The Butterfly Effect

Eventually, after realizing that the memories were finished for good now, they wandered to one of the caves to rest. There was a dim glow—they decided from a plant or some residual magic— to provide some sort of light, and a distant underwater brook kept them from complete silence. None of it was comforting, though. Even when Imre, Lydia, and Samone began to quietly work through all of it in a way they could understand—only Imre ever putting any effort beforehand to understand the memories’ settings—it wasn’t comforting. If Dimas wasn’t comfortable being here before all the memories, he definitely wasn’t now.

He barely noticed Kiah walking up to him. “Can you hold a conversation?” He was surprised to hear her speaking in the Old Tongue—but not because he didn’t understand her or didn’t expect her to know it. He only ever heard her use it when she was talking to her mother.

“I…should,” Dimas responded after a moment in the same language. “I’m a bit rusty, though. Just don’t throw in too many weird words.” He gestured to the spot beside him and she sat down. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I actually figured you had something you needed to get off your chest,” she remarked casually. “You’ve been quiet since we came here, which isn’t exactly usual for you. Out of everyone here, I’m the only one who can vaguely grasp why. If you need to talk about something, then I’m here.”

“Why the Old Tongue, then?”

“This’ll stay between the two of us this way. Neither Imre nor Lydia know any more than stuff like Light, Shadow, or Waking Dream… Samone knows a bit but it’s just for magical purposes. Aside from the occasional word or two, they’re not going to know what we’re discussing.”

“Should I be concerned by the fact that you actually seem to care a bit for me..? You’re normally not this ready to listen to other people’s problems.”

“I’m here because I think you need me to be. Just because this isn’t normal doesn’t mean that it isn’t a genuine want to help.”

He considered all the possible things he could say. There were so many places where he could start, but they all ended up in the same general area. Was there even an option that was better than the others? Was there one that would be easier to explain, without drawing out her patience to the point she decided she was done listening? Or maybe the better question would be how he planned on saying all of it while still maintaining a relatively composed appearance. It wasn’t that hard for everyone else to see them, after all; if he was going to be worried and stressed, he’d rather the rest of them not know it.

“Everything about the Minotaur… I thought it was creepy when I was six and it gets worse with every new detail about it. I wish I could go back to imagining that it was just some big, mystical creature that could never creep out of its cave; maybe as something that could, barely, be upheld as something that had helped protect the children of Fleyw Bresh from Seothia. It might’ve sounded terrifying, but at least that way, I didn’t read too much into it and there was no possible connection between anyone alive now and it. Being here makes me remember how diluted they make some of the stories, and how they work up to the worst details for when we’re old enough to handle it. Then there’s also the things they make you have to piece together on your own, though they’re really pretty obvious once you start thinking about it…” He took a deep breath before daring to continue with his thought. “If there’s a group that cares more about what Sokratas and Natasa stand for, it’s the goblins and fairies. Did you ever know a twin until you met me?”

“Sort of? They were just a few years old when I left to live with Zadeer.” She shrugged. “But I get it. Every time I walked past them they were treated like Orestis brought them down from heaven Himself.”

“Add that to being the only surviving children of the queen,” he sighed. “I’ve known for as long as I can remember what would happen if one of us died, just because we bore a symbolic comparison to two gods. I barely even realized that wasn’t what everyone’s first thought was until I came to Seothia! Sokratas and Natasa were the world’s first twins, born from the essence of Light and Earth. Because of that, no matter what time they were born, twins are treated like anyone specifically blessed by the gods or an angel. But if one of them dies before becoming of age…”

“We’re in a cave system that was created because of it,” Kiah finished, in a way that didn’t actually say the problem aloud. “The fact we’re doing this at all is proof that, at least to some extent, it’s real.”

“I don’t think I know a person who isn’t afraid of the Minotaur. I’m definitely not an exception for it—I’ll be the first to admit that it occasionally bugs me to the point I can’t think about anything else. Of course it doesn’t help that the two of us have a better reason to relate to it than most others can. You know what Zofie’s like. It’s a miracle that she’s even still alive right now. I don’t think anyone was expecting her to be, if they had to be completely honest about it.”

“But this isn’t about what would happen to you if Vriuh brought her home.”

Slowly, he nodded. “I’m not worried about what would happen to me in that case. Whatever it is, I’ll probably be able to handle it. I never really think about what it would be like if she had died, however relevant it seems sometimes. I worry about what would happen to her if I died instead. She has so much crap to deal with already. It always feels like she can hardly stay on top of it all. She probably wouldn’t be able to handle much more, and I don’t want to be the cause of it. But given the nature of this place, it keeps seeming like a likely possibility.”

“I can’t tell you everything’s going to be fine. But I can do whatever possible to try to avoid it. I’ll be honest, I don’t really care for Lydia or Samone. It’s not going to ruin me if something happens to them. Both you and Imre are a bit too important, and I’d probably either get publicly shamed or fired if something happens to you. I have my own family to come back to, so it’s not like I can just leave them.”

“How do you deal with all of this..? The expectations, that plan that seems to be determined for you before you can do anything about it…”

“Two things: beer and knowing that Orestis’s truth is better than theirs.”

“I wish I could have that…”

“You’re not talking about the beer, are you?”

“To be honest… I’m not sure how I feel about the church’s teachings…”

Kiah’s look of mixed shock and confusion contributed to Dimas’s desperate attempt to explain himself.

“When they keep telling me stuff like how screwed Zofie is if I die or vice versa, can you really blame me? Seothia has its own set of problems but at least they don’t really care if you’re a twin or not. It’s just… you’re a person, like everyone else is, and the only reason someone is looking at you any differently is because you know magic.”

“I figured there was something going on with you but I didn’t think it was that…”

“You know, you don’t seem like the most perfect example of a zealous goblin either.”

“I still have the Talmi-Amitael Pact. I might not hunt down whatever church might exist nearby, but I can’t just forsake my upbringing either. Some of it may be twisted or used by others to satisfy themselves. But I can’t deny the truth that’s actually there. While they might be misinterpreted or even some parts omitted entirely, it’s still the same people and events at their roots. I go through the Commandments every now and again in my free time. Sometimes it’s just what I need to get through the day.”

He didn’t answer. It wasn’t something he could ever find himself relating to; he wasn’t like Zofie. He couldn’t look at everything they had to go through because of the church’s standard and still bring himself to willingly attend service. He wasn’t stupid enough to think what they taught wasn’t true, it just never felt as personal as many others claimed it to be. It was a social norm for him, something that he simply followed along with because he was expected to. By now the only time he upheld those standards was in Qizar, even then it wasn’t like he prayed or read the Commandments regularly.

Kiah got up. “Well, if you don’t have any more thoughts, then I’ll rejoin the others. But I’m always here to listen if you need it.”