Theory of Relativity

I’ve lost my appetite at this point, and I stare at the stew mournfully. I’m stuck in a fantasy-land, mistaken as the maybe-dead-but-definitely-out-of-commission former savior of the world, and surrounded by people who either fear or worship me and nothing in between.

What am I supposed to do? It would be something, anything if I had even the remotest smidgen of knowledge about these kinds of things that could give me an edge.

All I know is that I want nothing to do with any of this Lugaz nonsense. I might look like Eluin, but I’m still me. And I’m no damn savior of anything.

However… simply walking away from this situation doesn’t seem like the best choice now, either. I’ve made one pseudo-friend in Ruelle, and one maybe-probably-ally in him, seeing as he’s one of the aforementioned worship-y types. Oh, and he did risk life and limb to save my skin.

All that’s assuming I even could opt out; Gerrin seems intent on keeping me here, whether I like it or not.

But if I do stick around, they’ll expect me to do something about their predicament. Worse, they might try to force me into it, by way of using their magic powers and pointy weapons to torture me or something.

Oh my God. What if they use magic to try and get me out of her body? Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, really, if I got to go home.

It’s some gruesome combination of a stroke of genius and a flash of paranoia. After all, there’s no telling exactly what would happen to me if they did cast some spells to remove my presence. My stomach turns over at the thought of a magically-lobotomized version of me, forever floating, detached, in the atmosphere of our collective conscious.

I’m being dramatic, but what normal person wouldn’t be in this life-changing, backwards scenario?

But now that I think on it more, it’s clear that there are only three reasonable (and I’m using that term loosely) possibilities for what’s happening here.

First: Eluin’s conscious, or soul, is stuck in this body with me and I’m simply the one taking over at the moment while she watches from the nether. Like that American horror movie I watched one time.

Second: Our bodies were swapped, somehow, meaning Eluin is living my life back in Tokyo. I choose not to dwell on this one for Beckett’s sake.

Third: The Eluin of the past – her consciousness – is long gone, and I’m simply rent-a-rooming her strangely preserved body for… reasons. What are those reasons? Who can say, at this point. I suppose I’ll have the burden of finding out.

There is a tiny shred of hope that comes to the surface suddenly. “If I’m not dreaming,” I say somewhat smugly, “then how is it you’re all speaking Japanese?”

Gerrin and Ruelle exchange a side-eye glance.

“You said that before, but… we don’t know what that is,” Ruelle says.

“Japanese. You know, like the language. I’m speaking it right now. And you’re responding in it!”

Gerrin cleared his throat. “We are speaking Reunian presently.”

“Oh. Does… does it sound like I’m speaking it, too?”

“Well, yes.”

I put my head in my hands. This has to be another magical-whathoozit. Whatever – or whoever – brought me here seemed to think of every contingency.

Speaking of whathoozits… Gerrin’s expositioning comes to my mind. “Okay. You were talking about magic, and whatever. What are runa?”

“They are our means of harnessing magic. Wielders will inscribe the runa – sigils in an ancient language – onto something, and their spell will come to life through it. As you saw, Ruelle is able to use szarat, a defensive charm that can stun or blind the victim. The runa on the wolves that attacked you is called goludura. It is… a means of control, involuntary on the part of the inscribed. Only one with supreme levels of magical ability can use it. It is a detrimentally expensive drain to one’s mana. And it is unknowable how many victims are being controlled by Lugaz at this moment, using that very spell.”

Oh, great. The magic has rules.

“That’s what you were doing with your hand, back there?” I ask, remembering Ruelle’s strange machinations during our wolf fight.

She nods, producing a small pouch from her belt bag. Inside is a yellow powdery substance, which I poke at indelicately, eyeing the residue on the tip of my finger. Ruelle’s mouth twists, hiding what I can only assume is a chuckle at my expense.

“You can use runa in lots of different ways, but placing it onto something is always required. You can write, carve, etch... et cetera. So I carry this pigment around with me, and if you mix it with a bit of water, or sweat…” She demonstrates with a dab from her cup and a pinch of the powder, which easily mix into a slick paint. “It turns out like this.”

“And you wrote it on your palm,” I finish.

“Correct.”

I glance from the powder to my own palms and back. “Can Eluin…?”

Gerrin makes a face. “She was known, historically, for her skills in swordplay. But she was not wholly without magic. One of the legends detailing Lugaz’ end suggests that she wielded runa the likes of which we have never seen – and has never been seen since. Something he could have never expected, that he could not have defended against.”

“Hmm. And what do you think about that?”

“You are… asking for my opinion?”

"Well... yeah."

He's a little flustered by this, but as per usual, takes it in stride. “It is not impossible. As I said, the sigil used to inscribe runa are from a long-dead language, something that existed before any of our kind roamed this land. Their history is difficult to understand, and it is the endless work of our scholars to interpret it. New meanings are derived from the sigils regularly, and woven in to how we are able to use runa. By that logic, some combination of lettering could have been learned by Eluin that would destroy Lugaz. But, if that were true, his return should be impossible. And we would surely have seen some kind of evidence of it, somewhere.”

“There is another theory,” Ruelle speaks up, eyes bright, “which says the runa she used only imprisoned him, in another plane of reality. That is why he disappeared from Tor Reuna, but why he wasn’t completely destroyed. Er, at least, that’s what the elders at my village used to talk about…”

Truth be told, I’m not picking up on any of this. They might as well be speaking Reunian, or whatever other language, because everything they say goes in one ear and out the other. Magic, sigils, spells, demons – it’s all crazy talk.

Thankfully, I don’t have to reply, because Gerrin does the talking for me. “I believe,” he says slowly, “that there is something uncounted for in the magic that kept Lady Eluin in her restful state this long. Perhaps it is as you say, and you are not she. But there can be a multitude of reasons why this would be the case. You still woke in Eluin’s body; her scars are yours, and so too are her memories. To win this war, we must do what we can to return them to your state of being.”

“That doesn’t sound expressly pleasant. What will happen to me if Eluin’s memories come back?”

“I cannot say. This is an… unprecedented issue.”

“What should we look for?” Ruelle chimes in.

“You are not helping,” I hiss at her.

Gerrin ignores me. His features are grave when he responds. “We need to contact Arlen.”

“Who?”

Ruelle gasps. “Arlen! But no one’s seen him since…”

“Since what?”

“Indeed,” Gerrin says. “But he is the only person who might be able to tell truth from lies.”

“I am not lying!”

“Or misremembering.” Gerrin directs a pointed stare at me.

“Okay, you know what? Screw this. I’m not some puppet on your strings, or some deity beholden to your prayers. I’m just a regular woman, trying to make sense of a nonsense situation. And I’ve had it. There is nothing I can do about this. Keep your secrets – I’m done.”

I turn and limp out of the tavern, ignoring the calls of her name, and even one desperate one of mine. I’m not so heartless to ignore the tiny sliver of guilt that slides into my heart, but I clench my fists and do my best to freeze it over. I’m resolved to find my way home, whatever means necessary.

It’s not like I could help them even if I wanted to, anyway. Whatever Eluin did to Lugaz is firmly stuck in her own brain. Even if Theory One of mine was true, I have no tangible way of reaching in to figure out her secrets. And I’m definitely not letting some wizard use magic to rifle around in there.

The air is balmy as I exit the inn. Highcreek is rustic, with trodden dirt paths and small, homey houses. The tiny population staying at The Lamb’s Wool wasn’t an accurate representation of the mass of villagefolk who live here, out and about in the evening glow. It’s for this reason – and my poor leg, I imagine – that I don’t make it more than five steps out the door before I’m spotted by Eluin-stans.

Her influence over this realm is no joke. Well, it’s a joke insofar as it’s humorously inconvenient for me, a person who wants nothing to do with any of this, and who’s put smack dab in the middle of all the worlds’ drama.

Nobody is able to actually say a coherent sentence directly to me, though. There’s a lot of inter-murmuring and staring, quite a bit of stopping in the middle of streets to gawk in awe… and eventually, I’m surrounded.

I can’t do this. Whatever this is, I can’t do it.

So, ignoring the pain in my leg as best I can, I start running.