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Chapter 16 - I Don't Know What I'm Supposed To Do Haunted By The Ghost Of You

Rhistel blinked slowly and set his pen down. "Wow, that is some...heavy stuff..." 

"I like to think I had a good childhood," Elbereth said, "despite all the pressure."

"Do you have that dagger your father gave you? I'd love to see it," Sia wondered, twirling a finger in a strand of her hair. "It sounds so pretty!" Elbereth nodded, got up and went to prod through his assassin's items. Rhistel took the opportunity to steal his chair back.

"Black opals are super pretty," Margoth joined in. "There were quite a few of them buried in the snow in No Man's Land near our cabin."

"Did you collect them?" Valka pondered.

"I did as a little girl, but not anymore. My mother made a stoneware bowl set out of them before she passed away." Margoth's eyes drew to the floor as if she found speaking of her mother to be painful and awkward. "I still have them."

"I was...partially wondering...what your mother's name is..." Elbereth said to Margoth, trying to not seem rude. The question had been at the back of his mind for quite some time. "I remember that your father's name is Daizon."

"Her name was Aurora," she stated, "and she died when I was three." Margoth avoided everyone's gazes as she tried to figure out what else she could say about her mum as she could feel the curiosity radiating off them like solar flares. "My father says I'm the spitting image of her, and judging by the self-portaits she did, he is correct." 

There were many things Margoth and her father took from their home in No Man's Land when they rejoined civilization. The black opal stoneware set she'd crafted, the portraits she painted, among other things like some of her jewelry.

"Your mother was a multimedia artist," Valka observed. He recalled how his own mother, being a born and raised princess from another kingdom, wasn't too proficient in the arts. "She must've had quite the talent."

"She did," Margoth smiled. "She loved art. I think she only went to Castleguard because her parents forced her into it, but she met my father there and they fell in love. Although, she did get to the point where she was learning difficult magic, which I'm sure was helpful in terms of creating her art." Margoth made gold dust fling off her fingertips and harden into a bowl before ultimately fading away.

"Oh, I do have another question, Margoth," Elbereth called her by name, letting his boyhood nickname for her die off now that he was a lord, a person who needed to be respectful at all times.

"I don't mind if you still want to call me Whispering Pines or Forest Witch," Margoth winked. "Last I heard, he lives in civilization; in Yïves. Though, he often treks back into No Man's Land and spends about six months out of every year in the ever-storm of snowy pines."

"I see," Elbereth replied, continuing to dig through the million pockets of his unworn clothes. If Margoth was over a thousand years old by then, he wondered how old Daizon Vaughn could possibly be. "Here it is."

Elbereth jerked his arm out of a pocket and held up his chromited-blade and black opal hilted dagger, letting it sparkle in what little light came from the windows. The sky outside was still a dusty gray, filled with dirty storm clouds. The faint pitter-patter of rain droplets landing could be heard next to the clock's quiet ticking. They were like a small choir of infinite sounds.

"Whoa," Sia said in awe, standing up and stepping towards her boyfriend to get a better look at his blade. "Kratos has good taste."

"That is...beautiful." The rainbow light of the hilt bounced into Valka's sky-colored eyes and his eyes reflected it back, making the boy king's windows to his soul a kaleidoscope.