Near the beacon

I shouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore.

I had been surprised to find myself outside in the cold winter of a mountain.

I had been surprised at finding dwarves, and not those affected by dwarfism but real dwarves.

I had been absolutely flabbergasted when animals spoke, and then I started hearing voices that also made strange things happen if I asked with a “please”.

So I should not have been surprised by a pillar of light appearing just after some incense was burnt, nor should I have been surprised by Lucrezia's tattoos, that usually lighted up suffused and not like the Sun was in front of you, did indeed become a miniature Sun.

And so, I should have taken proper protections, due to not being able to be surprised.

Like not turn towards said miniature sun.

Unfortunately, I was surprised, so I did the opposite of what I ought to do.

Which is why I was, immediately after that, on my knees, covering my eyes, shouting like an idiot.

There may have been interesting words used while I was shouting, words that may be best to not repeat.

At least I was not the only one, for Ingrid was doing the same thing, only louder.

I may not have said this, but dwarf, well…

They do not like the Sun.

At all.

This is a silver lining, for misery loves company and I do so love company.

“AAAAH!” Ingrid continued to shout, and I could feel her rolling on the snow and stones, the crunching and the moving pinpointing that action.

There was another sound, like tinkering bells, but I was too taken by Ingrid shouting, due to how amusing it was, and by my own cursing, due to how sudden and annoying it was.

I would laugh if I wasn’t blinded myself.

At that moment it was an “almost”.

By an hair.

Revenge, sweet-

“Ooof!” I was grabbed by a hand and pulled up quickly, and then I heard, or rather stopped hearing, Ingrid’s shout, and herself chocking up suddenly.

That’s because we were both being chocked by a pair of strong arms, and the tinkering bells were now close to our ears.

“It has been years since the gods had been this happy!” The tinkering bells spoke, and then I pieced it together, after the flashbang that went off in front of my eyes.

The bells were the elf, and it had been the first time she had laughed.

Uhuh.

So she did have some endearing qualities, and not simply ways of making my job harder.

“Please…I…neeed…air!” Ingrid choked out in the meanwhile but, either due to her happiness or due to her carelessness, Lucrezia the elf just continued to laugh.

And then started to twirl around, the feeling of the new suns not going off and rather, if what I could see from my rapidly darkening eyes, becoming able to melt the snow that was around that altar.

Or maybe it was the onset of low oxygen to my brain.

We started tapping her back, strongly tapping.

Punching her back, some would say, but she would later point out how they “felt like love taps, like little children rubbing her, and that it was too joyous of a moment to be muddied by a simple mistake.”

Unfortunately for us, it did not work, and I am sure I missed five minutes of my life.

Why do I say that? Because I found myself on the not so soft rocky soil beside the river, which at least was warm and not also freezing, while the elf looked away from us and her actions, her ears red but a smile still on her lips.

When she saw me, or maybe it was us because of the groans right beside me, her eyes became wide and she punched her own chest, and shouted loud enough to make my own ears ring and to make Ingrid’s groans even more present: “This one apologies for the undue treatment you have just suffered, Miss Ingrid and Mister Victor!”

Uh.

I rolled to look at Ingrid, and she was still out of it.

Or maybe I had been simply hearing those “groans” wrong and she was actually sleeping, hopefully this one.

Misery, yes, but nothing too bad.

So I rolled back to look at the elf, now slightly sweating while looking forward, above us and, sighing, I simply said, waving my hand like the boot people would do: “It’s not that big of a deal, e-miss Lucrezia. Just, next time, do not choke us for helping you? It might be good for our future, and I do like being able to breath, all in all.”

There was a chuckle beside me but, after rolling quickly to look at its direction, there was simply a dyrgia who was not awake.

Supposedly.

I got up, not turning towards the supposed traitor, and pulled up from the ground the wood and leaves I had taken with me: “So, are you ready to put these? Hopefully it won’t make anything as flashy as what just happened.”

The elf nodded resolutely and, with shaking hands, took the offered material.

The altar was still there, then more of a calm beacon instead of the real pillar of light, but, for the first time there, I could feel something like…a warmth in my chest?

It felt like when I was around that tree near the rock, but it was different. Not a bad different, but…different.

I may not be ever able to explain it, but I simply watched as the elf, delicately, put the bay leaves and the olive wood and then, using dry pine wood as a fuel, she lighted it up.

It was a small flame, and the light started to lessen more and more the more it burnt up, but it was…special in a sense.

Ingrid would say, later, that it was similar to my rock, yes, but that it was also something more.

I would have had to talk to Grandma about that, maybe she would have some information, some wisdom to give.

Because if this feeling could be put into my house, it would help, and I would not be found wanting in my oaths.

I may be mean, but I am not an hypocrite.