Project: TheirWorld - Chapter 031 - Part 2

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Secret

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TheirWorld

Wiping her hands on her apron and looking at his face, Mrs Noin exclaimed, “Why child! Whatever is the matter?”

“I-I…” Pastor Jormund got on his knees and kowtowed deeply, his forehead on the ground. “I-I’m sorry… so sorry…”

“T-There, there…” she told him in a warm voice. “Get up off the ground now, silly boy - you aren’t going to make an old woman pull you up, are you? It’s dirty.”

“I am undeserving of kindness!” Jormund cried.

“Then I will not be kind,” Mrs Noin huffed, putting her hands on her hips. “I’ll not accept your apology. Reall. You and Euen - even Rew - you all are full of the greatest nonsense.” The pastor looked up at her, his face drenched. “Oh, look at you!” The old woman took a dish cloth she had in her hand and whacked him with it. “Wipe that face of yours off. Tea will be ready soon enough!”

As she walked away, Pastor Jormund sniffled.

Grinning, Guin looked up at the picture of young Alta Noin and her husband. “Was Rew the name of her husband?” she asked.

Jormund nodded. “Master Rew was a good man,” he said, looking at the ground. “One that would still be here if it weren’t for my foolishness.”

Mrs Noin Scoffed as she brought a plate of biscuits and tea over. “Are you still on about that? Lady knows that there was nothing you could have done, little Jormund.” She pat him on the head as she passed to fetch the tea water.

“I could have done more…”

“The do more,” she told him. “Come have tea with me once and again. Bring Euen, next time - that fool is no better than you.

The pastor shook his head. “You don’t understand,” he said. “I wasn’t there for Melora as I should have been. I should have been with her - taken care of her, stopped her - and Master Rew. Everything would have been different if I had just been honest with everyone!”

Mrs Noin’s smile was both proud and sad as she told him, “Don’t do that to yourself. She was so very proud of you, following your path. The only thing she wanted was the love that you gave her. As for Rew, he understood that you and he walked different paths. For him, becoming a Servant was simple; he knew no other life. He may not have understood you, but he loved you all the same.”

“Corruption has returned to the forest,” Jormund said quietly, sitting on his knees.

Alta Noin looked at him knowingly. “It always does. It always will. There is nothing for it, child,” she looked out a window that opened to the forest. “Perhaps it is inevitable, in this era of greed…”

Gripping his knees, Jormund’s knuckles went white.

“I would like to believe that that’s not true - not this time, as least,” Guin said, sipping her tea. Dawl’s story may have been frightening, but Guin still had a trump card. Several, in regards not only to the circumstance, but her position as a player. This was the tutorial, and she, at least, was immortal. Not that they would ever consider that, of course. They looked at her with curiosity. “The fox spirit causing it asked for a pelt. I intend to bring it to her. Myself.”

“I cannot let you!” the pastor growled. “Dealing with spirits is never so simple-!”

“In this case, I rather believe that it is,” Guin told him flatly. “I didn’t just stumble on this spirit - I was asked to save it. Do you not understand? The spirit herself is not yet completely corruped - there is still time to prevent further tragedy.”

Mrs Noin looked at her shin shining eyes. “Guin dear, you can see them?”

Guin nodded. “The spirits of this forest - the ones I met, at least - are kind, and caring, and i feel that this spirit is the same. Her anger grows daily, but if only for the sake of her cub, she would not see the wood taken so easily.

“Oh, child!” went Mrs Noin, clasping her hands together. “You must tell me your stories, one day!”

“Please, don’t encourage her -” Jormund started, but Mrs Noin hit him with the dish cloth again.

“You hush,” she told him.

Obviously getting more and more frustrated, Jormund shook his head and shouted, “You don’t understand! No matter what those spirits have told you, there are powers here that you cannot even dream. They will kill you - and even if they don’t, they will drain you of all that hope of yours - all of your life - and they. Will. End. You.”

“Why is it that you keep telling me that what I see is wrong?” She glared at him. “What is it that you know exactly? A man of the cloth, in service of the Lady. As I see you, your job would imply that you should squash any mention of the supernatural - and yet here you are. You aren’t telling me they don’t exist. You aren’t telling me to kneel before an idol and seek forgiveness. You are telling me that the spirits are powerful, fickle, and otherwise inclined to cause hurt and pain. What is it that you have seen, that I have not?”

The pastor’s face darkened, and out from behind his deep blue eyes, a power and a knowledge far greater than her own seem to emerge. There was power in this darkness. Controlled yet, but knotted up and squirreling, like the face from the fear test, trying to escape from whatever cage he had contained it in in his mind, and the forum posts that she had read about Jormund the Pale came up in the back of her mind. “Because I have seen it.” He told her, his words soft, but strong. “I have seen it all. Since I was younger even than you - things that were not supposed to exist. Things that tricked me into sin. I have been to all the doctors and wisemen my mother thought she could trust to cure whatever curse she believed me to have. She prayed to the Lady, and took up her whip to beat out the demons that possessed me - yet still they came. They came and they whispered in my ears over and over no matter how hard I tried to ignore them, they still came. They still tormented me. The still lied to me.” His smile was bitter, and his eyes icy cold with a touch of madness as he spoke. “Why do you think the church sent us here?” he asked, as if it were a ridiculous question. “The Imperial Church had no place for a monster who talked to demons.”

Guin gaped at him as things that should have been so obvious began to click in her head. Forget the death of his wife - the landmine had been the spirits all along.

So. That was the secret.

Pastor Jormund could see the spirits.