Random Encounter Story

The sunflower came closer, whilst the ghostly image of Land in her stout figure grinned. (Sebastian was finding this quite disconcerting.)

<em>Sister Luck</em>, Nature, Land, the Old One began, <em>was worried about him. And I have been worried about him for --</em> the amount of time the sunflower expressed was the lifetime of many plants and animals. In any case, it amounted to a certain numbers. It was just barely under a millennium by Eodean terms, yet the concept hinted that in some worlds it might have been more. (Sebastian swallowed and stayed silent, glaring at the butterfly.) <em>I had to order Kord be as rude as possible, just so that Sister Luck would finally get the idea.</em>

The goddess paused, then said, even a little sadly after a sigh. <em>He's tired. And it's taken this long for</em> her <em>to understand this, with all her contingency plans.</em>

Sylvie pinched the bridge of her nose. "I can't help but wonder if there would have been any clarifying conversation if you had not prevented any, but anyway, just one more question. Did it work?"

After a moment of silence, during which Sebastian closed his eyes and covered his face, the butterfly began to mutter.

<em>Say it</em>, Nature suggested, wintery like.

The butterfly fluttered for a moment. <em>Yes! Fine! He's not what he used to be.</em>

"...just what the hell was I supposed to be?" Sebastian asked, breathing heavily.

<em>Amusing!</em>

"Well. Fuck you with a --" what he described was not only rude, it was so dirty most sailors would have blanched. It was violent enough to make street thugs clap in appreciation. And it only involved a window screen.

The Old Lady laughed.

Sylvie gave him a short look, slightly worried about his state of mind. He might hurt himself if he decided to punch a tree. She found it hard to be angry at Lady Land - the goddess probably wouldn't have cared, anyway - and wanted nothing to do with that other, lunatic one.

"Good, so I take it that resignation is accepted."

Lady Land still laughed for a while -- and then, in a flash of a moment, captured the butterfly, which looked a little worried about this turn of events.

She said, in certain tones. <em>It might. Might. I have an offer. And this thing here,</em> she said, her ghostly humanoid visage holding on to Luck's ear. <em>But he won't hear it.</em>

Indeed, Sebastian frowned and looked at Sylvie, utterly worried. "What's happening?"

"I'm not sure and I don't like it." She watched Lady Land suspiciously.

Sebastian blinked at her, took Sylvie's hand. "...just tell it's not going to be bad." The sunflower had, by now insinuated itself a half an inch from Sylvie. As much as he cursed and railed at the goddesses, it made him worried. Obviously so.

<em>I want him happy. I've brought Luck here to understand what she's done, and you have been the... cure, let us say.</em> The larger goddess, still holding Luck by her ear, stared at Sylvie.

Sebastian remained worried, outwardly.

<em>You know plants. You know nature. Would you, by any chance, accept a gift if I just asked his resignation was merely... partial?</em>

"What are you suggesting exactly? And obviously I can't decide what he does." She stared right back. "No games."

The flower-image turned brighter. The look on the ghost image turned into a grin, whilst Sebastian looked worried -- and then angry at the butterfly.

<em>No games. And he does not have to decide. You do. Now, the question is -- do you want to go back to your world with him, on the condition that the both of you will stop things such as you stopped here?</em>

Sebastian frowned. "I can't hear her."

<em>Aside from what I've already offered, there is something else I would like to offer you as well</em>, Land said.

<em>Can they do that?</em> Sylvie sat down rather abruptly, tearing up again. A promise of a way home was wonderful, but the thought of gods messing with her homeworld filled her with dread. And wanting her to decide for Sebastian felt like a game.

The implied questions registered with her belatedly. Looking up in the general direction of Lady Land, she said, voice far away and quiet, "Oh, she's offering a deal if we would take jobs like the one in Canyet in future still. No games was part of it, right? I haven't heard all of it yet."

Luck looked to be moping. Sebastian, too. He said, "You're... offering something," he said, addressing the Old Lady.

With a mild smirk, Land looked at Sylvie. <em>He won't hear this offer. I like your guts. But so... how would you like working with him in the future, and, hm. Let me put it like this.</em>

Land retreated a little distance away. <em>How long do you want your life with him to last? He proposed.</em>

"Sylvie...?"

Sylvie took one deep breath and let it go, shivering. Took another. And yelled as loud as she could, "Stop playing games!"

Sitting cross-legged on the ground, she lowered her head, raising one hand to her brow and crossing the other arm across her chest, muttering barely-articulated curses at the goddess.

That, as it happened, silenced both goddesses. Even the one holding the other by her ear. Sebastian, on the other hand, turned to stare at her with obvious admiration.

After a moment, Land began to laugh again. <em>And this is why I want you with him.</em> The sunflower came closer again. <em>You</em> care. <em>But if you do, make your choice. Grow old while he does not, or grow old together.</em>

"...wait. What?" Sebastian said. He had heard that bit. "No. I agree with her. Stop playing games. Can I just, for the hell of it, have a couple of decades with someone and <em>finally raise a child so that they won't be utterly traumatised</em>?"

Luck huffed. <em>You have had children. Many of them. Why not be glad about it?</em>

"Because the last one I had hates my guts, and I've never properly known the others."

Another huff.

"Sylvie?" Sebastian asked, glaring at the sunflower and butterfly.

"Growing old together sounds better to me," Sylvie said almost absentmindedly - the other variant was a familiar drama plot. She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "It's the not-being-rid-of-you-two that worries me. It seems like you don't even notice when you're messing with people for your entertainment, so it's hard to take a promise of you stopping that seriously. I really can't make that decision for anybody else. It would be vile."

The goddesses were quiet for a while. Sebastian, on the other hand, decided to sit next to Sylvie. "I agree with her."

Lady Land grinned. Luck was tring to flail her arms as Land said, <em>Well, dear boy and girl. Old age, is it?</em>

"...wait."

<em>You will have your wish.</em> Luck looked a little troubled when Land said that. <em>No games.</em>

"Just how long? Will I...?"

<em>Secret!</em> said Luck, finally being left off of the vise that had been Nature's hands. She still sounded bitter. <em>You won't know. Neither of you will!</em>

"Good," Sylvie answered, more out of spite than from having an opinion on that detail yet.

Angry at the goddesses, angry at herself for thinking they could be talked with, and emotionally exhausted, she turned to Sebastian, shifing position so her legs were in front of her. Leaning in close, she whispered, "I'm sorry."

Sebastian was busy frowning, calculating different scenarios at the same pace that the butterfly flitted about desperately. At the same time, he was stuck next to Sylvie, grounded just like the sunflower that stared at the both of them.

He leaned back at Sylvie. "I am not the least bit sorry," at this point the half-elf directed a green, bitter look at the two. His eyes were beginning to hurt from seeing two different things at the same time. "I don't even know where I came from anymore, I don't know how long I've worked for the both of you, but I'm starting to get the picture.

"This whole operation was a test to see how far I've gone, and Sylvie was an unwitting accomplice. True?"

<em>Yep.</em>

"I hate the both of you."

Sylvie slipped an arm around Sebastian's back and addressed Land. "Why? Why didn't you just talk to him?"

The sunflower swayed for a moment. A goddess, hesitating? Sebastian wondered. <em>He would have destroyed himself.</em>

Sebastian blinked, then stiffened and stared at nothing.

Sylvie looked at him and gave a questioning hum. She had a guess, besides the obvious one that it was a made-up pretext, but didn't want to voice it.

Sebastian looked like he wanted to gnaw on his finger, all too aware that three feminine entities were staring at him. The bits of wisdom and experience he had garnered during the years began to click into place.

His anger subsided a little.

"At first," he began, voice still hoarse from all the singing, "I would have become overconfident. I was happy to work, laugh and commit a lot of unethical things.

"Then I began to calm down, and had you talked to me, I'd have..."

<em>We might have --</em> Land raised an eyebrow and tweaked Luck's ear. Hard.

Luck cursed, recovered, and said, <em>We got worried. But you were too important for my designs!</em>

His ears twitched. He licked his lips but continued, in any case, "And now I'm damaged goods. I've known it for a while. It's gotten... not tedious, but..." He left it that, blinked and winced. "And this was just... no. It's still not fair." Sebastian stared at them, looked at Sylvie, and bit his lip.

The sunflower swayed and the woman-visage looked at Sylvie, still holding Luck by the ear. Lady Land was waiting.

Sylvie ignored her to the point of not noticing. She told Sebastian, "I need some time to put myself together again. Done it before. It's just too much all at once." Her eyes burned and her head hurt and all she wanted to do was breathe and absorb what had happened.

The sunflower bent and the woman nodded. The butterfly struggled and the other woman kept ineffectually tearing at Land's hair. <em>Fair enough.</em>

<em>This is not over!</em> shrieked fickle Luck.

<em>For a while, it is.</em>

Sebastian stared, eyes empty. The sunflower made to leave.

Sylvie closed her eyes. Her head on Sebastian's shoulder, she held on to him - grounding for her and <em>See, I'm not running away from you now</em> for him. It was all she could do for now.

The goddesses went away.

Finally, Sebastian said, voice shaky, as the wind picked up again, "My turn to say sorry."

"Didn't sound like it was your fault. But thank you."

"I think it is."

After a long pause, Sylvie said, "I can't think right now." She was trying not to break out in tears again. "I really can't. Can talking wait until tomorrow?"

For a moment, Sebastian was quiet, just leaning against Sylvie. Eventually, he got up. "Yes. It can. I want it to wait for tomorrow too. I'm trying to figure this out."

<em>What the hell had just happened?</em> he thought as he fell asleep, next to Sylvie, in the copse, shielded and guarded by the trees. In fact, he wondered if the trees were not in fact doing that.

When he woke up, lashes tickling Sylvie's cheek, his first thought hit him.

<em>What the</em> hell <em>just happened?</em>

Once they had put their heads down, Sylvie had fallen asleep very quickly, entirely against her expectations. She interpreted that as a good sign - her gut feeling still was that Sebastian's company was reassuring.

On the downside, she had woken up from nightmares for brief spells. What she remembered of them involved running through unknown woods, blind and unable to move her arms. She blamed the resin-and-needles scent on the conifers for recovering that particular memory.

Eyes hot and swollen, mouth dry, head hurting, she'd need a bit to wake up properly, but at least now she wasn't as cold and stiff, and not quite as scared as then.

She squinted at Sebastian briefly, vision still blurry, but clear enough to see his eyes were open. She gave him a smile and a peck on the tip of his nose, and went to extract herself.