Half a day later.

On the horizon, the sky was bright despite the sun having already set several hours ago.

"Next time, I would appreciate it if you avoided inviting me to a place infested with wyrms. "

"I know, it's just that the lake was too beautiful. It just happened to be inhabited by wyrms. So I thought it would be fine as long as they remained deep underwater. Heon’s plongeon has made some of them rise to the surface. "

Somehow, she managed to stop a massacre from happening.

We were back on top of the mountain. We were just finishing dining.

Well, it was just grilled fish, so I was not sure if I could call that a "dinner".

"Yeah, but still, next time, just tell us first."

"Yes, I will. Speaking of which, where is Heon? "

"I don’t know, since you didn’t even let her have one of those wyrms, I suppose she went to find something for her."

"Ah…"

A cold breeze swept past us.

"Shiiiii… so cold. "

Despite the bonfire, we couldn't help but shiver due to the cold.

"It makes sense given how high this place is."

There is no such thing as a winter around here, but we were on top of the mountain, so it made sense for the weather to be somewhat colder, than below.

Engulfing the last bit of grilled fish, I announced, "I think, it should be around the time we get back."

"Actually, I thought about camping here. I thought a change of scenery would be nice. "

"Here? Camping here? "

"Euh,... Yes. I know it’s a bit cold, but I still think this place is a good place to camp in. You don’t want to? I mean, I can understand if you don’t want to. "

Heon was nowhere to be seen, yet.

She doesn't seem to realize what was wrong, but I suppose it won’t be long before she realizes it.

"Well, why not?"

I sat back down next to the bonfire.

"So, what do we talk about?" She asked out of the blue.

"Eh, I don’t know. What do you want to talk about? "

"I don’t know."

"I too."

"Okay."

"Yeah."

"Hum."

"Umu."

This went on for several minutes.

"Cough, cough."

"Okay, I admit it, I lost. But what the hell is wrong with this place? My butt hurts! " Nia complained.

"So you finally realize."

This place is atop a mountain. The ground here isn’t as soft and forgiving as elsewhere.

"Now try, laying on the ground."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

Though hesitantly, she executed herself.

"Ugh…"

"So? uncomfortable, isn’t it? "

She nodded silently.

"If you had planned to camp, you should’ve anticipated this. At least;you should’ve brought some draps to sleep on. "

Like a beaten puppy, she then didn’t answer, instead letting out an indecipherable squeak.

Was I too mean?

"Well, don’t take what I said too seriously. I was serious but didn't take them at heart. I know you brought me here to make me happy. So, I’m at least very thankful for that. "

I said, folding my top cloth to make an improvised cushion, I put it next to me and urged Nia to sit upon it.

With everything that happened this morning, I kind of forgot how embarrassing it is to have her around.

Why was I behaving weirdly in the first place?

That’s right, this is how normal things should be.

She approached, and took the seat I offered her.

Euh.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"What do you mean, nothing? That’s my lap, not a pillow. "

That’s right, right now she was lying down, her head was in my lap.

"I know."

Okay, forget everything about what I just said about finally being normal around her, I’m not, and this time, I finally got the reason for it..

Trying to cool the room and calm myself, I ventured,

"So, don’t you have any of your father’s stories to narrate? You know, right now I’m all ears.

She was about to say something, but instead chose to remain silent.

"Nia?"

Once again, no answer.

"I know, I’m nice, but serving as a pillow for-" I was suddenly interrupted by her raising her finger, urging me to remain silent.

"I thought about something lately. Do you think I would be like him later on? "

"Him?"

"My Uncle."

"Like him? I don’t get it? "

"Do you think I will be immortal like him? If 4000 years have passed since their ages, the one I came from. Then it would mean that Uncle was at least 4,000 years old. If father didn’t do what he did in order to save, he would’ve most likely ended up surviving that long, shouldn’t he? Then if I really had inherited his magic, then wouldn’t that mean that, I just like him, would live that long."

Oh, I finally understood what she meant.

I can see where she came from.

Immortality, lifespans, huh?

To be honest, that’s one thing I never really cared much about.

Starting from the coronation onward, death is something nobles are diligently preparing themselves for. And though the process of aging is merely visual and esthetic for the nobility, and it isn't felt physically until the last instants of a noble life, it is a well-accepted truth for them that death is inevitable. The best they can do is live a proud life and prepare for a dignified death, as their forefathers did before them.

But the idea that someone is somehow outside the grasp of death isn’t really that much of a surprise, especially for an apostle nicknamed "Eternal." Even in death, to a noble, it manifests itself in a very unique way, so yeah, I can see where she’s coming from.

If I were someone, a noble, raised with a completed noble upbringing, I'm sure the idea that Kiady, despite being an apostle, had lived this long here in those conditions we found him in, I'm sure this would've been something I would've been very shocked about.

"Are you afraid of living that long?"

"Yes, I mean... No, but it’s just that... it-"

Since she didn’t seem to know how exactly to describe it, I went ahead and proposed, "It kinda sucks, does it?"

"Yeah, that’s it!"

Well, one must admit that she did live and met two living proofs that immortality sucks in two very different ways.

For Solomon, it was about how lonely he was and how he lived before having Nia.

For Kiady, how he couldn’t handle the loneliness of being left by the one, you expected to share your eternity with.

In Kiady's case, I knew, or at least believed, that he fully embraced his eternity until he realized that he would spend it all alone.

"I know, maybe I should see this as something to be excited about, but, I don’t want to finish my life like my Uncle."

If Nia, as in both Kiady and Solomon’s cases, found someone to share her eternity with, immortality would most likely be somehow bearable, but I couldn’t bring myself to say that to her for many reasons, but also mainly because, even if she did find someone, time would eventually come; she would, if she was really like Kiady and Solomon, outlive that person. In this day and age, there aren't many people blessed or cursed with immortality. There was still that one option, but I didn’t want to talk about this with her.

You know, you still have some time to live your life as a "normal" human being.Why bother yourself with existential problems that are still years ahead of you? Besides, when you think of it, it could be too late for you already. " I said teasingly.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, look, we’re in the year 4015 A.A. You’re already easily well above the 4,000 year old, an ancestor among the ancestors. "

"Humph." she pouted.

"If we were to go through the genealogical you would be my Great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-" Before I could finish what could’ve been an endless stream of "great-great," she said.

"Hey, can I tell you something?"

"Hmm, what, so suddenly? Go on."

"My… heart won’t stop racing." She said, still with her head in my lap, I felt her gaze rising up at me.

This came out of nowhere.

Was the fish somehow poisonous?

"What?"

"I said, my heart won’t stop racing."

"I’ve heard that, but why are you telling me this?"

"It’s because it's what happens when you are around."

What am I supposed to say?

Sorry for it?

Though this really did come out of nowhere, this fact didn’t come across as much of a surprise.

As creepy as it is, I do use Aina daily, from fighting to the most basic of tasks.

Who says aina, says inhenced strength and senses.

Who says enhanced senses, says enhanced hearing.

There was no way I didn't notice how weirdly she, too, was starting to behave around me.

It is both of us that are reacting weirdly in each other’s presence.

And I must say it isn’t something particularly new.

This is also the reason, I think, why I chose to spend less time with her around, and it seems it somehow even made the whole situation worse.

"Hôn?"

"Sorry, I didn’t notice I had spaced out."

"As I said, my heart-"

"It’s okay, I’ve heard that part already."

She simply nodded.

"Hey, Nia, can I tell you something too?"

"What?"

"Mine too. My heart is pounding, when you are around, as it is the case, right now."

Sigh.

The cat is out of the bag now.

"You have noticed it, haven't you?"

She, like anyone else who uses Aina, must have noticed how I was reacting to her presence.

Nodding, she asked, "Yes, what should I do?"

I really wish I had an answer.

I went silent for some time to think of what to say exactly.

"First, I’d like to say, I’m sorry."

"About what?"

"You must have noticed that I, though passive, have been avoiding you. I’m really sorry after that thing I did last year, I promised to be a friend, yet not long after that I started running away from you. "

Without giving her the opportunity to say anything, I continued.

"You know… I think protecting you from what might be awaiting you on the human continent was just an excuse. In truth, I think, I just wanted to keep you around. I even went as far as to bind you to me with my so-called friendship. "

"I think I took away from you the choice, I just gave you the illusion of one."

"All this time spent in these woods made me long for someone else’s presence. Which is most likely why I didn’t hold back my punch with Kiady, your Uncle. Maybe if I did, you and he would've gone to the human continent. "

"I won’t deny that this place has started messing with my mind. It’s just that I didn’t notice how it was affecting me. And I think it has also started affecting you. "

"What do you mean?"

"How you react to me, how I react to you, I think it is just because of this place. I don’t know what I should call it, what you feel or what I feel, but the thing is that there is no one else for what you feel to be poured onto, beside me."

"... I don’t understand."

So far, our relationship could be summed up as me making the decision for you.But this, I think you deserve the opportunity to choose for yourself. "

Heon, who came from wherever she came from, approached us and simply laid down, acting as a cushion for me.

"Since the day you were born, many things, choices, and opportunities have been stripped from you. You’ve always been bound by what you could do, and not what you wanted to do. To me, it is because your father sacrificed so much, to give you the opportunity to choose for yourself. "

"As I promised, I will take you to the human continent. Unlike what I said, you may have no enemies there, as I said you would. But then on, you will learn new things, meet new people, how it feels to be around people, and I’m sure you will experience a lot more than what you’ve experienced here during those past two years."

"Just think of it. There are things you want to do upon arriving on the human continent, don’t you?

" … I don’t know, yet."

"And that’s fine. If you haven’t figured it out yet, you most likely will once you’re there. There is so much you can choose from. On the human continent, you can become so much more.I haven’t seen much of it, but it is bigger, and much more diverse than anything you could’ve imagined from what I described. "

"What about you?"

"What? About me?"

"What will you do once you get there?"

What will I do, huh?

"I suppose, I’ll do what I have to do. That's the reason I started this whole journey in the first place. "

"But after that?"

"After that, I… to be honest, I don’t know. I will find out once I'm done with what I have to do. "

Having said this, a long silence took place, then she asked.

"I see... but you didn't answer my question. What should I do? " She asked in a rather sleepy voice.

"Ah, I didn’t answer that one question. Did I? "

"No, you didn’t."

"Besides what I just spouted, I’m pretty much as clueless as you are."

"But I can say, one thing for sure, despite how heart-throbbing and sometimes embarrassing it is to have you around, I still really appreciate your presence. Besides, talking to each other this way, open-heartedly, I like it. And as to what you should do, I have no idea. But isn’t being like this fine, at least until we reach the human continent. Don’t you think? "

My question received no answers.

By the end of my once again long speech, I expected no answer, for she had already given in to sleep.

I couldn't help but wonder, "Was my speech that boring?"

I wasn't sure whether it was intentional or not, but she nodded in her sleep.

In the end, the one being questioned, was left with no answer, when I gave my answer.

Well, I suppose this isn't that bad of an answer either.