Walking into his room Orb sits on his bed, and as he does I ask, "Why are you dressed up like that?"
"I have a meeting with some important people later on and needs to at least look just as nice for them."
Spinning around, Orb says, "This outfit is similar to stuff Setanta wore back in the past; Suzuka made it up for me today."
"She made that in a day?"
"Yeah she did learn a lot from her mother, it is shocking how talented she is at so many things."
"You're one to speak?"
With gold hair and an inflated head, Orb says, "Don't be jealous Willow I am sure you will be good at something someday!"
"Sorry, I can't hear you from down there."
Orb jumps on top of my back, and says, "You just called me short again!"
"Only LITTLE, children get mad over something SMALL, like this," I say while tossing him onto the ground.
Rolling around on the floor like a child, Orb says, "SHUT YOU BIG MEANIE ONE DAY I WILL GROW UP TALL AND BE LIKE YOU!"
"ANY MOTHER AROUND! WE NEED SOME BREAST MILK FOR THIS BABY!"
"SHUT UP! If you were born 2000 years ago, I would have cut off your legs!"
"Huh why?"
"It was a common beastkin punishment. Basically, apparent the core of a beastkins existence is in their tights so damaging it caused weakening of all their beastlike traits."
I quickly sit down full of excitement and say, "Wait, wouldn't that mean lame people would be sickly."
"You're right about that. Culainn despite being a flying beastkin could never fly due to this issue. But apparently there is actually more to it than that, beastkin who are born druids apparently have a different muscle structure around those parts, but the technology back then didn't fully allow them to investigate it. Setanta learned a lot of this stuff inside Ellén Trechend."
"Ellén Trechend?"
"A behemoth wonderbeast made up of a bunch of different smaller wonderbeasts, that was also converted into a giant library."
"THAT'S SUPER COOL! What wonderbeasts was it made up of!?
"Well you see it first started with a, wait do you want me to talk about all the wonderbeasts and their own stories first or just how they work with Ellén?"
Scratching my chin, I try to say something, but then I close my mouth and palm Orb's face saying, "YOUR DERAILING THE CONVERSATION AGAIN."
Putting him in a headlock he says, "But you asked?"
"Of course I asked, I can't help myself, you know how I am with animals! We keep getting our conversations derailed recently, whenever we try to talk about anything?"
"And that's my fault!"
"NO, BUT I WON'T BE ABLE TO STOP MYSELF SO YOU HAVE TO!"
As I let go of him we face each other, and I give him a notebook saying, "This is the count of the eastern area of Nialathrú."
Holding it Orb says, "This will help when it comes to planning for our feature."
Noticing his tired eyes, I say, "You look worn out."
Rubbing the back of his head Orb says with blue hair, "Do I? Sorry about that, I don't mean to make you worry. It is just that I don't know when all of the systems the beastkin used to run their government will start to collapse due to our investigation."
Dumnorix came with a list of all the people within the government of the beastkin who were working with and or conspiring with the ministers, and for their crimes, they had to be thrown into prison. Which to a certain extent has left the government without many of its systems functioning. So now it's essentially a race as to whether and not we can stabilize enough things or let the whole system crash.
"Despite all of the horrible things they did, the Beastkins systems ran efficiently enough, so I would much rather integrate and clean up the system than destroy it, but the Fanalis needed a show of trust, so I had to throw out far too many people from the government."
"Couldn't you have just allowed them to stay in government long enough to help you keep things running, and have just pushed back the Fanalis problems."
"We already tried that with Aplos, and we saw how much chaos that caused with only 7,000 people. Trying that again with a population of 50,000 would ruin us, and letting a bunch of people who tried to turn all of their people towards civil war isn't a popular thing to do."
"But now all of the weight has been pushed onto you. That's just selfish."
With purple hair, Orb says, "It is fine, and people like Avram's, his workers, and the people from Skydust have been helping me along with Dumnorix. Besides this handy journal I got from Cultúir has given me a lot of critical knowledge, so everything should be fine going forward."
As Orb gets up, he says, "Thanks for delivering this." Then starts to walk away.
And as he does I try to open my mouth, but I close it. Right now, he is going through so much, yet I want to bother him with my issues, am I insane? I can barely handle taking one life on my own and here I think I can pester someone doing this to thousands of lives, how foolish am I?
Orb turning around says, "Oh, is anything bothering you Willow?"
Trying my best to hold back in my feeling, I close my eyes, and say, "No I am doing just fine."
Seconds after this I open them, and I am greeted with a knee to the face. "WHY!?"
Grabbing me by the collar and shaking me, Orb says, "I have seen that look, it is I am going stab my best friend in the heart face, and I have seen where it leads."
Shaking me far more violently than before he says, "NOW TELL ME WHAT'S BOTHERING YOU!"
"NOTHING!"
"BULLSHIT, I DON' T FEEL LIKE TAKING A SPEAR THROUGH THE CHEST AT A CRITCAL MOMENT SO TELL ME!"
"OK FINE! JUST DROP ME!"
As me and Orb split up, I lower my head, and say, "During the time when I had to catch the attackers of Dillon, they had a bodyguard with them, who I ended up killing in battle."
"Willow."
Shaking, I say, "I know it is stupid and I know it is foolish, but I just can't seem to handle that at all. I keep thinking crazy things like he could have changed, or is there someone who would weep for him like I did for my parents? The fact that I have killed someone just makes me feel filthy, even though I have been fine with other people doing it for me, and I just don't know how I feel about that."
As tears start to fall from my eyes, I wipe them, and say, "Sorry I am so pathetic."
Orb quickly grabs my hand, and with white hair he says, "Willow."
Then he flips me onto the ground, and I smash my head off the floor.
Holding my head I roll around on the ground just wishing that the pain would disappear even a little bit.
"What was that for?"
"Just a reminder that you are alive. Whenever I get a bit too wrapped up in my thoughts I do the same to remind myself that pain still moves through this body, and I can still affect the world. Willow, I am sure more people have died to my actions already than will ever in your life, but I am alive so I must keep moving forward because if I don't all the lives lost won't matter in any form."
He stretches out his hand, and as Orb does I stare into his eyes for a moment.
Even if it is only faint, I can see them within his eyes, the people who have died because of him. Orb all this time since you have returned, have you been carrying this same awful feeling?
Grabbing his hand, I allow him to pull me up and I give him a hug.
Smiling Orb says, "Hugs are nice."
I am sure the chaos that led to that man's death won't be the end of the battles we will all have to face, and when the bodies pile up I want to be able to take on some of the weight from Maple and Orb.
Even if I feel like shit for the rest of my days, I want to keep my family safe throughout it all. That's a promise I make to myself, and I make to them.
I quickly move to fling Orb onto the ground, and as he slams on the ground he says, "YOU DIRTIED THE SANCTITY OF THE HUG!"
Picking my nose, and flicking it onto him, I say, "I guess I did."
Through the doors one of Avram's associates Ivana walks in dressed in a similar get up to Orb, and says, "We need to leave now Orb, or we will be late to the meeting."
"Oh crap!"
Running out the door, Orb says, "Hey Willow if you wish to learn more about Barr, go to the graveyard run by old man Aois."
With that Orb rushes out, and sigh saying, "So his name was Barr. How much did you already know."
-Break-
Location: Grand graveyard of Nialathrú
As I get close to the graveyard, I see a ball flying towards me which I quickly catch, then moments later I see a bunch of children both beastkin and Fanalis running towards me saying, "PASS!"
I prepare to throw the ball at them, but then from behind me my arm is grabbed, and then I hear my favourite voice say, "HEY WHAT DID I TELL YOU BRATS ABOUT PLAYING SO CLOSE TO THE GRAVEYARD!"
Looking over I see Maple slightly annoyed by their presence.
Hearing her complaints the kids make mocking faces towards her, and she starts to squeeze the ball until they fall in alone.
Seeing her cute face, I plant a kiss on her cheek, which causes her to blush and say, "What's that for?"
"I just couldn't hold back."
One kid says, "She's in love!"
And the rest say, "EWWWW!"
"SCRAM!" Maple shouts while throwing the ball into the distance.
As they leave she takes a moment to calm down, then turns to me and asks, "Willow what are you doing here?"
"Obviously I came to see my adorable little wife."
She playful hits me in the stomach with her fool power, then blushing looks away and says, "A-A-Adorable, I can't with you. If you think you're definitely getting special treatment later, you would only be 80% correct."
Holding my stomach in pain, I say, "This is totally worth it."
Standing up slowly, I ask, "Do you know where Aois is?"
"He is over here just follow me."
As we walk I say, "The kids seem to like you a lot."
"They did force me to play with them for an entire day and at the very least it seems it made them attached to me."
Looking into all the people working on the graves in the distance, I ask, "Are you guys still burying the war casualties?"
"No, right now we are moving some of the bodies of the Fanalis who were not allowed to be buried here before into the graveyard."
"I can see the sentiment, but is it really practical."
"Apparently so, Senán gave us some new wisdom that the reason the soil became as damaged as it did was that all of the wonderbeasts aspects from the beastkins bodies slowly overtimes eroded the soil quality.
And when the population hit levels where people were dying faster than the soil could break down their bodies we eventually reached a point like this where the soil started to lose its ability to sustain life."
"That must be hard work?"
"In this new era for us all, everyone is working hard, so I will continue to."
Hugging her from behind, I say, "You really are amazing."
Maple remains shy but still allows me to hug her, until she stops and points at a small old man and says, "That's Aois."
Kissing her on the cheek, I run away and say, "See you later."