The Beginning After The End

ARTHUR LEYWIN

Repressed memories of another uncertain and drifting life have invaded me, homogenizing with many previous lives in a confused cloud of half-experience.

As I floated in the aftermath of this life, my mind haunting my own child's body as the ghost of an old and restless spirit, I recognized him for the first time: I was tired.

The keystone punished me in a way that I could not have anticipated. Like a candle that falters in the face of a strong opposite wind, I was in danger of turning off. I knew it, but I couldn't do anything about it. I had no opportunity to back down, or give up. But with every life, the possibility of failure was becoming more and more real.

The life of the infant rushed as I languished in this post-mortem cloud. I allowed the memories of my decisions to float, without taking the time to dissect my last attempt to resolve the key as I had done for the previous time. There was a new collection of puzzle pieces that had to fit in one way or another together, but my very human consciousness was tired, and my little infant brain wanted to do nothing but eat, sleep and be clean.

Suddenly, I was a young child again. How many times now? I asked myself, briefly, without succeeding, to align all the lives of the keystone in order, each version of me resembling a little toy man placed on a shelf.

The young voracious version of me was already devouring the library books in my parents' office and was beginning to accumulate mana towards my sternum. It was enough for me to blink for the house to be destroyed when I woke up and so that everything started again.

By sinking completely into my body, I took possession of myself and stopped. I couldn't deal with all this again, not yet. I needed to rest. There was time... it took time.

Standing on my chubby and slightly arcuate legs, I gave up meditation to... play with cubes in my room. They weren't painted in color like the ones we had for the youngest children in the orphanage, but they were expertly carved to form small brick patterns, and I quickly arranged them to form a coarse wall. I indulged in the grey matter of my physical form as a child, and the instinct of a toddler took over. I started playing, effortlessly and without worry.

The day when I should have formed my nucleus and awakened, and Arthur Leywin's worries, Lance and Regent of all Dicathen, were overwhelmed by the desires of a toddler who quickly became a boy. Sometimes I had annoying echoes of memories, like my fourth birthday, when I suddenly thought we should have moved to Xyrus, but they fainted as fast as they had come. After a while, I no longer knew whether they were real or whether they were just half-forgotten little dreams.

I was approaching my thirteenth birthday when I first spoke about these strange memories of my father.

He stopped to ramble the rushes and looked at me with a pensive air. “Few people believe it today, but some ancients still speak of ancient customs. People thought their minds were reborn in a new body when they died. Reincarnation, I think they called it that way. One of the things they were based on was that kind of memories. You know, memories that don't seem to be yours." With a shrug of his shoulders, he returned to raking, pulling the old rods towards the door.

I pushed my own little pile of dirty rushes on the floor without really cleaning anything, my mind being absolutely not occupied with this task. "But sometimes, I remember... the magic."

Dad froze. I stared at him from the corner of my eye, and his face passed by several expressions one after the other. The surprise was quickly overshadowed by the pain, which melted into disappointment before finally being covered with a painful smile. "I don't think that's so strange, Art. All children dream of doing magic."

He sighed and pressed his rake against the wall. I did the same and dropped myself against him. He hugged me and clamp me against him.

"I'm sorry," I muttered into the rough cloth of his shirt.

"What?" he asked, caught off guard. “Why?”

"I know you're disappointed that I didn't wake up." I tried to keep a stable voice talking, copying the tone he used when he and Mom were arguing, but he didn't want to feel like it was.

He clenched and the embrace became troublesome. Slowly, he released me, then placed one hand on each side of my head and forced me to look it in the eye. "Listen to me, Art. You don't disappoint me. No," he added quickly when I tried to look away, unable to believe it. “Listen. I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. He interrupted and let go of me, struggling to keep his calm.

His jaw contracted as he picked up his rake and began cleaning the ground again. After a few seconds of hesitation, I followed his example.

"You have done nothing wrong, Art," he continued, the grater of his voice fading. "If I seemed disappointed, it's not because of you. I... I wanted so much that you were a wise, and maybe I'm disappointed with the situation, but never by you. I know you may not see the nuance now, but it's important that you try. I don't want you to grow up thinking you've disappointed me. On the contrary..." He interrupted himself to raking a large pile of rushes and went aside so that I could do the same.

"I'm afraid it was I who disappointed you," he ended by looking at me with watery eyes.

I wanted to tell him that he had not disappointed me, that I loved him, nor was it his fault. But I couldn't find the words.

He scraped his throat. "Hey, what do we do to melt? Your mother and sister will only come back from the market in a few hours. Why not put down these rakes and fetch the training swords?" His face became lighter, unknowingly, if it was a real excitement or a mere false aspy. “We can finish the chores later.”

I didn't really want to, but I still gotten acquiesced, knowing that he was just trying to help. Dad put an arm around my shoulders to hug me, and then gave me an elbow so that I could get past the front door. By the time I came back with the two training blades in my hand, I was already relaxing, leaving behind the dark thoughts of strange memories and magic to focus on the feeling of the leather-wrapped handle in my hands. When I put his sword back on dad and settled in the center of the courtyard to make us more flexible, I had almost forgotten the whole exchange.

I wasn't afraid to admit that I was good at a lot of things. Almost everything I was trying, actually. I might not have been able to form a nucleus, but I was doing pretty much everything very naturally. Sword fighting was no exception.

Dad had started training very early, and it was so natural for me that I was constantly surprised with my technique. It's at least what he liked to tell me. I didn't remember everything that had happened when I was four or five years old, but I knew I had always felt very comfortable when we were training, especially with swords. It was as if everything else was going in the background and I could focus on what I was doing.

As I leaned over, I caught my father, looking at me pensively, with eyebrows frowning by concentration. He looked away as soon as I looked at him, and I understood that he was still thinking about the conversation. "I shouldn't have talked about it," I thought, reprimanding. I knew that dad tended to think too much and become emotional. I had to support him. I was no longer a little child running after his parents whenever things seemed difficult. I was almost a man.

I stood upright and made the sword spin in light wood. "Are you ready, old man?"

Dad laughed, surprised, and turned his foot, bringing back the tip of his sword so that it was directed towards my face. "I'm always ready to give you a beat, little one."

As I smiled, I pretended a forward slit that turned into a push under his care. He moved his hands slightly, placing his blade in a better defensive position. Leaving my right foot, I moved abruptly to the left and took a quick shot to his thigh instead. He changed his attitude, retreated his right foot to avoid the blow, and shot his gun on my shoulder.

I fell into a front roll, quickly inverting my grip on the training sword in order to tighten it tightly against my body. Despite the speed of this maneuver, dad had already turned and was rushing when I was back on my feet. I was younger and faster than he was, but he had much more training and the benefit of mana improving his speed and strength.

“Experience always prevails over young people,” he said with a smile before launching a series of quick moves.

I blocked them all to the last. Feeling the end of his burst, I dived under the last blow and pushed my blade into the ground between his feet. Deceiving in the direction of the attack, he tried to retreat and stumbled over the blade. His eyes widened and he struggled hilariously as he lost his balance and began to fall back.

I rushed forward to carry the “dead” blow, but the ground moved, sneaking under my feet. I collapsed, my blade escaping from my hands as I tried to catch up on the ground. "Tricher," I shouted as I fell.

The sweet grass cushioned my painless fall, but the blow that followed against my shoulder blades hurt me as a dog. "Gah." I drove away from dad trembling with laughter on the floor, his training blade held softly in his hand. "No mana manipulation in training," I complained, trying to get my hand behind me to rub my shoulders. I knew the blow was going to leave a painful mark.

'I had to answer your invitation,' he said nonchalantly, putting himself on the side and supporting his head with one hand. "That was clever. I was completely destabilised."

"You think I'm good enough to be an adventurer even without mana?" I asked casually. "Where could I ever become one day? I have heard from other boys that the younger members of the adventurer's guild are my age or less.”

Dad got up and held out my hand. I took it and he trained me after him. “This is not unusual. Non-Mai mas adventurers, I mean. But it's pretty rare, and they never rise higher than the first rank or the first two. The thing is, mana beasts are much more dangerous than you think. Entering a dungeon without mana improving your senses or creating a barrier around you is practically a death sentence."

In front of my mine, Dad hastened to add, "But the magi represent only a small percent of the Fir population. There is simply not enough wizards to fill all guard posts or form an entire army. There are even tournaments for non-mage fighters. You're good, Art." He brushed the dirt of his trousers. "Too good, maybe," he added with a smile. "But you're so smart. Many of the best scientists and inventors that exist are non-mages. I have no doubt that whatever you do, you will be the best in your field."

I rubbed my neck and tried to hide my smile. "Thank you, Dad, I."

"If you keep working," he said, winking. "Now, let's go. Enough warm-up. Let's see what you really know how to do, Art."

With the same smiles, we put ourselves back in position before exploding again in a series of strikes, parades, skies, and quick counter-attacks. One hour or more has elapsed in intense blurring. The fight ended only when my father suddenly lowered his guard and stiffened in the middle of the exchange, which caused him a violent blow to his forearm.

He grinned, dropped his training sword, and rubbed the spot, while addressing a painful smile to mom ascending the alley, frowning. "Uh, darling. Your visit to the market was quick today.”

She passed him in his eyes to the front door, where one could clearly see a pile of dirty rushes and two rakes. "You say that every time, Reynolds."

Next to Mom, Eleonore pretends to roll her eyes. "Yes, Dad. Every time."

I hid a smile behind my hand as Dad rushed towards Mom, kiss her quickly and took the big basket full of basic necessities she wore. He tried to walk on the back of Ellie's shoe, pulling him halfway through his foot, and then cast an innocent glance at my wide-eyed eyes that made me cheer with embarrassment in the face of his stupidity.

"Beautiful shot, Arthur," said Mom, continuing to pass in front of the house. "Your father will beg me to treat the blue later, I promise."

Ellie laughed loudly, turning around and pointing her finger pointing.

"I won't do it." Dad defended himself, the air was upset. “I am an adventurer and a mage, not a baby who needs to be kissed him bobos.”

Ellie is shundering. "I don't know, Dad. Are you sure? Say 'goo-goo gah-gah' just to be sure."

Mom smiled and winked at me, then she straddled the heap of dry, fibrous grass into the house. Ellie straddled her, grabbed a rake, and started removing the scrub from the doorway to let dad pass.

Facing the door, Mom turned around and looked at me, a little fold between her eyebrows. "Are you coming back, Art?"

I realized that I had looked at mom, Dad and Ellie, all three gathered around the door of our house. A distant memory resurfaced, and I saw my father's body lying on the ground, torn like a beast and covered with blood. Then it was Ellie, a red spear piercing her body. And finally, mom... my mother, looking at me with a shocked air that turned into furious unbelief.

“My brother?”

I shook my head and the vision became clearer. I saw my parents and sister, who were all looking at me with family anxiety. This vision left me a ball in my throat, and I suddenly wondered if I had not been hit harder than I thought when I had been in a clash with dad.

"I'm here. It's just that..." I had to take a break to clear my throat. "I'm coming.”