Serial
34: Sister and Brother
December
23rd, 32 S.D. 02:11 Sventa, Central Plains
Harle watched as the glass of water before him levitated into the air. Surrounded by a soft, blue glow, it picked itself up and traveled across a smooth, flat course. He noted how little the water inside swished as it gently flew into Losha’s open and awaiting hand. For the past hour and a half, Losha had demonstrated several small displays of serialization as a matter of educating her brother on the art. Nevertheless, even when he saw her powers for himself, Harle found all of it terribly confounding. Perhaps he was merely expecting too much. How could he comprehend in less than a day what Losha had spent most of her life mastering?
In between these examples, she recounted everything that had happened since her disappearance, including her most recent escapade. All the while, however, Losha found herself eating quite a lot. Her frequent calls for food, she assumed, were simply a response to not having consumed anything for the past 24 hours. She wondered how much, if any of it, was caused by the depletion of her seras. After intense training during her time as a student, she’d often seemed possessed by a strong appetite later. Were there links to the body and soul like that? The body was thought to be a shell for the soul, but just how did they interact? If, outside of serialization, seras did have an effect on people, Losha questioned whether that may also explain her abnormally quick recovery. Her ruminations, however, were interrupted as their conversation resumed.
“So,” Harle began. “If you were capable of doing as much as you have told and shown me with serialization, why did you keep quiet about it?”
Losha sat on the bed with a tray placed over her knees. She put another spoonful of soup into her mouth, then she pointed the utensil directly at him. “What difference would that have made?” she asked in return.
For a moment, Harle blinked as if stunned. He leaned back in the chair he’d drawn next to her as he gestured about with his hands. “Well, if we had seen what you could achieve, how grand the possibilities of your art were, that would have certainly changed the discussion,” Harle explained.
“And that is the only thing it would have changed,” she said, tapping the air with the spoon.
“I do not follow...”
“The conclusion, Harle, would have been the same regardless.”
“You know this how?”
“Because neither you nor father nor mother would have allowed me to leave.” Harle remained silent for a time as both his hand and eyes fell. “Consider it for a moment if you will. I could have raised mountains to the sky, crashed stars upon the earth, but I and still flesh and blood to you all. I could never have gotten any one of you to condone my plans.”
“That is not...”
“Even now,” she interrupted. “You object to my presence in the military, correct?”
Harle looked up at her, holding his mouth in his hand. He waited a brief instant. “Losha, it is not so much that I object to your presence in our armed forces, it is simply that I object to your presence to potential danger or harm.”
She shook her head. “I know it is only rational to feel that way about the ones you love, brother, but it makes for poor leadership at times.”
“Where did that come from so suddenly?” Harle said with a puzzled frown.
“We are the Torom of Holvate, are we not? Imagine if I could stop this war in a single second. Do you know how many lives would be spared? Our duty is to ensure the safety of our people. Even if it meant my death, could you send me onto the battlefield? Or would you rather wager the well-being of thousands of others in my place?”
Harle grumbled and demurred. “Mmgh... What about you then?”
“Me?”
“Sa. If it were me, would you send me to die, even if it did prevent more casualties?”
“I would not force you to make the choice yourself,” Losha said as she folded her arms. “Yet I would not stop you if you honestly decided to sacrifice yourself. I would respect your actions.”
Harle sighed and waved his hand back and forth as if to make his words clearer. “Losha, it is not that I fail to respect the path you have chosen, it is that I cannot respect the manner you have walked it,” he said. “Mother and father were gravely concerned about the whole affair. Did you know that father was consigned to his bed these past few days? The stress of your disappearance placed a considerable burden on both his mind and body. Mother has been harried trying to assume all the tasks of the Torom and attend to an ailing husband, all the while carrying an equal amount of worry over your sake.”
Losha’s eyes flashed up at Harle for a moment but swiftly averted his gaze thereafter. Her lip curled pensively before she spoke as she felt the likes of shame and sadness hardening in her breast. “I know I have brought them suffering on my account, and I have affected you as well. I am neither so oblivious nor unkind as to ignore these consequences. For all that I have made you endure, I truly apologize. Even so, mine was a necessary course to take.”
She turned her head back up at her brother. “It has not been an experience without pain,” she continued. “However, in the end, this has been the best available outcome for Sventa, for us. It hurt, sa, but I still live. We will be a family again, once this pathetic war is over. Every day I fight, we will get closer to peace, and then we can go back to our lives.”
Harle studied her for a bit. As he had come to understand, Losha really was one to stick to her values, and for that he deemed her worthy of much credit. She also proved far more insightful that he’d expected. In a way, he still could only picture her as the seven year-old little girl he’d last seen her as all those years ago. Every time he looked and talked at her, however, the reality of her age seemed to shock him. He knew she was an adult now, but it only felt like a recent change rather than one that had developed over time.
“Why were you so strongly moved by the war at all though?” Harle asked. “Granted, Sventa itself is powerful enough to avoid large-scale disputes with other clans in most cases, combat is a part of life in the Central Plains. War... just happens.”
“What made me want to go to war?” she huffed slightly, as if the answer were only all too apparent. “To bring it to a close.”
“Okay,” Harle said. “But why do you want to end this war? You could have let this all play out as it has gone on for generations. What really drives you to stop this one?”
“Harle, this is war we are talking about. The fact that people are so eager to slaughter one another stands as reason enough for anyone to want to stop it. However, as a personal matter, I am repulsed by it. That is all I need to know and feel.”
Harle nodded at her briefly. “Palostrol. It was peaceful, was it not?”
Losha cocked her head to the side. “Palostrol? Why bring that up suddenly?” she asked him.
“You lived there for most of your life. It must have been a completely different world than the one you have returned to now.”
“Sa,” Losha said smiling as she leaned up against the bedpost, her head tilted slightly up at the ceiling. Despite her recent dreams and the events which had caused her to leave in the first place, she still harbored only the fondest memories of her home in the mountains.
“Palostrol was a wonderful place. It was very vibrant, yet also quite calm. Do you know what Master Eltin, my teacher, did to us? To Astens?” she questioned, glancing back down at her brother. He held his hands open as he shrugged and shook his head.
“Tell me.”
“He made each of us promise never to share our surnames. We were not allowed to share where specifically we hailed from. He did not merely wish to avoid any fighting amongst ourselves; there was something else to it. I think he wanted us to know that we were truly not in the Central Plains anymore. We had no need for bitter rivalries that largely had nothing to do with us in the first place. There was to be no clans, only students. It worked though. For years, I trained with other Astens, neither knowing nor caring what family they were born into. My closest friends could have been cousins for all I knew, or kin of the enemies I face in battle today. In Palostrol, however, that was all irrelevant. Everyone was just a soul.”
Losha laughed to herself shortly. “Sa, you know what else? Denze never told me what clan he was from, even after we left Palostrol and returned to the Central Plains. I gathered that with his being my student, everyone else in Sevia implicitly trusted him, as if I were vouching for him. In truth, however, his ‘people’ could be our sworn foes. Yet, here he is with us - well, not at this moment - but still, being Sventa does not matter to him, just as much as it does not matter what his own heritage is. No one had bothered him about it.”
Their father, Harle realized, had been startling accurate about Losha. He’d said that the life she had once known likely influenced her reactions to the current war. Mavont had not been wrong.
“I wish we could all be like that, like we were in Palostrol. Can you imagine how the Central Plains would be if instead of seeing ourselves as clans, we all simply saw each other as Astens?”
“Hmm,” Harle said, rubbing his chin. “I have never thought about it like that. In my mind, ‘Asten’ is a very loose term; it just describes the various people living in the Central Plains. I see it as something purely technical; it does not seem to pull together disparate factions. How should I better phrase it...? Sa. It is difficult to mentally equate a Sventa to a Besnol. Sure they are both Asten, but they have too many differences to be ‘just’ Asten.”
“And yet I have seen it happen with my own two eyes.”
“I do not doubt that Losha,” Harle said, turning his head from side-to-side. “I merely cannot understand it. I am loathe to admit it, but I fear it is symptomatic of the Central Plains as a whole. This is the way we have lived for centuries.”
Losha frowned a bit; she cast another kinetic series that picked up her food tray and shifted it over to a small wooden stand beside her bed. Seeing the work of serialization before him, Harle remembered something else their father had spoken of, something that may eventually come true.
“That does not mean that the way we live is right... and it does not mean we cannot change. Correcting the world, shaping it into something better... I do not believe these things to be impossible, only very challenging to achieve. To start the process of change, you need power greater than all of ages of our people.”
“And do you think serialization holds that power?” she asked. Harle laughed aloud.
“Sa, what can I say? I am no master. You are far more versed with the art than I am. You are in a better position than anyone to judge. But... if serialization is the key, and if that depends on the soul, the rest falls to you.”
“So, do you think I could be the one to change the Central Plains?”
“Anything is possible, Losha.”
“Ksh,” she said, jerking her head to the side. “How nice of you to respond so indirectly.”
“If you want me to be honest, I really think it is too soon to say. Losha, you have barely been back to the Central Plains for more than a few months, and only in the past week has the world been introduced to this art of yours. We cannot earnestly speak of its potential for peace just yet. Remember, if we can alter all the violence and brutality that fills these lands, it will not be something that happens in a day. It will take a lot of time. Years, decades...”
“But it has to start some time, and it has to start somewhere. I intend to bring this conflict to a head with minimal loss of life. True peace may be a far goal, but it begins now, I can assure you that.”
“Very well then,” Harle sighed. “Just do not let yourself become another victim of the fighting you seek to stop.”
“Is that all?” Losha inquired, her voice quivering with perplexity. Harle in kind gave her a curious look.
“What?”
“I mean, is that all you have to say about the matter? No lecture? No rant? No threats to drag me back all the way to Sevia? No more guilt trips about how my actions have affected the family? You will simply leave it at that, ‘do not die’?”
Harle blinked once before collapsing into a fit of laughter. When he recovered, he spoke in between his breaths. “Come now. And here I thought you would be the one person to know your brother. Do understand that I am not so strict and opposed to your aims. True, father mad me promise that I would not allow you to join the battle, but there is little I can do to stop you. Even if I threw the most political influence I have around here, I would not be able to remove you from our forces. The others in charge would not hear of it. Furthermore, any means of persuasion I have are meager compared to your principles. You would not hear of it.”
He laughed to himself once more. “Sa, it is beyond anyone to cull you from your calling now. But I am serious about your safety. Your encounter with that Velhast Hound was narrowly escaped, and you very much put yourself in jeopardy. Remember, an end to this war will be empty for a number of people if you perish. Not just your family Losha, you have your friends, your students to consider as well.”
She nodded at him. Indeed, she had Denze and Mesel to think of. Without her, they would have only the barest guidance in their pursuit of serialization. There remained a number of subjects she’d yet to share with them; she couldn’t imagine them getting very far along without her careful instruction. Mesel might advance, perhaps, if he were not so despondent these days. Denze definitely needed someone to keep him in check.
“Speaking of my pupils,” Losha began. “I really must write to them soon.”
“Why is that? Any reason aside from explaining why you have been away recently?”
“I am afraid they already know my motives all too well. However, I suppose I should dictate their next lessons. I gave them plenty of material to research in my absence, but I fear they may have already completed their assignments.”
Harle’s head reared back as an incredulous smile spread across his face. “Wait, what?” he asked.
“What is it?”
“You impersonated a soldier, covertly joined an army, fought thousands on the field of battle, sabotaged the enemy in their own territory, and here you worry about homework?” He smirked broadly and shook his head back and forth. Losha looked down as she scratched the nape of her neck.
“I-I fail to see what is so odd... It is a perfectly natural apprehension!” she insisted.
Harle chuckled to himself, leaning forward and wagging a knowing finger at her. “I shall tell you what it is, my dear sister; it is totally bizarre.”
“How so?” she questioned in her defense. She too leaned forward; her hands gripped her knees as her face bore a defiant expression. “You have to realize, in Palostrol, we had a very focused and daily regiment of learning. We have only just left the school, but if we do not maintain that same level of dedication, we risk stunting our growth as serialists. It is no matter to make light of.”
“Surely they will survive a few months...”
“Well, around this time in Palostrol, we were given leave for the winter...”
“Sa! There!”
“Ksh... They are my students,” she said, twisting her head away, nose upturned and eyes closed. “I will instruct them as I see fit.” They laughed together for a time, neither one of them occupying a serious mood.
“At any rate, I expect you will go back to teaching them serialization once everything here is over, right?”
“Sa. I want to begin helping others learn the art. As a master, I think I should at least establish a formal school for myself.”
“A school, huh?” Harle said, his thoughtful eyes wandering upwards for a moment. “A place where people can learn the same sort of powers you have gained.”
Losha pointed at him as she spoke. “Heed me now, brother, I will not teach people how to serialize as I have in this war. Serialization is perhaps the most potent tool ever conceived by humans. It shall not become another weapon of our wars. I shall see that it fills a more proper role in our world.”
Her mind summoned the terrible words King had spoken to her on that horrific night, the pledge he had made and the so-called test she was subject to. She had received the supposed “right” to give serialization to the world at large, but if any abuse of the art were deemed too egregious, King threatened to end serialization. No doubt, he would dispose of any serialists too, as he had so easily done with her cherished master. Losha did not care if King were originally responsible for serialization; that gave him no standing to prohibit others from practicing it, regardless of his opinion.
Still, she was scarcely strong enough herself to challenge him. The only way she could defy him was by proving serialization had a place and purpose outside of war. In that fashion, she’d also assumed Master Eltin’s will, his ideals that the art should be spread rather than contained. Losha was not naive enough to think that people would not attempt to use serialization in their malice or misdeeds, but she did not believe it would bring the world to ruin as King predicted. All that was needed, she felt, was adequate vigilance. As the one to set the art upon the Continent, Losha had vowed to keep watch.
“Sa, sorry.” Harle apologized. “I did not mean for you to interpret it like that. Even so, you mean to teach people what you know. That is still an amazing prospect without all of the techniques you have designed for battle.”
“Well, it is not as if what I fight with is markedly different from any of the basics. The application and intention are what change serialization into something... forceful.”
“Sa, maybe one day you will be schooling your nephew or niece,” Harle said with a smile.
“Go and make one or two, then I will see what I can do.”
“C-come now, Losha. Teiva and I were only just married...”
“Sa, there is no rush. However, the available seats in my school are limited...”
“Your school is as complete as my unborn child; how do you know spots are limited?”
“Obviously serialization is going to be big.”
Again, they shared a moment of laughter together. After all that had happened, it was a heartening occurrence for both. Even after she’d made her return from Palostrol, Losha hadn’t spent enough time in her brother’s company, not as they did on this night. Their intimacy had been one of the first losses of the war after all.
“You could learn serialization, you know. It is not something only your children can grasp.”
“Sa? But you need to spend years to master it. I am uncertain, with all of my duties, that I could withstand such constant training. You made it all sound so involving too when you talked about how often you used to practice.”
“Mastering the art takes time. Yet you need not master something to use it pragmatically or efficiently. Consider that Denze has only studied the art these past three or so years, and already he can do most of what I showed you.”
“Hmm...” Harle mused.
“I do not believe everyone should aim to be a master. Simply becoming a master does not make a serialist useful. The purpose of serialization, after all, is to do. People should learn it as a tool to meet their needs. Maybe I am thinking too grandly, but if you asked me where I would like to see the art in the future, I would say everywhere.”
“Everywhere?” Harle echoed.
“Sa. It would not be limited to a handful of people or only those who had dedicated their lives to it. Serialization would be available to everyone that wanted to use it. Maybe even the distinction of a serialist would be meaningless because we would all be serializing...”
“Huh,” Harle said, pondering the matter deeply himself. “Changing the Central Plains is a tall order, but it sounds like you plan on changing the whole Continent.”
“Perhaps I will.”
“And perhaps you can...” They smiled at one another, almost shyly even. All at once, Harle stood up and stretched broadly, yawning. “Well, as an irregular agent, I am sure you keep an irregular schedule. I, on the other hand, am still an officer. I shall have to wake up in about four hours.”
“Harle... You did not have to stay up so late for my sake.”
“It could not have been helped tonight. It simply happened.” He moved his chair away and gathered himself before leaving. After they exchanged their good-nights, Harle stopped at the corner before he disappeared. “Next time, however, do not just run off without a word. Tell us. If we cannot stop you, so be it, but do not deceive the ones you love. Stay safe sister.”
With those words, he ducked away into the hall. As his footsteps faded, Harle left Losha in the midst of a deep and sudden silence. She sighed heavily into her chest as her head flopped forward. Throwing herself backwards onto the bed, she lied there with her limbs and hair sprawled across the sheets. Her eyes vacantly traveled up to the ceiling. Despite the lofty goals she had stated, her soul was not yet free of doubt. Hers was a journey of many steps after all. Though things went to plan now, who could speak of the future?
Having been asleep for so long previously, Losha could not muster even the faintest desire to rest. For hours on end, she merely closed her eyes and tried to tame her uncertainties. All the while, however, she kept recalling the words Nabel had said. Again, she saw him; reaching out from beyond, his hand extended as if inviting her.
“My chosen inheritor...”
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