WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 646: Lingering

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"I am fire. And you are the angel who carries it."

Over the years, the demon had said many things. That was one of them, a temptation woven from its words.

Enticement laced through and through with falsehood, yet even an elf's sharp senses could find no crack in the demon's speech, so it had a way of sounding like the truth.

Words have power.

Words repeated often settle into the mind, and from there they shape action. So yes, words have power.

"Was it you who burned it, or was it me?"

Was it the demon's doing, or had she been the one to draw the demon here?

Then were the fires the demon set her fault?

Black ash flowed through Sinar's veins. It gnawed at her heart and planted fear there.

And still, Sinar held on.

Her pride had been gone for a long time by then, so what she was doing was closer to desperate thrashing than anything else.

Face the fire, feel the terror, and pretend otherwise. That was Sinar's defiance.

How startled she had been watching what Enkrid did in that situation goes without saying.

Setting the tent on fire?

Absolute madness, and yet somehow, in that moment, it had felt all right. Fire, which had been fear itself, the very symbol of the demon, had not looked that way then.

Why? She had not wanted to know. At a time when she was scrambling just to conceal her feelings and bury her emotions, there was no room to chase reasons.

The only thing an elf cursed to be unable to face flames could do in that moment was keep her mouth shut.

And then there was fire.

She had turned away because she could not bear to look at the burning flames, but it had not been agonizing enough to kill her.

Bran, she supposed, deserved some of the credit for that.

Bran, her teacher and old friend, had taught her not to fear fire. He had passed on his meaning exactly as elves pass things on, through action and bearing and the way one lives. The Woodguard had lit tobacco. It was as strange a sight as a ghoul eating chocolate pudding, yet Bran had done it.

Elves were not forbidden from using fire, but Woodguards, being elves grown from trees, did not keep fire near them. It was a response carved into their instincts.

Trees and fire.

Not exactly a comfortable pair, was it.

Not in practice either, and yet Bran had finally put the tobacco between his lips and lit it.

Sinar felt time accelerating. At the same time she realized this was a lucid dream.

Old shackles had loosened. A curse made of words hammered into metal, wound through with the craft of years, twisted and braided tight.

The demon had gripped her for a long time, gnawing at her bit by bit. That demon was dead.

Reality and dream blurred together, and then memories from the past invaded the dream.

"Fire. Fire."

A serpent made of flame coiled around her ankles again and scorched her flesh. Crackle, crackle, grass and flowers burned and sent up a sharp, acrid smell.

Cold sweat ran down. Her body in the real world seemed to be drenched in it too.

There was no breaking free of the curse the demon had left in a single instant. That was the nature of a curse bound not by sorcery or magic but by words.

"Do you still feel like you want to simply die?"

Someone else's voice pressed in at her ear. The way dreams go, the surroundings had shifted without her noticing, and so it was now. Before she knew it, she was sitting in the middle of a forest. Sinar looked at her hands and saw they had shrunk back to the size they were in childhood.

Fair, pale skin on the backs of her hands. If she rolled her sleeve up and bared her arm, there would probably be a scar there that had not been there long.

"If I must die, then I will."

Sinar had said that just before reaching adulthood, in the days when she was called the cursed child, and her father had told her it was not her fault. That father was visible now, leaning his back against a tree. His was the voice she had just heard.

"Or have you changed your mind?"

Her father asked again. Sinar watched him quietly.

When her father appeared in her usual dreams, he would barely manage a few words from somewhere in the dark, but today he stood before her in full sunlight, unhidden.

Thin rays filtering down through the forest traced him from face to feet and held him in her sight.

"It changed."

Her mother answered. She was standing beside her father, though Sinar had not seen her arrive. The arch of her brows, the shape of her eyes, the line of her nose, the curve of her lips, all of it close to Sinar's own face.

When they were small, her sister had said Sinar took after their mother while she herself took after their father.

"How would you know that?"

Her father asked her mother. Her mother stood with the sunlight catching her golden hair.

"We have something in common."

"So do we."

"Yes, but I feel a deeper bond with that child than you do."

"So do I."

Their words were flat because they kept their emotions in check, but thinking back to her childhood, Sinar's father and mother had argued often.

You could call it an elf-style quarrel.

Her father held his ground in his quiet way while her mother seemed to ignore him in calm unconcern, or at least that was how it looked.

"You are being stubborn," her mother said. Her gaze stayed fixed on Sinar. Her mouth moved for her father's sake but her eyes held a tender light kept only for her daughter. The same mother she had always known.

"No. I am an elf. I speak only truth."

Her father gave no ground.

"A distortion, then."

"No. That is how I feel."

"You are distorting your own heart."

"My heart tells me so."

The argument stretched on. Even knowing this was a dream, watching them like this felt good. Was this not a familiar and dear sight?

"Please, both of you. Bloodline shapes who we are, but it is not everything."

Now her sister appeared. Naira Kirhais. She added her words in her cool, wry tone.

"Naira, you are cold," her father said to her.

"I am just an ordinary elf."

"Bran said you were particularly skilled at holding your feelings in check."

"I handle my own affairs."

"That makes me sad."

Keeping emotions hidden was not the same as having none.

Elves felt things through their inborn sensitivity. When the range of those feelings broadened, they could be saddened or gladdened by small things, their emotions rising and falling with ease.

Frogs readily accepted their limits because they were quick to recognize talent, and elves were easily moved by others because they felt emotions so readily. Their psychological structure was, in other words, fragile.

Like a perfectly white canvas that takes on any color paint.

If Frogs lived drunk on desire to break through their limits, elves learned to restrain their emotions in order to guard that fragile inner structure.

So an elf whose psychological foundation had grown solid would begin again to show some part of their feelings.

As Sinar's parents did.

They could express themselves to that degree without causing each other harm. But other elves, young ones especially, would be unsettled by that kind of display.

Restraint, then, was also something you practiced in order to raise a sensitive child. What about now?

Their child was grown. So they could be like this.

And her sister, Naira.

She had been gifted from childhood, taking in and understanding anything in an instant.

Stray thoughts tangled and twisted together and arrived at a strange conclusion.

The one who should have remained, if things had gone differently, was not herself but..."That is a useless thought, Sinar. If survival depended on superior ability, it should not have been me who stayed but our mother. If she had gone into the Labyrinth knowing she could not use vital energy, our mother would have cut the demon down and had strength to spare."

The words came as if she had read Sinar's mind. Naira offered comfort in her unchanged way.

Her words had logic behind them. Countering logic with logic was an elf's forte.

Their mother had been a genius among geniuses born to their elf lineage. That was what she was saying.

Naira looked at her with worry and concern folded inside that blunt gaze.

Her eyes spoke. There was no need to be all right in a single moment. Just hold on to something small and keep going.

Not so different from what she had said before leaving.

"None of this is your fault. Do you understand?" she said aloud.

Their father added something at that, and their mother spoke again of her bond.

It was not lively or loud. Elves had no reason to be noisy even gathered together.

But quiet did not mean it was not dear.

Sinar let herself enjoy a moment of calm. She did so even knowing how it would end. This was a lucid dream. They were gone. She could not see them again. They might have died at the demon's hands and become nourishment for it.

The deeper her thoughts went, the more gloom raised its head.

Rustle.

Something like that seemed to reach her. And then someone cupped her cheek in their hand. It was Aden.

"I never thought you would go to anyone but me," he said.

Aden had a taste for elf-style jokes. He was saying something pointless again now.

He had treated her not as a woman but as a sister or family his entire life, and yet here came those words.

"Flame is destruction and it is birth. That is the meaning of Lafratio. So fire is not something to fear. Only something to be careful with."

She knew. She had told herself the same thing countless times because she knew. Be careful with fire.

Not avoidance but care, a statement of will to handle it by being careful.

To teach her that one truth, Bran, even as a Woodguard, had overcome the fear carved into his instincts and put the tobacco to his lips and lit it.

And Lafratio, Aden's family name. Which meant Aden Lafratio was also the name of an elf blacksmith lineage.

Translated directly into the continental tongue, Lafratio meant undying fire. To render it more freely, it could mean regeneration.

Regeneration. To be broken and live again.

"Igniculus, kindle the Spark. Breathe a soul into the flame that has gone out."

That had been what Aden did. Hammering iron to give it life, breathing spirit into flame.

It was a particularly sentimental dream tonight.

Then everything seemed to snuff out at once and the world around her went dark.

From within the forest that had been the backdrop for her family and Aden, black soot gathered and flowed and clumped until it filled the trees. The sunlight faded and vanished as if it had never been.

"Cursed child."

"Everyone died because of you."

Elves keeping their emotions in check looked that way to humans, but among elves, this much was more than enough to convey intent.

The understated meaning threaded through the words came through completely and then some.

Formless voices from inside the soot. Resentment and blame and complaint. Every fault pushed onto her.

Sinar had not yet broken free of her curse. She could only endure it. She understood this was a time for enduring, and her father stepped in front of her to block the way.

"You are dead. Go become flower pollen and be done with it."

Her mother stepped in too.

"Potato sprout-looking things."

She even spat out something harsh.

"Shall I burn you all away? Fire is not only the demon's to use," Aden said, stepping forward as well.

Her sister crouched down in front of Sinar and met her eyes.

"What is he like?"

Even Naira, who hid her feelings better than most elves, had never been that way with her.

Until she died, she had talked like this, about silly things. She was the same now. It felt like an ordinary conversation between sisters.

"Stubborn and out of his mind."

"Yes, that is exactly what it takes."

Her sister smiled and said it. Then she stood and stepped in front of her. Soot gathered over the curse-like resentment.

What had Enkrid said? That a demon appeared in his dreams and said something, but he had forgotten what.

The soot gathered its will and spoke.

"You wretched thing, call my name now. You know my true name, so call it!"

In dreams she had always been hunted and torn apart. But now she would not need to be.

Sinar steadied herself. She could not overcome it in a single stroke. But she could begin.

"If you think it is too late, if you think it cannot be done and you stop, then nothing will ever happen."

Enki, you were right. You were right, and I respect what you meant.

Sinar opened her mouth with effort. She needed courage, so she pulled courage out. Courage became will and gave her strength, and she spoke to the demon.

"Who are you again?"

If this was the time to forget, she would forget now. Those were the words she sent out, carrying that intention.

"You wretched thing?"

The demon showed its rage. Then it burned the forest. Great walls of fire filled everything before her.

Sinar's back and arms carried terrible burn scars. Pain came to life again from those scars.

Her family who had stood in front of her caught fire. Even Aden, even her sister, no one could stop the flames. The fire swallowed the dream and burned her too.

Within that fire a blue light crept forward, cutting through part of the blaze, and held itself in front of her. Maybe because of it, the heat was bearable. So that was what she would do. She would bear it.

"Someday there will be a day when you smile, Sinar. When that day comes, do not forget how."

Her father said it as he burned.

Yes, Father. That day has come.

Not faint or restrained, Sinar smiled in full bloom like a flower opening.

Waking from the dream, Sinar felt that the corners of her eyes were wet. She had been crying in her sleep.

"Well. That was not a bad dream."

She murmured to herself and got up. Various thoughts drifted through her mind, and then she recalled catching a brief mention before she fell asleep that Enkrid was going to the spring.

Sinar stepped out of the wooden house.

Outside, the air was cool, but the sunlight was good and clear. It was the kind of day that made you want to sink into water for no particular reason.

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