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Ch183-Lessons For The Learned

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With Tera and the children asleep, the only people left awake were Sylver and Bruno. They both sat on the roof of the house and silently watched the various chimeras going about their day. Or rather, night, since the bioluminescent hexagons in the ceiling had somewhat dimmed.

Sylver swirled the cold drink in his hand and made the ice spheres floating around in it clink as they hit the metal rim. In the distance he could see where Morana was hanging from her string, her bone-white cocoon had turned an off-color yellow.

“Tell me about the priests that came looking for me,” Sylver said.

He didn’t need to look to see the grimace that formed on Bruno’s face, he could hear it in his voice. He also saw that the snake chimera, Slinky, had perked up, and was now silently slithering towards the house.

“In regards to what they will do outside of Arda, I cannot say. But I promise you, no one who is looking for you because of the curse on Kitty’s family, will ever set foot here again. Lola can be very persuasive when she wants to be,” Bruno answered.

Sylver waited for the old man to carry on.

Slinky arrived at the house and coiled himself. He lifted his head towards the roof of the house, and after flickering his tongue at the two men, returned to the ground and went back to guarding the main entrance.

“It’s handled Syl. I would prefer not to talk about it any further,” Bruno said.

Sylver shrugged his shoulders and took a sip from his mug.

“If it’s handled, it’s handled. How much does Tera know?” Sylver asked.

With his near 360 degrees vision, he could see the way Bruno’s face contorted at the question.

“I slipped up a couple of times around her. Mentioned countries that no longer exist, referred to some ingredients using a name that hasn’t been used for centuries, my choice of framework is allegedly outdated, and she assumed there was something strange about me from the get-go because I am associated with you,” Bruno explained.

Sylver quietly nodded.

“I’d like to tell her everything. About me, I mean. Probably Faust too, we’re kind of a package deal,” Bruno said.

“Do you think it’s a good idea?” Sylver asked after a few moments of thinking it over.

“She’s under my protection. If someone wants to get to her, they would have to go through me first,” Bruno said.

“I know, but that wasn’t what I asked,” Sylver said calmly.

Bruno’s hand tightened around his mug for a moment and caused his knuckles to turn slightly white.

“No. I don’t think it’s a good idea. She might decide that she doesn’t want to be married to a man who, even if you ignore my past lives, is a monster. I know you said you don’t want to know, but I’ve done things Syl. If I tell her and she doesn’t accept it, what do I… What if she decides to take it out on the babies? Their father is a monster among monsters, Tera is an alchemist, she could probably whip up a potion to get rid of them before I finished talking,” Bruno explained, and Sylver suddenly regretted the fact that he chose this topic.

“If I don’t tell her, and the children are born… I thought she was… I assumed, I never thought to actually ask. I do realize this is all something I should have considered before marrying her, but she just sort of wedged herself into my life, and then 5 years passed, and now I’m here,” Bruno added.

He and Sylver sat there in silence and continued to watch the light orange cows lazily move within their pasture.

“Tell her everything,” Sylver said.

“What?” Bruno asked.

“Tell her everything. Sit her down, start where you think is best, and answer any questions she may have. Whatever you do, don’t lie. Because if she catches you in a lie, no matter how small it is, you’re done. If you lied about this, maybe you lied about something else? You say you did so and so, but you’re a liar, you probably did something worse,” Sylver said matter of factly.

Bruno took a drink from his mug while he thought it over, and his hesitation pissed Sylver off a little.

“Why are you like this? You’ve had wives in your past lives, did you really not tell them anything? I’m fairly certain I remember you mentioning children too, what’s going on?” Sylver asked.

“What’s going on is that this is the first time anything’s felt real. I always had this feeling, even when I thought I was a normal person, that whatever it is I’m doing, whoever it is I’m with, it’s temporary. Just something to pass the time, like a snack after you had lunch but it isn’t time for dinner,” Bruno explained, and despite how crude the metaphor was, Sylver understood exactly what he was trying to say.

“And you feel differently now?”

“I don’t know how else to say it, everything just feels so much more real. The food tastes like something, I talk to people and I can remember what they said, I can picture their faces, I wake up and I’m excited for what I’m going to be doing during the day. Tera nearly got eaten by one of the new chimeras once, and I can’t describe the speed at which I felt everything inside me turn hollow,” Bruno explained.

“Your soul might have been stabilized by being put into a simple body… Or, the more likely answer, is that you imprinted yourself onto Tera, or this house, or Arda, either of which would theoretically be enough to function as an anchor…” Sylver guessed, although without cracking Bruno’s soul open, which was deep down in a dungeon far far away, he couldn’t say for sure.

“Can I be honest with you?” Bruno asked.

“I’m almost insulted that you have to ask.”

“It’s Faust,”

“What about him?”

“He’s just… I’ve killed him before, tortured him, and who knows what else… I’ve seen him lose his family, his wife, children, parents, I’ve even taken some of them away from him, but he had this look that night. When Mira broke off the engagement, he came to see me. And it wasn’t anything he said, but he had this sadness within him, I could almost touch it,” Bruno said.

“I get it, and now you’re worried you’re going to feel the same if you tell Tera the truth, and she decides to leave you,” Sylver said, as Bruno sullenly nodded along.

There was another silence.

“Tell her anyway,” Sylver doubled down.

“What if-”

“My advice, as an ancient lich, and more importantly, as a man that has been in a very similar situation, tell her. Everything. If you at any point feel like something isn’t worth mentioning, mention it,” Sylver offered.

Bruno brought his hand up to his face and rubbed his eyes, and then took a deep breath to calm himself down.

“The sooner you tell her, the better. Because if it ends poorly, and it might, you’re going to feel a million times worse if you tell her in a day, a month, a year, 10 years, that I promise you,” Sylver said.

He did his best not to sound bitter, but too many bad memories had been stirred up. They were as uncomfortable as getting a mouthful of fine ash.

“You love her, right?” Sylver asked.

Bruno almost stood up from his seat from the sheer amount of insult he felt.

“What kind of question is that, of course I love her!” Bruno snapped.

“Then if she rejects you, it’s going to hurt you so much you’re not going to believe it. It’ll be like finding an arrow sticking out of your chest, you look down but can’t even feel it. Then slowly, gradually, you will feel death breathing down the back of your neck, you will die before your heart has even stopped beating,” Sylver explained casually.

“I forget, are you trying to persuade me to tell her, or not tell her?” Bruno asked.

“I’m not trying to persuade you to do anything, the choice is ultimately yours. I’m just warning you how much it will suck if the woman you married, and are in the process of having 2 children with, decided to reject you, for being a god cursed monster,” Sylver said, and heard something not too far away from a nervous giggle from Bruno.

“You’re still alive, so I’m assuming it was bad, but you lived?” Bruno asked.

“Why did you marry her before you told her? Did Faust tell his fiancé, is that why they broke up?” Sylver asked.

“He didn’t tell her anything, I don’t know why they broke things off. As for Tera… I don’t know. I honestly don’t have an explanation for it. I felt at ease when I was with her, and she said she wanted to get married, and I liked seeing her happy. It sounds so stupid when I say it out loud, but that’s what it is,” Bruno explained, without actually explaining.

Sylver stood up from his seat and stretched out of habit, even though there was no point to it now.

“I’m going to go. But personally, from what I know about Tera, I think everything is going to work out well,” Sylver said to the old immortal.

He spread his arms out and hugged and patted each other on the back.

“Now that you’ve said it, I think I’ve got a good feeling about this,” Bruno offered with a wry smile.

“You know what? Me too,” Sylver said.