Li sat in the fields. He gazed at the moonlit heads of wheat now empty and stripped of their grain. They looked ghostly, like pale and barren bones sticking up from the ground. Thankfully, they did not seem to deteriorate as quickly as they grew. Once the life they nurtured – the grain – left their stalks, the wheat seemed to revert to normalcy.
Zagan stirred beside Li as he gazed at the skeletal stalks of wheat. The demon had no concept of agriculture, but still nodded in appreciation of the mere fact that what lay sprawled before him was the fruit of his master's labor.
Li had come out here because he did not want to interfere with the family bonding that was going on in the cottage. He wasn't part of that family, so he wanted to give them the time to talk among each other without the awkward presence of a third party involved.
"Great One, a human presence disturbs us," rang Zagan's voice in Li's head.
Li stood up and turned around to see Azhar watching him from the edge of the fields, his tanned body illuminated almost white under the full and heavy moon. The shaman ranger had his arms crossed and his gaze, normally straightforwards and confident, almost piercing, could no longer meet Li's eyes directly.
"Are you three leaving?" called out Li. "Give me a second. I'll see you all out."
Li walked through the wheat fields. He moved through the stalks with seamless movement, almost as if the wheat itself were bowing and parting for him. When he got in front of Azhar, the hinterlander nodded gravley to Li.
"There's that," said Azhar. "But I got something else to talk to you bout'."
Li felt Zagan's presence emanate from behind him as the demon trotted around his feet, but he waved his hand, indicating that there was no threat present. The demon understood, moving a distance away to lie down on soft, flat grass.
"What is it?" said Li.
"You ain't human, are you?"
"Hm. I wonder." Li narrowed his eyes. "What makes you feel that way?"
Azhar took in a stifled breath through his teeth. "When I tried to feel your soul, I damn near killed myself. Saw a storm of darkness ragin' harder than any spiritual vortex I ever seen, all pure power and chaos and destruction. If I made even a single step further near that, it woulda' torn me apart to a million pieces, swallowed up my soul whole and left nothin' but a dumb and droolin' husk.
I got an idea of what you are. Some kinda god, that's for damn sure, but not the kind everyone round' here worships. You're real old divinity. There's waters round' my home that's got a mighty powerful evil inside it. Some of us hinterlanders get to dip our hands in em' waters, part of a ritual to unlock our shamanism, and I felt the same dread there same as I feel from you."
Li shrugged. "And what will you do about it? If I recall, the Adventurer's Code means that you're obligated to kill any monsters or inhumans that you feel pose not only a present threat, but also a future one."
"Hells if I know," said Azhar. "You ain't strikin' me as the world endin' type that them blind soothsayers toot their horns about. In that sea of cold ya got inside you, there's some warmth in there, some of it that let my soul stay alive. And I ain't no seer nor priest. I ain't an expert on this kinda stuff, I only go with my gut feelin', and my gut tells me you're as good as they come."
"Then we don't have a problem, do we?"
"Actually, we do."
Li raised a brow.
Azhar looked back at the cottage. The lights were still on, and through the windows, the happy shadows of figures making merriment flickered. He looked from the cottage to Li repeatedly, his expression growing increasingly more conflicted each time.
Li waited. It was entirely up to Azhar how this situation would play out.
Eventually, Azhar shook his head before prostrating himself on the ground, his forehead crashing into the dirt. Li was surprised, but he did not show it, and instead waited for Azhar to explain himself.
"I ain't never prayed to a god in my life before, but I'm doin' it now. I don't know what you want, what you need, but I'll give ya my prayers, my faith, whatever it is, if you can keep em' two safe."
Li remained silent, taking in the turn of events.
Azhar, feeling the silence, continued to explain himself. He raised his head from the ground to look at Li, specks of dirt clumped on his forehead. Upon his face was earnest drive, his pride completely wiped away with an almost desperate look.
"My life ain't worth nothin', but they'll change the world, I'm damn sure of it, so they gotta live. When I was young, I made that same promise with em' to make the world better, but I only ever made it to stay with em'. At the end of the day, I ain't care bout' nothin' except their safety and where my next meal's gonna come from. But they've got real dreams and real drive and, most important of all, real strength.
I've reached my peak. I can feel it – I ain't gonna get much stronger from here. But Sylv? She trains all day, gets better every moment. Jeanne's already way ahead of us, damn near ahead of being human entirely. Compared to them, I'm just an orphan lowlife. Soon enough, I ain't gonna have the means to keep em' safe, and when that happens, I want to know I can pray to a god that's gonna actually do somethin'."
Li shook his head and knelt down. He placed a hand on Azhar's shoulder. It was almost a comforting gesture, but Li's next words were, "You're a fool."
Shock wreathed Azhar's face.
Li patted Azhar's shoulder before he stood up. "You don't want a god, you want a wishing machine, and I can't be that. I have my own responsibilities on this farm.
If you truly care about them, then it's your responsibility to do as much as you can for them. You're giving up while they're training and improving themselves every single day. You say they have drive and dreams, but there's nothing stopping you from finding your own.
Stand up and come back to me when you've done everything, and I mean absolutely everything, you can yourself. Before then, heed my words: all I am to you is just a farmer."
_______________________________
The next morning took on an idyllic pace for once. When Li had left, Old Thane had broken out drinks, and, surprisingly, he had drunk enough to get himself to sleep in today. Triple Threat had left promptly without much issue. Azhar hadn't responded to Li, but he had given Li a nod of determination that Li took to be a good sign.
For now, this stable farming life would still go on. Li couldn't re-plant the fields just yet with all the wheat stalks lying around, and though he could technically get the Myrmeke to drive the stalks all underground, he wanted to do everything related with the planting process with Old Thane again.
So for today, Li decided to man the stall again with Iona.
"It is good to see you again," said Iona as she worked at the table, piping drops of herbal extract into this beaker and that. The sound of boiling water bubbled throughout the stall and a sickeningly sweet smell cloyed heavy in the air. Today, they were making more healing mixtures again, and they tended to smell better than other ones.
"Good to be here as well. How'd you hold up without me?" Li sat at the counter, a bored hand supporting his chin. Business today was slow, very likely because, as Triple Threat had informed him the night before, the duchess and her royal escort were leaving Riviera, and even her leaving was an event worthy enough to draw the attention of all the citizens and adventurers.
"Not well, no. Not many adventurers roamed the woods the past few days, so I could not sell as many elixirs as you would have liked."
"I don't really have strong feelings about how much we sell. It's more that I enjoy the work. Reminds me of my labwork. And when did you get hung up over mortal concepts of selling and buying?"
"An adventurer, though I despise their kind, explained it to me. Due to that Lerneas incident, few were willing to venture to the woods in recent times, and with no dangerous ventures came no need for our elixirs." Iona shrugged before stirring a boiling beaker filled with smoking green liquid.
"He questioned why I made more elixirs while none bought our current supply. Said it would sink our business even further in these trying times. Offered to finance us through a…contract? Though I doubt he was speaking of a spiritual one."
Li rolled his eyes. "What did he look like?"
"All humans look rather similar to me." Iona paused for a bit as she remembered. "Hm. He wore shining armor and wielded a shield."
"Oh, that explains the talk about a contract," said Li. It was Launcelot and his desire to get exclusive access to their elixirs while at the same time satisfying his noble and generous heart by financing a stall that he probably thought was failing.
Li wondered why Launcelot was already up and about, going into the Winterwoods even when he had been so thoroughly beaten by the Lerneas just two days prior, but he didn't pay it too much mind. There were more interesting matters at hand.
"Anyways, you don't have to pay attention to him all that much." Li withdrew the duchess's seed pouch from his pocket it and placed it on the counter. "When you're done with that batch of [Restoration], there's something I want you to see."
___________________________
Li watched as Iona sat on a stool in front of him. She had her pale hand outstretched, the golden wheat seeds he had saved piled atop her palm. Her eyes were closed as her amber hair began to flutter as she focused on the seed's life signature.
Li had closed the shutters for the stall as he figured there wasn't going to be much business today anyway, and he kept close attention on Iona, waiting for her response. He noted that though she looked far better than she did back at the test, when she was all skin and bones, she hadn't recovered much more from filling out just enough that her ribs didn't poke through her robes.
Iona opened her eyes wide, her mouth screwed into a questioning frown.
"Where did you get these?" she asked with more urgency than Li was used to hearing.
"Why?"
"These are utterly, how should I put it, alien, yes, yes." Iona nodded twice. "They do not hold the signature of any life I have ever known."
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