Bonus Short Stories

The Aim of Effort

As the sound of footsteps caught the methuselah’s ear, Agrippina closed her book and turned to watch her servant diligently toil away. Her mind spun: he was an average mensch, like those she could find littered across the world over. Her disinterest in names had made it a struggle to drag “Erich” out of the recesses of her mind at first, yet the process had grown easier with time. He was also rather handsome, probably—truth be told, her capacity to evaluate such things had long decayed to the point that the best she could manage was an educated guess.

Furthermore, Erich was quite the student of magic, as far as mensch went. All Agrippina had to do was toss him a textbook, and voilà, he’d learned all the necessary household spells to busy himself day in and day out.

The boy rose early to prepare breakfast and clean the room of dust (though the magus saw no need for the latter). What was more, he even cared for the carriage’s steeds; Agrippina had left their welfare to the people of the caravan and only tended to them with magic when she absolutely had to. For a normal person, he was an employee worthy of praise.

However, the methuselah’s opinion was slightly skewed from normalcy. What a hurried creature, she thought. This was an impression many methuselah had of mensch; simply put, the sight of an intelligent being rushing through their days as if some invisible threat were nipping at their heels was incomprehensible to an immortal.

In fairness, there was little Agrippina and her kind could do to change that. Neither hunger nor thirst hounded them, pushing meals into the realm of luxury—for those that weren’t particularly fond of the pleasure, it was reduced further to a social lubricant. These perfect specimens were on a different plane of reality from the poor mensch who required frequent sustenance and reproduction to prevent their people from collapsing.

The inverse was just as true: no mortal being could possibly wrap their mind around Agrippina’s lifestyle. She ate when she was invited to eat, and only when she was invited to eat. While she understood the pleasures of taste—indeed, she had savored the delight of fine cuisine many a time in the past—it bored her, and she would never choose to spend her precious time eating.

Cleaning was a similar story. Methuselah had such efficient bodies that they expelled no waste. Her clothes could be freshened up with a quick spell, and her rooms never got particularly dirty.

Sleep was the sole mortal pastime she indulged in, and even then, it was only to organize her thoughts and memories. However, this singular commonality was far from enough to make her ludicrous way of life familiar to an average mensch.

Agrippina cared so little for “proper” life because there was no threat of death to loom over her. For a woman that so dearly loved books and the stories they told, the chores of reality were of little concern...that is, until her life with these two children began.

“Erich.”

“Did you call for me, madam?”

“Indeed I did. Fetch me some tea, would you?”

Agrippina had recently begun to allocate attention to the food and drink she had neglected for so long. She didn’t particularly want to drink tea, per se, but by asking for a cup, she reminded herself of the flow of time and how imperative it was for her charges to eat regular meals.

That’s right: as inconvenient and downright illogical as she found it to be, mensch had to eat every day or risk starving. To make matters worse, they grew less efficient if they didn’t eat a whopping three meals per day, according to a child-rearing book in her collection. Had she not read this manual, this basic fact would have completely slipped past her, and keeping this in mind was imperative for a pleasant journey home.

Honestly, what an ordeal—for both me and them.

The book had gone on to state that these little creatures would live no more than a century; when the methuselah dove into her massive pool of memories, she recalled that the faces greeting her upon returning to the Stahl estate as a child would change with every journey. This had been especially true of her mensch acquaintances.

Fifteen years was enough for adulthood; by twenty, they bore children; and by forty, the things were already beginning to die. These fleeting souls could come and go in the time a methuselah finished their childhood. And there, perhaps, lay the reason why this boy hurried around the carriage as he did.

“Your tea is served, madam.”

“Mm, very good.”

A short tangent on a single strand of Agrippina’s consciousness was all it took for her beverage to be prepared. Where once her china had collected dust, it had now been cleaned and shined so perfectly that she couldn’t even spot a fingerprint on it. As for the tea itself, it wasn’t quite as enjoyable as what she’d find at a proper salon with well-trained stewards, but it was worthy of a passing mark.

With a quick sip, the strong and unembellished flavor of red tea slipped down Agrippina’s throat. Ah, yes. I remember now. This is what it feels like to “drink.” Since she was already wasting time, she figured that she might as well enjoy herself. Her initial reason for stopping by so many inns was simply to experience their luxury—however, she found no reason why she couldn’t add extravagant food to the mix.

The magus made certain to tell the boy to order the finest breakfast, lunch, and dinner from every lodging, and to prepare them himself when they were on the road. This way, even if she happened to forget, her servant would sort it out for her. As eccentric as she was, Agrippina cared for the children in her own way. Her way was unapologetically methuselah in standard, though, and the brother and sister could not understand her efforts.

On the topic of food, she recalled that her servant had gone wide-eyed when she’d easily spend librae to purchase meals. The fiscal sense of commoners remained a point of peculiarity to the high-born woman, but she did remember seeing the people of her caravan react similarly when she’d tossed around silver pieces as rewards for errands. Surely, Erich must have thought her quite the lavish spender.

Living alongside an alien race was just plain difficult for the methuselah. That being said, she had no interest in getting the children to understand her, let alone providing them an inroad to do so.

Agrippina spent a moment enjoying her fragrant tea before retreating to one of her few true addictions: the pipe. She lit with it magic, then let the smoke of mystic herbs flood her lungs and drowned herself in indescribable bliss, quieting her active mind.

Suddenly, she noted that the smoke she was exhaling was rather troublesome. The tobacco she smoked had been steeped in an arcane concoction powerful enough to intoxicate a methuselah; naturally, it would have a pronounced effect on lesser beings. Not to say that a single whiff would blow a mensch’s mind into the stratosphere, but a drag of the pipe would most definitely be enough to rob one’s consciousness.

The magus silently knit together a spell to filter the cloud leaving her lips and keep it from wafting out into the room around her. Agrippina could have erased it entirely, of course, but a pipe that blew no smoke was no pipe at all to her.

“How troublesome...”

“Madam?”

“Don’t mind me,” she said with another puff. As she continued her unnoticed act of thoughtfulness, she once more mused on how impassable the gap between peoples was.

After all, no one can ever bring themselves to abandon what values make them who they are.

[Tips] Understanding beings with vastly different physiologies and cultures is inherently a difficult endeavor.

Fey Stature

The hill was locked in eternal twilight, forever fated to straddle the line between a sun that never sank and a moon that never rose. In this fey homeland, alfar drifted to and fro without a care in the world, only acting in whatever manner caught their fancy.

However, as infinitely free as these fairies were, there remained some semblance of organization in their ranks. Only the alfar could know of this hierarchy, both because it was a secret of the highest degree and because none who stumbled upon it could ever grasp it. Making up a part of reality itself, these living phenomena required organizing principles. This role was filled by the strongest—the kings and queens.

“Waaaugh...”

Countless formless entities mingled with their less abstract counterparts and beckoned in their visitors—whether they were there of their own volition or not—as they danced without rest. Amidst the giddy laughter, a lone alf weakly floated along, looking as sad as could be.

The palm-sized personification of a gentle spring breeze drifted by, a large bead of water welling up in her pink eyes; everything about her body language wailed in melancholy. True to themselves, alfar perennially relished in their emotions: they cried like the world was ending when sad, and celebrated like they were welcoming a new brother or sister when happy. Such was the key to their fulfilling lives.

Today, the little sylphid’s grasslike hair was shriveled up. With a name and a sense of self, the wind fairy was remarkably powerful for her kind. When an alf presiding over growth, change, and weathering glided by in a mood like this, she brought a chilling breeze with her. Like a gust in early autumn, her overflowing state of mind chilled the skin of those around her. Yet she had only just been freed from her prison and had tied her fate to a cute little mensch she was fond of. What reason could there be for her sorry state?

Some of her compatriots came to speak to their long-unseen sister, but she shrugged them off with a tired wave. Finally, the sylphid landed at the base of a large tree—more precisely, she crash-landed, her stamina depleted. Like a puppet with cut strings, she collapsed so lifelessly that she could disappear at any moment.

“My, my. It seems I’ve found myself a melting fairy.”

The wind alf heard a voice from above, but she was too haggard to look up and respond.

“Hey! Would you not ignore me like that?”

“Hrrghh... Heavy...”

The voice seemed a tad irked, and before the sylphid knew it, someone had sat on her. With her guts crushed, the tired fairy grew weaker still.

“How rude. I’ll have you know I’m as light as a feather, Lottie.”

“Ursula, you meanie! We’re both light like feathers!”

The girl clad in grasses was Charlotte, and the one sitting on her wearing nothing but her own hair was Ursula. This pair had known each other for a proper eternity, and the svartalf showed no signs of getting up, despite her friend’s complaints. She merely peered at her squashed companion and asked what had happened.

Lottie groaned for a while. Her voice was neither angry nor pained, but something about it seemed to amuse Ursula, so the sylphid stopped. Instead, she began to explain what had happened in her characteristic childish speech.

Cutting to the chase, Lottie had gotten chewed out. A lot. In fact, the lecture she’d received had been of legendary proportions.

First and foremost, the fact that she’d gotten herself into a situation where she couldn’t even return to the twilight hill—not to mention the fact that pitying a sister was not just cause to go and get oneself captured—was unacceptable. Yet what came after was even worse. Alfar were known to bestow gifts on those they favored—yes, that much was fine. In fact, Lottie had been allotted a fey prize to present to the pretty boy or girl she fell for, and doing so was acceptable.

However, Lottie was not meant to offer one of two choices, and she had bent her own rules for the sake of her own amusement. Naturally, she had been bounced around to all kinds of greater alfar, who each subjected her to an endless hell of lectures.

“How foolish,” Ursula said with a laugh. “I told you you ought to have offered an unreasonable choice like me.”

“But! What if he picked the bad one?” The sylphid knew well what the seed of change could do once grown—it could weather away at the very shape of a soul.

Ursula knew just how sensitive an alf was to the concepts over which she presided. Thinking that Lottie had a point, she considered what would have happened if the boy had chosen to take on her fey traits with a giggle.

“Wouldn’t that be wonderful in its own way?”

Possibilities were just possibilities, but the svartalf grinned thinking that this hypothetical timeline would suit her just fine. On the other hand, the flattened sylphid had just received an earful about how her overindulgence could have warped the very nature of the child she’d found, and could only groan in response.

Perhaps the night fairy’s laughter transcended the veil between dimensions; far away, a young boy was overcome with the sudden urge to sneeze.

[Tips] By the most rigorous of definitions, the twilight hill does not “exist” in the same way or on the same plane as physical reality. Those who call it their home have views unfathomable to the human mind.

A Maiden’s Resolve

“I don’t like gloomy goodbyes,” Margit had gallantly stated.

On the day of Erich’s departure, she did not go to meet him. In fact, the day before, she had put on an air of security by insisting that he spend his last moments in the canton with the family he was leaving behind.

Thus, she refused to chase after the carriage or cry out for him. It was too late to act spoiled, begging to pounce on those lovely shoulders one last time. All she did was watch from afar.

All eight of the jumping spider arachne’s petite legs worked in tandem to scale a massive tree on the edge of Kongistuhl. Whereas a mensch would struggle to climb the many branches, let alone rest their weight on them, Margit calmly perched atop her bark tower.

She squinted her eyes to dial in her impeccable vision on a lone carriage branching away from the departing caravan. The two splendid steeds in front were pulling along her lifelong companion and the sister for whose sake he’d accepted servitude. He was dedicating years of his time, deferring his dreams, all to win a normal life for the toddler.

In all honesty, Margit was jealous of Elisa. She knew they were kin—that Elisa was the one and only member of Erich’s family he was in a position to dote on—but the unfiltered love he showed for the girl was impressive. His self-sacrifice was nigh unbelievable; few would be willing to go to such lengths for anyone.

Margit had never before let her hideous emotion show through. Not once did she ever imply it, let alone allow it to bleed into her expression. In fact, she’d done her utmost to not pay it much mind at all. After all, she told herself, Elisa is just his sister.

However, seeing Erich leave for a life far, far away stoked the flame of her apocalyptic envy. How could it not? He was leaving to devote his life to earning a sum that could very well take lifetimes to accrue; it would be stranger not to covet a love so true.

Margit did not doubt him: had she been the one to find herself on the brink of catastrophe, Erich surely would have done the same for her. This was no youthful flight of fancy—the unwavering flames of faith burned within the maiden’s heart.

Yet a maiden as she was, the thought would not leave her side: How, oh how, could you love another as you do me?

Truth be told, Margit was prepared to welcome him back even if he played around on his journey—at worst, even if he returned with a child or two. Although she could not wrap her mind around the charms of any other prey, her mother had told her that mensch men were “just made that way,” and the young arachne felt as though she could be understanding.

But that did not extend to seeing him so passionately love someone else. An indescribable emotion beyond simple possessiveness swirled within her. Perhaps if one were to accept that mensch were made with flawed fidelity, then one could argue that the childishly violent emotion welling up now was just a part of how arachne were made—a truism that held for the web-weavers, night-stalkers, and brute-forcers of their kind alike.

The vivid flavor of iron that had graced Margit’s tongue on that twilit hill leapt through time to assault her taste buds. As the carriage slowly rolled out of view, she held her skittish legs in place by sheer force of will. Seeing him off like this was already in bad taste; she had to fight the urge to keep him in view. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from leaping onto the departing buggy.

Oh, Margit thought with a bitter smile, it turns out I’m just like every other girl.

Holding back her upturned lips, she tugged at her hair and reset herself. She turned away. Just as Erich had chosen to uphold his will, she too had something that needed to be done: where his mission was to protect Elisa, Margit’s was to continue her life in the canton.

The arachne swore to steal every trick in her mother’s book. After all, Erich would never break a promise. He was the type to see things through. So while she waited, she needed to be sure that she’d be able to stand proudly beside him. As if to cheer the lovestruck girl on, her pink earpiece jingled in the wind.

[Tips] Races with strong hunting instincts often fixate on a singular, particularly impressive mark.