Chapter 1002: Left Wanting
This woman… was she really about to strip us both naked right there and then? And yet even as I thought it, fully understood the absurdity of it, I still had to fight tooth and nail just to keep myself from going along with it.
"Adalia's here," I said, making sure to not breathe in too much of her. "You said before—she's listening, watching. She can see everything, right?"
"She doesn't mind watching," Ruria said with such absolute certainty, confidence, it's like I could almost believe it. She then threw a look at me, a little leer in her gaze. "And I don't mind being watched either."
Yeah. She's lost it.
I tried to say something else, but whatever rebuttal I might've had was instantly smothered; suddenly her lips were latched onto mine. She pressed, and she pushed, and I knew I shouldn't give in… but what can you do when even your body stops listening to you?
My eyelids began to droop, and everything in sight just seemed to clear away like wind to sand… but just right before my vision could completely dissipate, I spotted it—a lone silhouette standing amid the blurred sway of dancers.
Then, a voice.
"I hope I'm not interrupting something."
How firm it resonated, that familiar low boom; immediately I snapped out of my trance and my gaze went wide. At the same time, Ruria unwrapped herself from me, spinning around so quickly it was hard to tell which one of us was caught more off guard. However, it wasn't much of a mystery as to who was more aggrieved.
The figure slowly moved closer, phasing through the dancers that'd occasionally twirl themselves onto his path. I could see it better now: the hard blankness in his expression, the scruffiness in his appearance—as if perpetually plowing fields for planting—but it was really the air, this indescribable aura about him that never fails to instantly set him apart, no matter the occasion.
Or maybe that's just how all children see their fathers.
Ruria spoke up, the warmth and affection gone from her voice, "What are you doing here?"
"I'm sure you already know that," Dad answered. He stopped a few meters away, standing in a little oasis where not a single dancer trod upon him. "You agreed to meet with me, didn't you?"
That's twice now.
A deeply intimate moment one second, a deeply mortifying one the next.
When Adalia caught me getting a little rambunctious with Irene earlier; sure, it was embarrassing as all hell, but at least that was the extent of it: a quick solitary moment of awkwardness. The End. Full stop.
Now Dad's here, appearing as if fate itself had conjured and manifested him from the ground, predestined to bear witness here today as his only son shamelessly drools all over the lips of some woman that was practically a stranger to him.
And with that… it just occurred to me that this was the first time they were meeting each other face to face.
This just keeps getting better and better.
Alas, can't blame the unfeeling calculus of the universe for this conundrum this time. It wasn't fate that brought him here; it was me… me and my filiality and curiosity.
Only… I didn't expect he'd barge into Ruria's memories like this.
How'd he even get in here in the first place? And did he really want to talk to her so badly that he'd even willingly breach the sanctity of a self-made illusory world?
Ruria seemed to be in the same line of thinking, her narrow tail swishing quickly like the lash of a whip as she spoke, "Tell me, did all those years of heroism make you lose all sense of personal boundaries, or are you just this way in general?"
"Yeah, Dad," sensing danger, I stepped forward, putting myself between Ruria's dangerous glare and Dad's blank one. "What are you doing in here?"
A giggling couple twirled their way by him, and when they cleared out of view, Dad's bearing was a little different: hunched, itching the back of his neck with a stiff look in his eyes—a thinking one.
"The other girl outside. She said I could come in. She let me through," he said, the familiar boom in his voice distinctly lacking. "She said you wouldn't mind."
"She said—what?" I glanced left; nobody was there, of course. But say, if there were, it'd be real s'well of them to show up and explain themselves.
Either Adalia genuinely thought we wouldn't mind at all if Dad third-wheeled our little private outing… or Ruria was woefully mistaken in her claim that Adalia wouldn't mind allowing us free rein to do as we please in here. Birthday gift or not.
At this point, with how intensely Ruria was staring Dad down like a dragon ready to torch some poor knight who had wandered into her domain, I doubt any explanation would have placated her.
She spoke again, and sure enough, I could still hear the fire smoldering in her voice, "And that was the most sensible option to you? It wasn't staying put out there? Waiting until we're done?"
"Done with that?" Dad asked, head held high again and his eyes forward and firm. "What were you doing?"
Suddenly, silence. A strange, suffocating silence… only not as strange nor as suffocating as the flinch that broke through Ruria's scowl upon hearing the question. She wasn't the type to blush easy, but even if she was… it was quite fortunate for her that she was already very red.
"Nothing," I quickly answered for her. The mood was already tense enough here, no point exacerbating it with unnecessary questions and even more unnecessary answers.
I knew Dad wasn't the nosy type; that if something wasn't worth knowing, then he wouldn't put up much of an effort knowing it, and luckily, the matter of Ruria and I was of no exception to this fundamental law of life.
Again, he spoke, with everything else prior already shriveled and sapped of all interest to him.
"I felt a tremor before I got here. A big one," he said, pausing a moment to stare at me, to appraise. "That was yours, wasn't it?"
I shook my head. "Not exactly. Mine weren't even a fraction compared to the one you felt. We had Adalia bite me for that, get rid of all mental blocks—just a test. That wasn't really…"
"It was yours," he said bluntly. "Expelling magic to the earth. Not easy. And you're there so fast. She's teaching you well."
Dad's eyes found Ruria's again by the end of his sentence… and really, I wish he'd just cut it out with that. It's only pissing her off more and I honestly doubt—dense as he was at times—that it had escaped his notice.
Just look at me, won't you? I'm your son, not her. Priority-wise, she's a random stick in a forest. A beautiful stick, admittedly… but yeah.
"Didn't you have something you wanted to say to me?" Ruria spoke in a quiet that felt all but cordial. "Speak, then. Keep it short. Leave as soon as you're finished."
"I came here to talk, not just to say something."
"Then talk," Ruria's tail whipped the ground with a muffled crack. "Talk."
The longer these two remained in each other's presence, the more I was beginning to think this might have been a big mistake. Alas, it was way too late for 'never mind' to make this all go away. The only way out through this now all depended on how quickly Dad wanted this over with as much as the rest of us.
Unfortunately, I know the man enough to know he'd much rather take things at his own pace.
"You don't like me," he muttered.
If he expected her to go on a tangent explaining her scowl, Ruria wasn't biting. She was quiet, still waiting on rapidly wearing patience to hear what he came for.
"I understand. There's a lot I have to answer for… and a lot I had gotten away with."
There he goes again, setting her up for some casual conservation she had no intention of partaking.
"I only have a single question for you. For now, that's all I have. I might have more, I don't know. It all depends on where we go from here. Apart from that, I've also wanted to inquire regarding—"
Dad stopped; another happy couple had waltzed their way through the middle of his words. Just another unassuming pair out of dozens, but for some reason these two had caught his interest like nothing else had.
They were a husband and wife pair…at least based on what I could glean from a glance. They also weren't dancing as well as everyone else—slow, rigid—but the moment they drifted closer my way, I realized why: the lady was pregnant.
"Lyla and Richard," Dad muttered.
"You know them?" I asked.
His eyes continued to follow the two, and with the added context, suddenly his stare felt a whole lot more than just a stare.
"A fine archer. Richard. Nearly lost his life when his brigade was ambushed in a siege attempting to break into a tomb of the Seven Bishops. He was one of the soldiers I managed to save. His wife afterward—Lyla sought me out to thank me. Said they were forever grateful to me. I never saw them again, but every month, they'd send me a Wol—a message sent through magic. Letters transcribed via the aid of a Magus can be expensive the further away the receiver, but that didn't stop them. Last time I heard from them, Lyla had already given birth, a boy… and that they had named him after me."
Dad slowly spun in place, gazing about and taking everything within sight—the banners draped across the many buildings, the gold-silver slopes and mounds off in the distant horizon, the long shadow of the Magus tower looming from on high amidst the ethereal, vast purple skies—he gave everything a good long look.
"Ulitia, one of the seven lasting settlements created by the Divines. I know this place. They always said that I should come visit someday. See the family I helped mould, they told me," he stopped exploring, his gaze once more settling on the happy couple as they slowly drifted out of sight into the crowd, still in one another's loving embrace. "I never did."