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HELOISE VAN ASTELL

I never wanted to talk about my past because it took too long and every time I tried to tell it, the person listening always grew bored. Ilias kept insisting and I gave in.

   When I was a sixty-three-year-old kid, an ice palace labyrinth spawned near my village and attracted monsters that wiped everyone out but me. Because I was a child, I didn't know the names of my relatives or where they lived. Afraid to leave the village I had never once left, I stayed nearby and used an abandoned farmhouse as my home. Every now and then, I would go back to my ruined village for food. It was livable at first, but the winters in the North were brutal and the food began to spoil and grow mold.

   During the night, I spotted fires from a faraway village. As scared as I was, I knew my chances of heading there were better than staying by the ice palace labyrinth.

   It took me two months to get there.

   Those two months were the lowest my life had ever been. With no water, I had no choice but to eat snow. I ate scraps and green acorns for sustenance. One night was so cold that a direwolf died on the road. I cut open its stomach and slid inside its belly to keep myself warm. When it finally got warmer, I ate as much of the wolf as I could before continuing down the road.

   I've travelled down that road many times since then and even on foot, it only took four days at most.

   The village that I thought would be my safe haven turned out to be a different kind of hell. Because it was remote, the villagers only cared about their families. Even when a little girl that was all bones showed up, no one glanced an eye at her. I tried to steal food, but I was caught and overpowered. I tried to sleep inside buildings, but I was found and kicked out.

   Everything changed when I ran into a soldier who took me inside a building just outside of the village. The building looked like a farm, but there was a door underneath the hay that led to a dungeon with cells full of children that were as skinny as me.

   "I found an elf girl," the soldier said. "She'll be worth a lot so let's get some weight on her first."

   Even now, I still consider that soldier to be my saviour. His plans for me were vile, but at the time, he gave me everything I ever wanted. Food, water, shelter, warmth, and a dry place to sleep.

   The door to the dungeon was always locked and there was always a soldier watching us. We would get three meals a day and were let out the same amount one at a time to relieve ourselves.

   I was put inside a cell with four other children, but they grew envious of me. The soldiers gave me more food and always made sure I was in pristine condition.

   One night I was beaten—the kids who beat me up were punished and I got a cell to myself.

   I knew it was a prison. But it was a safe one. At the time, that was all that mattered.

   Once my condition stabilized, the soldiers sold me and a few other children to an oversized man with an unkept goatee. There were six of us in total. Two terran boys, three beast girls, and me, an elf girl. He kept us in chains hidden inside his covered wagon. The village we came from was in the northwest area and our destination was a town in the eastern region called Arlam. Even though the journey took us six months in all, we always rested on the road. Never once did we spend the night in a settlement. Every time we passed through one, the oversized man's men would remove our chains and place us inside barrels, instructing us to keep quiet until we passed through.

   When we arrived at the fat man's mansion, all of us were assigned jobs. The boys were labourers, doing anything that required muscle. The girls were maids, in charge of keeping the mansion clean and entertaining any guests that happened to drop by. I became the fat man's personal helper, accompanying him everywhere I went and looking after his every need. Because of this, I was allowed to have the room beside his while the other five had to squeeze into a small one downstairs.

   Since I was rewarded and given more benefits for being the master's helper, I was outcasted by the rest of the household staff. Even more so by the children I travelled here with. The master's family and guests only spoke to me to give orders.

   I stayed in that mansion for a short forty years. Half the staff died and the children I was with grew into fine adults. I remained a tiny child.

   One day, soldiers burst into the mansion, pinning everyone against the wall and ground. Once the master showed himself, he was thrown into chains while the staff were led into carriages parked outside the mansion.

   Since I was small, I was easily able to hide. At the time, I was carrying a book the master asked me to fetch so I ran off with it into the forest. I ran as far as my short legs could take me until they gave way.

   The book I took with me ended up being a grimoire and my introduction to jynx. Before the ice palace labyrinth spawned near my village, my parents taught me reading and writing, so I knew what this grimoire meant.

   With the book, I was able to teach myself jynx, taking my time to strengthen my gates. Even though I ended up becoming a wind mage, Fire Ball was the first spell I learned simply because I didn't want to be cold at night. The next spell I learned was Hideaway—a charm that would make the area around me unfindable.

   With that spell, I was able to make a safe haven for the next eighty or ninety years (I lost count), spending the time to learn jynx. With enough practice, I figured out how to perform incantationless jynx and, without the need to speak, gradually forgot the sound of my own voice.

   One day, the charm that worked so well was broken.

   "What do you think is here?" a voice asked.

   "I don't know, but there wouldn't be a charm like that for no reason," said another.

   "Let's check, we might find some loot."

   The voice belonged to members of an adventuring party that set up a base nearby and were hunting for food. I must've been a confusing sight. A feral half-naked elf girl wearing animal fur and skins.

   My first instinct was to attack, but the adventurer wearing a pointy hat managed to incapacitate me with some sort of arcane spell before levitating me back to their camp.

   Instead of sitting with his friends, the pointy-hat adventurer sat with me. I was still paralyzed, but he managed to convince me that they were not a threat and that calmed me down. After a while, I decided to trust him, and when he undid the spell, I backed away. But I didn't run.

   He introduced himself as Himmel and gave me food, making sure I wasn't too overwhelmed by the situation. Since my clothes were rags and I looked like a mess, he took me to a nearby river and instructed me to wash up. After that, he gave me an extra set of clothes before combing my matted hair. I was so well distinguished that it was as if I never spent eighty or so years in the forest.

   I decided to speak to him and managed to get some sort of conversation going. I stuttered and there were many instances where I simply stopped talking to think of the next word, but Himmel was patient and listened to everything.

   When we got back to camp, we found Himmel's party fighting off a group of welfins—four-meter-tall wolves that had boney spikes growing out of their spines. Welfins were the apex predators in this area and usually formed groups of six to eighteen.

   Back when I put up the charm to hide my base, a group of welfins would occasionally try to get through its defences. I took the barrier down and gave them injuries that, though wouldn't kill them, would certainly hurt. These creatures were simply trying to survive like I was and killing them didn't sit right with me. I may have taken over a part of their territory, but this was my domain now. The welfins never bothered me after that so they must've understood my threat.

   I have no doubt that these welfins were descendants of the same pack.

   I levitated myself above the entire camp, high enough so that all eyes could see me. While in the air, I cast Shake Foundations, causing the small area we were in to experience an earthquake. As that was happening, I cast Noise Pollution on each welfin.

    Noise Pollution was an arcane spell that would disorient the target with such loud noises that they wouldn't be able to hear their own thoughts.

   The welfins understood who I was and scampered away. Even the ones that had some of Himmel's friends locked in their jaws let go and fled. Their ancestors must've warned them about me.

   Though a good number of Himmel's party were injured, no one died. Himmel was the only jynxist in his party of thirty-two, so I stayed up the night to help him heal everyone.

   When morning came, their party, which I came to learn was called Perfect Strangers, set off to wherever they saw fit their destination should be. Himmel convinced me to join them and once we came upon a town with an Adventurer's Guild, they officially made me a member.

   For the next fifteen years, our party travelled all over Armestis, accepting requests from the guild to make money. We recruited many new members and had some members leave. Some died in battle whilst some died peacefully. Some fell in love and left the party to settle down and if we had a chance, we would always drop by to catch up with those members.

   Out of everyone, I was closest to Himmel. We were always together for some reason. We trained a lot and he taught me many more spells the grimoire I stole hadn't. When we arrived at towns and split up to gather supplies, we always accompanied each other. When it was one or the other's time to prepare food, the other would help out. The party would always tease us, telling us to settle down already and Himmel's face would redden every time.

   I used to wear a hood to cover my head if it was raining or my face if it was too sunny. Himmel gave me his pointy hat to replace the hood stating that it was a crime hiding my pretty silver hair.

   Everything was, dare I say it, perfect. My life was at its peak which was all a result of Himmel insisting I joined.

   But this perfect world changed when the Adventurer's Guild put up a reward to destroy the heart of the ice palace labyrinth in the north. I thought it was just another labyrinth like the ones we had raided, so I followed along like I always had.

   I didn't realize what we were heading into until we passed by my old old ruined village. There were other parties waiting so we decided to team up and split the reward.

   Even with our numbers, we were completely decimated. The frozen castle was painted red and it didn't get easier the deeper we ventured.

   One by one, each of us began to fall. Our alliance stood at eighty-nine people before entering the labyrinth. By the time we found the dragon guarding its heart, there were only five.

   The warriors who ran away were the lucky ones.

   It was all my fault. I was the strongest jynxist out of anyone and I didn't do a single thing. I simply stood by and watched as people were massacred.

   Soon enough, it was only Himmel and I that were left.

   The ice dragon whipped its tail at me, and that would've been the end of my story if not for Himmel pushing me out of the way, causing him to be launched into the frozen walls in my stead.

   I didn't know why, but what happened to Himmel snapped me back into reality. It was a hard-fought battle, but when the ice dragon opened its jaws to blast ice at me, I managed to defeat it by sending a giant Fireball into its mouth. With the labyrinth's elite guard dead, I destroyed its heart with ease, returning the area back to the tundra it once was. The fiends that we didn't kill ran into the nearby forests.

   Himmel was barely alive when I found him. He was gravely injured and no amount of healing jynx would've saved his life.

   Even though I knew he was going to die, I tried to comfort Himmel during his last moments. But he was so caring that he ended up comforting me instead.

   His last words were: "I love you."

   I didn't know what those words meant. But for some reason, my heart ached when he said them.

   Even thinking about them warrants the same reaction.

   I went into the nearest town and claimed the reward, reporting to the military that there were fiends and dead bodies in the area.

   Once again, I found myself alone. That night, for the first time in decades, I cried myself to sleep.

   I had a family for fifteen years and I never made any connections with them. I was emotionless and cold and I hated how it was so easy for everyone to feel.

   I knew the definition of Himmel's last words, but I didn't know what they meant. All because I didn't know how to feel. With my party gone and enough money to last me a terran's lifetime, I went to the capital and took the State Jynxist Exam (something Himmel always talked about wanting to pass).

   That was where I met a young man named Ray Camaro.

   The exam was easy but for some reason, we were the only two to pass. I had taught him a couple of spells during our breaks in between phases so he suggested I become a jynx tutor. With the State Jynxist license, getting a job as such wouldn't be difficult.

   He also told me that children were the easiest to make connections with, so I decided to take up his suggestion.

   This brings me to...

   Ilias sat there and listened to every word that came out of my mouth. His eyes even began to water a little.

   "It's okay, Ilias."

   "You became a tutor to learn to show emotions?"

   "That was the idea, but nothing has changed. I still don't feel anything."

   "You don't feel anything? You've been living with me and Mother for five years now. You're basically family at this point." Ilias hugged me. "Don't tell me that you felt nothing grow between us, and mother, and the colonel, and everyone in Gilead while you were here."

   "Five years is only a short time."

   "Five years is more than enough. You do feel. You do care. You just don't understand it, Heloise."

   That's the first time he's ever called me by my name.

   "Do you really think I can learn how to care?"

   "You already do. You just don't know it yet..."