Another Way

Chapter 45: Breath

"What do you want, Luneth?"

The yellow-furred biped came to a stop a few paces in front of the stairs, his eyes closed and hands held behind his body. If Sue didn't know any better, she would've assumed him to be sorry about something. Discarding that possibility, she narrowed her eyes and reached a hand to shield Joy, only resulting in the girl craning her head to look around it.

Basil looked back and forth between them, but opted to remain silent.

"^On behalf of my wife and son, I give my utmost apologies, Sue,^" Luneth began in a slow, pensive voice. "^Their actions have been unmeasured and harsh, wholly inappropriate towards you as one of the Pale Lady's chosen.^" His already low-held head lowered further still, approximating a bow.

Sue's eyes narrowed and mouth creaked open. A dozen questions fought with one another to be let out first, most of them brought on by disgust. She didn't believe for an instant the apology was genuine, especially in its supposed origin from the people that had already harmed her, but that was somehow the less startling fact about this entire confession.

"Why are you the one to apologize for them?" Sue asked, unnerved. It would've been in poor taste for anyone but small children, and doing something like that with stuck-up adults somehow painted them in an even worse light than not bothering to begin with. "If they're somehow actually sorry, they can do so themselves."

To her surprise, it was the other psychic who seemed more surprised than she was, looking at her wide-eyed. "^Oh no no, that would be entirely improper for them to apologize directly as your superiors, Sue. It is my duty as your inferior to show deference in their place.^" His tone was that of a kindly schoolteacher—not minding having to explain the topic at all, but surprised at some level that he even had to do so in the first place.

Whatever startle had been there in Sue's body was now thoroughly replaced with scorn. Was this all this was for him? Some kind of performance motivated by the insane racial hierarchy that Root had alluded to in her most recent conversation with him? A display not of genuineness, or of good will, but merely of sterile manners? There was mocking her, there was rubbing it in, and then there was this.

And the worst part is that he thinks he's doing me a service.

A part of Sue wanted to know nothing more of how that 'hierarchy' worked than she already did, lest the knowledge infect her brain and transmogrify her into a nineteenth-century phrenology enthusiast. Still, curiosity lingered in her, a morbid sort eager to hear the extent of absurdity involved. Even if Luneth would merely think he's doing her a service by 'enlightening' her, she could hopefully still get some laughs at his expense.

"'Superiors' in what way?" Sue asked with her best mocking tone. "As far as I know, we're all Forest Guardians, aren't we?"

"^Ah, but...^" Luneth trailed off, staring her in the eyes but for a moment. An icy chill ran down her back, but whatever he'd done, he opted to simply continue. "^Blood purity is of utmost importance, Sue. My dear wife is of purebred sort, her ancestors all Forest Guardians for the past five generations. And, with me as their father, Nightbane and Snowmoon are both half-pure, and so they are Solanum's inferiors. Your ancestry is unfortunately unknown to us, and your skin is bereft of Her blessings, and thus we must assume your family tree is more dappled than this entire village, making you an inferior of all other Forest Guardians, and a superior of all other kin.^"

The most sardonic strand of thought in Sue's brain was eager to point out that this was somehow more lenient than the various racial purity rules back on Earth, before being countered by the corollary that there just might have been nowhere near as many Forest Guardians around for their clan to be as extreme as they wanted to be. All the other neurons, however, were staring at the other psychic in disgust, including the ones responsible for her facial muscles.