Chapter 47 - Insight

I stand still at Orville's door, my knuckle hovers with hesitation. 

It feels childish to ask for a favor when he's suffering. But I know the poison of helplessness, and I can't let it consume me. I need to talk to someone.

I knock on the door softly. 

His faint, raspy voice bids me to enter. He’s propped up in his bed, looking smaller and more fragile than I’ve ever seen him. Yet, when we meet eyes, there’s still a flicker of that familiar, steady light.

“Shikara, come, sit.” he says gently. 

I pull a small wooden stool to his bedside, the scrape of its legs on the floorboards taints the mood in the room. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Orville. I know you need to rest.”

“Nonsense,” he dismisses with a weak wave of his hand. “I’m getting tired of my own company. Is everything alright? You have that same look on your face as when Roach was giving you the third degree.”

I can’t help a small, watery smile. 

He’s dying, and he’s still able to tell when I am just keeping up appearances. 

“I… I feel lost.” I admit, the words tumbling out in a quiet rush. “I want to help, I really do. But all I’m able to do is move things from one place to another. Without Clovis, it feels like my real purpose has been banked.”

Orville takes an extensive breath in before replying. “The work you are doing is important to someone even if it doesn’t feel important to you. But I understand. You’re worried about Clovis, aren’t you? Truth be told, so am I.”

A slim frown douses Orville’s expression. 

“Of course I am but there isn’t much I can do in my current state to help her. And when she shut down my ideas about the attack it felt like she put up this wall around herself.” I take a moment to calm myself as I can feel a heat rise to my head. 

Orville lets out a soft, rattling sigh. “She’s always been a difficult person to work with. Stubborn. Aloof. She keeps the world at arm’s length.” He shifts against his pillows, a grimace of pain flashing across his features before he settles. 

“I’ve known her for a long time, and I can tell you now that she hasn’t warmed up to anyone in this village the way she has to you. She doesn’t show it, but she appreciates your presence more than you think.”

A protest wants to form on my lips. I want to argue, to point out her recent coldness, her dismissals of me and my ideas. But I can’t. 

She is erratic, yes, but on a good day, she’s thoughtful and fiercely passionate. The idea that this is her warming up to me is actually quite comforting.

“You have to understand,” Orville continues, his voice growing fainter, “elves aren’t like us. They live for two, sometimes three or four hundred years. She’s seventy-nine. A little bit older than me, if you can believe it.”

He pauses, catching his breath. “But that long life comes at a cost. Elves struggle to have children and as a result, they don’t have the same kind of communities that we do. Most of them prefer to roam, surviving on their own.”

A realisation is bestowed upon me as Orville halts to take a break.

Clovis’s aloofness, her yearning for autonomy, her occasional social awkwardness… it isn’t just a byproduct of her incantations. It’s the consequence of a life without much guidance. 

“The only reason she settled down here was because I asked her to. She told me she wouldn’t stick around for long, but that was about 30 years ago now. I think… I think this is the only real home she’s ever known.” Orville’s eyes grow misty with memory.

The tension I’ve been carrying around since our argument loosens its grip on my temples as my frustration transforms into empathy.

“I didn’t know any of that, thank you for the insight into her life. I feel like I understand her so much better.” The relief is evident in my voice, I think I can let go of my pursuits for the time being and wait for Clovis to be ready. 

He gives me a weak but genuine smile. “Good. She needs a friend, even if she doesn’t know how to ask for one.” His energy is fading fast, his eyelids beginning to droop.

I stand up quietly. “I’ll let you rest.”

“Please be patient with her.” he murmurs, his eyes already closed.

I leave his room with my heart feeling both heavy and light. 

My feet carry me to the banks of the northern palisade to take an interlude watching the last sunlight of the day paint the palisade in shades of gold and purple.

I don’t know how to fix our situation or how to mend the rift between me and Clovis. I close my eyes in hopes of finding some answer in the respite of darkness.

“Uh hmph”

I open my eyes and almost don’t recognize her without her satchel and the determined sound in her step. She’s right above me, with her arms crossed over her chest.

“You haven’t been back.” she states. It doesn't feel like an accusation, more like an observation. 

I lean halfway forward, getting out of her immediate gaze. “You’ve been busy. I didn’t want to bother you any further.”

“I’m always busy.” she replies, a hint of her old bluntness returning. She’s quiet for a moment, studying my face. “You look like I feel.”

The admission is unusual. 

She takes a seat next to me, leaving a careful space between us.

“I’m sorry,” I say without much hesitation. “ I was… insensitive. I wasn’t thinking about what you were dealing with. I was just excited about my ideas, and I didn’t see past it.”

Clovis lets out a long, slow breath, and some of the tension seems to leave her shoulders. “And I’m sorry,” she counters, her voice low. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. It wasn’t about you. It was about… everything. I felt like I was drowning, and you threw me a book on the theory of swimming.”

I let out a small laugh. “That’s a pretty good way to put it.”

“Tell me…” she says, finally admitting the real reason she’s here. “Tell me about your ideas from the beginning. I’m not promising I’ll help you, but I will listen.”