lack perspective. What is Eldrassin’s conflict in the grand scheme of existence? Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing to us. It’s not nothing to everyone living here.”

“If one day you become a tier three, or attain heights even higher, I have a feeling you’ll see differently.” Jorin tipped his head. “Perspective.”

“You’re not even a tier three yourself.”

“You don’t need to be tier three to understand how the powerful see the world.”

“I don’t want to see the world like a tier three, then,” Isen said. “You’re saying that everyone is fated to die eventually, even the unaging elves that like to think of themselves as immortal, even gods. So why worry about how fate unfolds, when there is little we can do to shape it?” Isen’s voice grew louder with each word. “That is what you’re saying, isn’t it?”

“That’s one interpretation.”

Just think, what if everyone thought like me, instead of you? What if we all fought to save the city, rather than waiting for higher tiered people to decide its fate?

A city of over a million, plenty of whom were cultivators and mages, should be able to defend their home from a tier four—or at least orchestrate an evacuation. He’d thought, or at least hoped, that Lumina Eldrassin had a plan that would lure the foreign tier fours away from Eldrassin City, but now with the addition of the violet-eyed cultivator, he wasn’t so sure that would work.

“Do you speak like this with Teacher Conrin?” Jorin asked, raising an eyebrow.

Isen sighed. “No.”

The half elf shook his head and beckoned him. “Let’s get you back to your room.”

***

Jorin knew Isen was concealing how much he knew. His entry into the clan had been suspicious, but excusable as Welco serendipitously recruiting a talented cultivator. But for Allezin the Wanderer to ferry Welco and Isen back to the clan, both unconscious and near death...

Jorin didn’t yet understand what it all meant, but he wasn’t stupid. He could draw some tenuous conclusions.

Now, he didn’t know if Isen was even a real recruit. He’d thought the boy a novice cultivator, albeit a very talented one. So why had he been with Welco? And why was Allezin now involved, too? What else had Welco kept from him?

It was infuriating, because Jorin had started to let himself get attached to Isen. He wanted to train the teen, to see him grow. He saw in Isen a pillar of Clan Femera’s future.

But what if it was all a lie, from the very beginning?

“The range is empty,” Isen noted as they passed by the archery building.

“It’s rank day.” That was the only explanation needed.

As the footpath neared the clan, the sounds of chatter and jostling goods came into focus. When they reached the clan proper, Jorin chuckled at Isen’s expression.

“What... happened?” Isen asked, blinking.

Jorin’s response was cheerful. “Rank day.”

“But, half the clan’s buildings are missing!”

“Look a bit closer. Just the walls. Most of the interiors are still intact, to make for an easier transition. Depending on who becomes the prime between me and Kelsina, the floors might change, too.”

The rank day tradition was to strip out the walls, leaving only the supports and laying bare everything that the clansfolk possessed. It facilitated transitioning to new spaces according to rank updates, allowing people to shape those spaces to their liking.

It was a relief to see the clan so open after two months of feeling like they were living under funeral shrouds. The pure, windowless black was awful, and Kelsina deserved to be demoted just for picking it as her theme.

It seemed like others felt the same, as the air was festive despite the absence of most mages and the general malaise of uncertainty. Without walls, there was nowhere to hide, no place for privacy. It forced socialization and interaction for a few hours, even among the most hermit-like.

“They don’t know about the patriarch, do they?” Isen asked.

“No. It would cause needless panic.”

One of the first buildings they passed by was the wave-shaped building where Kelsina lived. The entire top part of the wave was missing, revealing Kelsina’s room. Beneath was the desk area where Isen had registered as a new recruit.

As they passed by the armory, Jorin tsked. “Unfortunately for your feet, today’s the worst day to need a new pair of shoes. Nobody is there to size you.”

“It’s fine. I’m used to being barefoot.”

As they walked through the residential area, Jorin noticed how Isen’s eyes trailed slightly longer on the families. When elves reached majority, they separated from their parents, so the only obvious family units were those with children. The other groupings were mostly a mix of friends and partners. Normally, family members all had their own business during the day, whether that be school, cultivating, training, or engaging in trades, the arts, and other intellectual pursuits. It was uncommon to see parents and children together in public, except during rest day and special events.

Isen never spoke of his parents, another mystery of many.

They reached Isen’s wall-less room without incident. “All you need to do is tidy up and sort your belongings into boxes, the black crates already in your room. How you pass the time until the rank reveal at noon is up to you.”

“Okay.” He shifted his weight. “Am I allowed to cultivate...?”

Gods, this child, Jorin lamented internally. “Try to at least be a little social.”

Isen gave him a weak smile. “Sure.”

“Isen.”

“Promise.”

With a nod, Jorin set off for the admin building. With most of the mages gone, he knew they’d need all the help they could get.