Book 1, Verse 33

“Please.” Niels said quietly, not looking up. “Forgive me.”

Elisa’s jaw dropped.

Frankly, mine did the same thing. I looked at Vivian’s; hers was down as well.

I quickly shut my mouth. I mean, what had I been expecting? This was what I had hoped he would say.

But to say that there was no question about whether or not he would say the right thing wouldn’t be true. I’d had my doubts about him for a moment there.

Thankfully, they seemed to be misplaced.

Elisa was the next person to close her mouth. She opened it again just a few seconds later.

“Forgive you?!” She pouted. “You called me an animal! Over whether or not I was going to kill something that can’t even speak!”

Niels’ face turned red.

I bit my lip as Elisa began to let loose her fury.

“Do you have any idea how mean you were to me?!” Elisa asked loudly.

I saw Vivian tense.

“I thought you were actually smart! I thought you had feelings! I thought you were different from every other elf I’ve met!”

I made a mental note of that; apparently the racism went both ways.

Niels’ fist clenched the bottom of his shirt.

Maybe I’d have to get involved again. I hesitantly took a small step forward.

Niels stood up.

I stopped.

He made eye contact with Elisa.

The two of them stared into each other’s eyes determinedly. Elisa’s expression was one of confident indignation, and Niels displayed all the traits of someone who was calm and resolved.

“Elisa.” He said evenly. “I spoke like a child; and an ill-tempered child at that.” He maintained eye contact. “P-please, forgive me for being so immature.”

Elisa didn’t flinch.

Me and Vivian did.

Elisa’s tail flicked back and forth purposefully. Her ears were up. Her catty eyes weren’t narrowed anymore.

“Niels, I don’t ever want to hear you call me an animal again.” She said firmly, but then her voice softened. “But just this once…” She glanced over to where me and Vivian stood. “I can forgive you.” She looked back at him slowly.

Niels nodded respectfully.

“I understand.” He closed his eyes and raised his head towards the sky.

Elisa pursed her lips together, looking like she had something else she wanted to say.

But whatever she’d planned never came out, because she, alongside me and Vivian, was surprised by a peculiar sight.

Niels began to sing.

~~~

I didn’t know what to do.

His voice was still even-toned, but it sounded like he was singing a bird song. Even as he vocalized, I thought I heard some birds in the distance begin to join him.

What was even weirder was the fact that, despite not understanding the language he was speaking in, the song felt familiar.

I found myself humming along with him.

The two of us were joined by Vivian after a couple verses.

And near the end of the song, even Elisa joined in.

I hated it when the song ended.

Niels looked back at Elisa.

“I hope you’ll accept the song.” He said quietly.

Elisa looked shocked, but after only a moment’s hesitation, she nodded.

“Heh. You elves are so… emotional.” She said with a playful smile. “I accept your song.”

Niels, finally, smiled again.

The two of them slowly turned away from each other, collected their personal belongings, and walked back to me.

“I’m ready to continue.” Niels said.

Elisa pointed to him and nodded to show that she agreed with him.

With only a slight nod from me, we began travelling again.

~~~

The sun was slightly past the point of noon as we continued down the path leading towards Kuzges.

I don’t think we were ‘on edge’ per se; I just didn’t like the idea of everyone walking in silence. It gave people time to stew on negative feelings that had already been addressed. Maybe I was overreacting, but I figured that I should do everything I could to make sure that our motley crew was comfortable with each other.

I mean, I’d done a pretty good job diffusing the confrontation between Niels and Elisa.

But as I kicked at a loose stone on the path, I thought about what had happened a little more.

I could take credit for everything that had happened, sure; except for one little detail that made it hard for me to do that.

I had prayed for things to go well.

My head tilted side-to-side as I thought about what that might mean.

If what John said was true about prayer, then what did that imply about God? After all, if he really did exist, and all it took to get some divine power was a bit of prayer, then it was almost like I had God under my control.

Which would be a neat idea, but obviously that wasn’t what John believed; otherwise he would’ve marketed it to me like that.

Plus, having a God-in-a-box that I could call upon to solve all my problems for me whenever I wanted sounded really… overpowered, for lack of a better term.

Wasn’t that what I had though?

I looked at my hands as we kept walking past some rolling hills that were around the path.

Not quite; I’d prayed outside Niels’ tavern a few days ago, asking for God to send me back home, and that hadn’t worked.

I’d also prayed outside the building of the Monster Tanners for Niels to allow me to work for him, but instead he’d decided to join us on our travels.

So clearly, not every prayer worked.

But what was deciding what worked and what didn’t?

If John were here, he would’ve probably said something about how God decides to say ‘yes,’ or ‘no’ to prayers.

I sighed and pressed my teeth together in thought.

What about delayed responses?

That changed things; I’d prayed to go home outside of Niels’ tavern and it hadn’t worked then, but what I was doing now was me trying to get back home.

Did that mean that if I got back home, it was because God had helped me? And if that were true, then would the opposite also be true? That if I didn’t get home, it was because God hadn’t helped?

No; that made it so that what I did didn’t matter.

But that line of thinking couldn’t be right, because John had said something about having free will and living in a universe where God ‘ordains’ everything that comes to pass.

That was a contradiction though, wasn’t it?

Before I could think about it any more, Elisa spoke up.

“Hey Niels, if you don’t mind me asking… Why are you so against the use of animal blood in alchemy?” Elisa asked gingerly.

If I could scream, I would.

But as the resident priest, it was my job to keep calm.