Between Past and Future
And three hundred years later, he finally received the letter, written inside was the answer he was waiting for.
–But is this really all that he had hoped for?
The elf thought back to the historical texts he had researched, records about Yang Wolfin.
The longest running, and widely acclaimed as the best Grand Mage.
Author of uncountable number of books, spent her life inventing and improving over fifty types of healing spells and potions, surpa.s.sing the contribution of any mages in history.
On the front of measuring magical power and resistance, she left an extremely accurate proposal.
Why she would be so focused and motivated on researching something so boring, and without much use, is something that everyone had thought of as a mystery.
She lived for two hundred and seventy two years, far surpa.s.sing the limit of any normal human’s lifespan, people said that it was a reward from the heavens to her for saving so many lives.
Someone so great, the last words before her pa.s.sing were: “Actually, I’m starting to forget their faces.”
–No one knows who ‘they’ were.
She said ‘don’t feel sorry for me’.
But, Anna, are you satisfied with this ending?
I stubbornly rewrote yours, and ‘their’ life trajectory, what I wanted might not be just ‘for everyone to survive’.
I want to know, if you had lived lives that you could claim as happy.
The elf lifted the parchment, looking at the small star mark.
–This star, will it give me the answers I want?
“Do you want to go?”
The elf’s thoughts returned to the present, the knight was looking at him with burning eyes.
“Do you want to go to that place?” the knight asked again.
“I don’t know,” the elf shook his head, “I’m a little…scared.”
The knight didn’t ask what he was scared of, just locked their fingers together, gripping the elf’s hands tightly.
“It’s still not over, Ellen,” he said, “Your story is still not over.”
“—No matter what the future brings, I will witness it till the end.”
He finished speaking, and turned around, striding back in the direction they came from.
Mrs.Cavendish finished watering the last plant, she lifted her head and saw the following scene.
In the setting sun, two young man linking hands, walking side by side on the small garden path.
“Oh,” the old lady said to herself a little surprised, “I should ask the old man… if the room arrangements, should be adjusted?”(1)
Dinner was still held in the Grand Mage’s home.
The dwarf finally gathered his courage, and blurted out to the Grand Mage the questions that he had thrown at the siren before, thus, this heated debate lasted until dessert time. But a lot of the times, the one answering was not the Grand Mage himself, but Mrs.Cavendish. – Clearly, in areas other than healing magic, she is the true expert.
This would greatly explain why the gentle Mr.Cavendish could handle any situation — If there was something more terrifying in the world than a Grand Mage, it would be a Grand Mage pair.
After dinner, the Grand Mage was ordered by his wife to wash the dishes, and the lady took on the role of guide, leading them to the central tower. From the outside, there were only a few lit rooms in the tower. When they entered, it was more s.p.a.cious than they had thought, they could immediately hear the echoing of their footsteps.
“It’s too big, without magic, cleaning would be a very difficult thing.” Mrs.Cavendish said smiling.
The she walked forward, the two ‘wall lamps’ on the side lite up silently, bright light immediately scattered across this ancient building giving off a lonely feeling.
“… Glow Spell?” the dwarf asked unsurely in a small voice.
“Yes,” the lady mage stopped, lightly touching the glowing sphere in the wall with her finger, “it will light up for around one minute every time energy is injected into the man made glow-stone, it’s one of Teacher Yang’s inventions.”
“Then, it has been in use for many years? Such an amazing device?”
“That’s right, when it first appeared, the students all fought to light it, so the halls were always lit up throughout the night.”
“It must have been a sight to see.”
“Yes, but now,” she muttered, “it’s been some years since we had any newcomers. The older ones… are already tired of such toys.”
“I won’t be tired,” the dwarf said in a small voice, “If it was me, I wouldn’t be tired of it even if I saw it a thousand times.”
“How do you do it?” the siren asked, “the glow spell?”
Mrs.Cavendish told them the incantation smiling gently.
The youth ran to the front of the group, carefully recited the incantation at the sphere. The sphere glowed, but different from Mrs.Cavendish’s orange yellow light, it glowed a ghostly blue and purple color.
“Water and chaos element,” said Mrs.Cavendish, “Of course, because you are a siren.”
“Umm, blue is water, red is fire, yellow is earth, green is wind,” the dwarf counted on his fingers, “white is light, purple is chaos… right?”
“Yes, it was designed to match the signs on the textbooks,” the mage smiled again and said, “because talent combinations are different, every mage has their own unique colors.”(2)
The dwarf hesitated for a moment, he seemed to want to try chanting the spell, but in the end he didn’t speak, only followed the group forward, silently watching the lights.
“We’re here,” Mrs.Cavendish stopped, inserting the key into the lock, “I heard from the old man, Mr.Captain would like it here. –This was where Teacher Yang used to live.”
“…Thank you,” the elf was silent for a while, as if he was trying to find his voice to reply, “thank you…very much.”
“Please wait a moment. It hasn’t been used in fifty years, it has to be tidied up.” Mrs. Cavendish blinked, stepped into the room first, then closed the door.
The lady mage touched the room’s candelabra with her staff, immediately the candles lit up one after another.
The room was regularly aired and dusted, there really wasn’t much need to tidy up.
Thick tomes filled the shelves, across from the window was a table, two single beds one on the left and one on the right, positioned against the wall.
This was Teacher Yang’s room, it was also where she grew up.(3)
Many times had she curled up in the blankets, and fell asleep looking at that small silhouetted by the light.
Teacher who was very good at taking care of people, would use the pen she makes papers with, and draw a star on the back of her hand as she refuses to sleep.
“It will chase away your nightmares.” Teacher Yang would say, “A star told me this, when I was young.”
It was many years later before she experiences the truth of this statement –
The Teacher Yan who was more than two hundred years old, was young once as well, and there was someone who had also protected her that gently as she grew up.
If she was not wrong, then Teacher Yang was Anna Teal, who had entered the ‘Unicorn Legion’ when she was fourteen, the mage apprentice who had not been heard from since. The star that she talked about, was the person she left the letter for, the current Captain of the ‘Unicorn Legion’, Ellen Dawntracker.
Thinking about it, the elf should be around three hundred, or even four hundred years old.
So many years, is he the same as Teacher Yang, watching familiar people grow up, grow old, and in the end, pa.s.s away?
If that was true, and he can still choose to hold the hand of a normal human, how much this would need…
The mage sighed lightly, waving her staff, silently the two beds moved to the center of the room against each other, leaving only a tiniest deceiving gap.
Then she opened the door, placing the key into the elf’s hand.
“Please rest well. – Sh.e.l.ly, Julian, your room is this way.”(4)