Apology Part Two and A Chat Over Food

We talked about a lot of other things after that but the initial explanation of what Reapers did and the implications of human nature stuck with me for the longest.

I had determined with great relief that I had few regrets, and the ones that I did still reminisce about were small enough to not haunt me for the rest of my life -death?- nor permanently scar the people whose pain I carried remorse for; at least I hoped that they didn’t.

There were a choice few that I did greatly regret, but it was already too late so I would have to keep them with me for as long as I could remember; it was my fault for putting off resolving them.

I needed sleep more than anything at that moment and the two of them -Cyan and Jun- insisted on escorting me back to my room despite my protests; their fussing only furthered in making me feel like an aggressively mothered baby bird.

Cyan’s nickname for me earned an amused sidelong smirk from Jun that had made my ears turn red, no verbal comment was made but their expression spoke volumes that I hated having to listen to. It wasn’t fair that they had seen me at my most embarrassing point so many times when I had only seen them flustered less than a handful; where was the scale of fairness in this world?

Cyan gave me what I now knew to be her signature hug and forced a wheezed goodbye out of me before she disappeared to go and attend to other business. Jun didn’t leave quite so fast, actually coming into the room and waiting for me to offer a seat before gracefully folding themselves onto the couch I had Manifested.

“...I wanted to apologize to you directly as well; privately since I am unaware how intimately you have indexed your Instructor with information not revealed in direct correlation to their presence.”

I was surprised, having flopped quite messily onto the bed with both my mental capacity and physical energy running dangerously close to zero. I lifted my head at Jun’s words, staring down my chest and past my feet at their sullen figure softly tracing the piping around the seam of the couch cushion. It took me a couple moments to process their words.

That was… very consideringly sweet of them.

“...apologize for what? I don’t think you did anything worth an apology to me.”

They shook their head, insistent.

“As insinuated previously, I do not want you to think I willfully sent to you an Instructor ill prepared; or that I wished to be rid of you and therefore compromised your capacity of knowledge.”

Oh.

“Well… I don’t think that at all… and… I guess I was right.”

“Pardon?”

“You didn’t do anything worth apologizing for.”

I chuckled, feeling just on the side of delirious enough to send them a teasing wink before flopping my head back onto my pillow, too exhausted to hold it up at the awkward angle any longer. I didn’t get to see their reaction but there was a bit of rustling before there was silence, a couple clicks of their throat like they were going to say something but stopped themselves before they could.

I just smiled sleepily up at the ceiling and fought the heavy urge to drift off before I fulfilled my proper politeness and saw them out; it wasn’t in good taste -nor was it safe- to fall asleep in the same room as someone you had just met. Even if you did feel like you had known them for far longer or found them innately trustworthy, I would definitely not recommend it.

The thing was, I rarely followed my own advice when it came to safety or health precautions; I was out faster than a candle in a drafty tunnel.

When I woke from what felt like the world record for man’s longest sleep, there was a blanket twisted through my legs -I tended to move a lot in my sleep- and the lights were dimmed to a comfortable level for resting.

Jun was, unsurprisingly, no longer on my couch but there was a small fruit tart kept safely under a glass cover to preserve freshness with a fork set evenly next to it in perfect parallel with the plate. (I assumed the cover was glass since it was clear and transparent.)

It didn’t take much, but I was highly touched.

I rolled to my side and let out a truly ancient sounding groan, impressively later middle aged in the baritone of it as I settled my feet on the floor and stretched my arms above my head. My back didn’t pop like I’d wanted it to but I felt slightly more human again with my person the right way up for the first time in who knows how long.

I worked my tongue around my mouth, clearing the tackiness of sleep and cotton from my throat as I blinked to steady my vision.

Call Jun, I want to talk to Jun.

My earpiece was sitting on the end table I had placed right up against the bed and I was quick to slide it back into my ear just as Jun accepted my Hailing.

“Yes.”

“Hi, it’s um… it’s me.”

There was an embarrassingly loud yawn that forced my words to pause, a high pitched whine nearly escaping from my throat before I wrestled it down and blew it away by forcefully shutting my mouth and exhaling through my nose.

“I’m… I hope I didn't sleep too long.”

“You were resting for approximately… thirteen hours according to the metric Humans measure time by.”

Yikes.

“Wow that’s-sorry I was out for so long; did I miss anything I was supposed to do? Probably, right?”

It seemed highly likely given the amount of time but I still hoped the answer might be no.

“Training is completed in compliance with the individual Neophyte Herald’s needs, you are neither behind nor ahead. If you are ready to continue, I will Hail your Instructor to guide you.”

My curiosity was peaked, a few more questions funneling into my consciousness as my mind began to slowly come back online.

“And… if I wasn’t ready? If I wanted to sleep for thirteen more hours?”

There was a nervous part of me who was sure I was pushing it, especially when I didn’t plan on sleeping for thirteen more hours but I wanted to know; and my mind had also categorized Jun as someone safe enough to joke around with for reasons unbeknownst to me.

“I would note a concern about your mental wellness and insist you ingest a meal with sufficient nutrients in compliance with your physical needs beforehand; I would also suggest at least -by Human metric- thirty minutes of moderate movement with around fifteen minutes of stretching. I believe something called ‘calisthenics’ is popular on Earth?”

A pause of consideration was taken, Jun’s voice colored a shade more thoughtful.

“Health notwithstanding, if you are distressed about a violation of ‘rules’ I would simply tell you that your previously suggested actions would by no means defy them. As stated before, training is completed in compliance with the Herald’s individual needs; fullstop.”

I hummed a noise of stunned affirmation, halting my casual pacing as I was wont to do when on a call and instead taking a seat on my couch to fiddle with the smooth handle of the cover protecting the little tart. I should tell them thank you.

“That’s… amazing actually, I’ve never heard of a system like that. I can’t believe it actually works but, I mean, it would make sense I guess; employee loyalty or attracting only passionate people or something–uh, what I wanted to say is… thank you for the f-fruit tart by the way.”

I half expected Jun to ignore my comment since I was initially met with silence, but was pleasantly surprised to hear a quiet ‘of course, it was simply…’ before their voice trailed off into something close to an embarrassed string of muttered words. They were all business a moment later and left no room for me to feel flustered.

“That being said, further hesitation would not be recommended as swiftness is preferred, especially during the training phase so there are no lengthy installments of time between learning; to promote ease of memory and efficiency. Regardless, there is a high margin of leniency so do not… worry.”

“I won’t; worry. Thank you, I don’t feel like sleeping any longer so I'll get some food and then continue with my Instructor. Will it be Cyan?”

“Yes.”

That made me relieved to know, I was glad there would be familiar people guiding me through the new things. It gave me great comfort and peace of mind and I was pretty sure Oeuvre’s whole system was somehow built with this in mind no matter how foreign that concept was to me.

“Awesome, will you– would you like to eat with me, again? If– you’re probably busy but if you had the time…”

I immediately regretted asking, I didn’t know where my courage had come from and I had just asked before I’d even thought about it. I must have sounded so clingy, they’d been spending so much time with me and they probably had to catch up on a lot of other things.

“Ah! I don’t take back my invitation but seriously don’t feel pressured to– accept; I’m sure you have a lot of stuff to do and other people who-”

“I believe that would be acceptable, I am due for a meal and it would be favorable to share it with you if you are requesting company.”

Well, fold me up and call me an origami butterfly because that was easier than I thought it’d be.

“Great! That’s– great; see you soon, then?”

“Agreed.”

–

The more time I was allowed, the more I thought that time spent talking with Jun was… I don’t even know the word for it. Easy was a good one. Nice. Relaxing. Exciting. They all would work, too.

The Auspice was surprisingly funny and comfortably relaxed when they weren’t on task; they’d tied their hair up into a messy bun to eat and I tried to not stare too much in fascination as their braids were twisted seamlessly behind their head and held.

I’d learned they were an Elf which explained a lot of things once I thought about it; it was my fault for just assuming all bipedal creatures who weren’t covered in fur or scales were human by default and it only further proved that I still had everything to learn.

They asked about Earth, what my life had been like when I was alive and what I thought about Oeuvre so far.

I told them that Oeuvre was honestly nothing short of near perfection and they gave me the kind of look that said they completely understood. You couldn’t fully understand the magnitude of Oeuvre unless you’d seen it; seen the multitude of fantastical creatures with your own eyes and tasted the sugar spun sky air as you flew on your own two -or more- wings.

I agreed with what they had said before, there was absolutely nothing like it.

They had confessed that Oeuvre was even grander then where they were from, some planet whose name I couldn’t begin to replicate even though they repeated it for me consecutively slower and slower until they snickered quietly at my poor attempts and I gave up.

Cyan joined us right about when we were both finished and ready to move on. (I had a small suspicion that it was purposeful but I couldn’t be sure.)

“Alrighty Birdie, time for some hands-on learning!”

I gave her a quizzical look, mostly serious but partially joking.

“Oh, and what we were doing before wasn’t ‘hand-on learning?’”

“Nope! You’re going to be shadowing one of the best -if I do say so myself, which I do- Cupids Oeuvre has to offer; which is me, of course!”

I whistled lowly, giving the Fairy an impressed look as I heard Jun ‘tch’ behind me at the Fairy's theatrics. However sarcastic, there was no disagreement in their rebuttal so I took Cyan’s words to have even more validity.

“Ready to go?”

I looked at Jun, wanting to make sure they were finished and wouldn’t feel like I was bailing on them before I nodded with an answering ‘yep’ and followed Cyan out of the cafeteria area where we flew off to continue the next level of the ‘monitoring phase’.

Flying with Cyan was far different then flying with Jun.

The Fairy acted almost bored with the mode of transportation I still found to be positively thrilling, gesturing for me to make haste in Manifesting my wings so we could be off the ground and moving on as soon as possible.

We didn’t take a scenic route either, Cyan leading me ‘as the crow flies’ straight to where our destination was. Regardless of our swift flight, I was always eager to see more of Oeuvre as I tried to grasp how much it truly had to offer; I had the sneaking suspicion that, no matter how much time I spent there, I would never fully be able to comprehend its magnitude.

Oeuvre was, in short, beautiful; decadently lush with rolling valleys and mountains shaded gradient hues of a rainbow with foliage and flora studded together in distinctly wild clumps.

There were all unique signs of life stretching for as far as I could see and beyond, thin smoke tendrils in the distance betraying the presence of cookfires somewhere in the forest and pin sized blinking glow bugs ricocheted between soft looking grass and branches where the trees twisted together to block the light from reaching ground.

Thriving forests and blood orange clay mountains in the distance gave way to sleek looking buildings and complexes that could only be found in the heart of a city; manicured landscaping decorated the pathways and somehow crowned the industrial citadel portion of land to be just as mesmerizing as the wild side. It was the best parts each variation had to offer.

The aforementioned destination was the building I first came to when I had arrived, only this time I was the one landing in the courtyard with wings and a purpose.

I took pride in the few faces staring wondrously up at me as I landed where Cyan instructed me to; it was ridiculous for me to feel like I was somehow so much farther along than them since I was almost identically in their place only hours ago, but I truly felt distinctly changed in that short amount of time.

There was no way I’d ever go back to being only the human I was before Oeuvre, I didn’t have much choice in the matter but I found myself surprisingly happy with the additional knowledge.

In fact, I was beginning to think that I would be hard pressed to go back even if given the chance; although who knew what I’d do if I ever was offered.

I guess I wouldn’t know until the chance arose.