Her parents.
Emiliana remembered.
Where were they? She wanted to yell at them. And cry at them. Most of all, she wanted to stop worrying about them. About herself. About everything. She pressed her hands against the window and dropped to her knees. Her claws left scratches in the glass, and she could not have cared less.
She settled wearily into a heap on the floor, letting her roiling thoughts slowly diminish. And perhaps it was the agonized wonder for her parents only a moment prior that was responsible for the sudden and inexplicably clear reminder of her mother’s words.
Sacrifice is what it means to serve.
The woman had said it enough times that Emiliana nearly came to hate the phrase, but dammit if she hadn’t also come to understand its meaning. Her mother wasn’t just talking about being in the Vanguard. She was talking about being a servant. The power and responsibility it granted, the unwanted attention. Sacrifice was inevitable, and oftentimes, unknowable. The only thing to be done was to attempt to prepare for the worst.
And annoyingly, Emiliana abruptly remembered her mother doing exactly that. The Lady Elroy had indeed explained about the mutation type, along with the other five categories of abilities. She’d warned her of the possibility, told her to keep a clear head if the time ever came, even told her that might not be possible due to the way abilities tended to manifest via stress--and that, nonetheless, it was still necessary.
“Because you are an Elroy,” her mother had said. “One day, someone will attempt to hurt you for no other reason than that.”
It wasn’t fair, Emiliana felt. The only thing she wanted to do right now was blame her parents. And she couldn’t bring herself to.
Chergoa was still trying to soothe her, Emiliana realized. ‘I know this seems horrible right now, but you’re okay. Trust me.’
Emiliana didn’t even have the energy to glare at her.
“Are you unwell, child?”
Emiliana turned and saw the elderly woman from earlier standing there.
She was a tiny thing, even shorter than Emiliana and certainly more shriveled. When she saw Emiliana’s mutated face, however, she didn’t flee or yell. Instead, she merely raised an eyebrow at the girl.
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
New ship in mind:
ReplyDeleteWhen her ability manifested, she thought no one could love her, no one would settle down with her. But then rode in a boy on a motorcycle. Tall, dark, coated in iron, and kind. He was perfect.
on a different note, is the reason the mutation types (like ghovis) are so dangerous because they just spend their time getting in sync with their reapers soul and can thus resist the ability of any servant?
ReplyDeleteoh my god, 700+ pages?
ReplyDeleteI uhm, I, at some point of my life, forgot where was the last page I stumble upon. Probably somewhere around 400ish, but, wow, it's quite a progress here...
Actually, I've been wondering about Gohvis. It's never explicitly mentioned that he is a servant. And he's not an the abilities page, so... I don't know. Maybe Frosty forgot to mention him, but maybe he's something different.
ReplyDeleteMissing word maybe?
ReplyDelete"that was responsible for [the] sudden and inexplicably clear reminder"
You can look up the comments you made on disqus. It seems your latest comment here was on page 489, if that helps.
ReplyDeleteIsn't she just a child?
ReplyDeletePeople tend to age over time plus since both are more or less immortal there's a lot of time for this ship to happen.
ReplyDeleteYou know, the aging of servants has never really been explained. Do they age at a normal rate, thus placing a limit on a servants life span?
ReplyDeleteDo they age slower, thus making children servants have to wait longer to reach adulthood?
Can there age be reset if they are regenerated from scratch?
Got it, thanks.
ReplyDeleteMm. I'll confirm that Gohvis is indeed a servant, at least. You might notice that Dozer isn't on the list, either. No one from from Stoker's flashback is. I'll add them when they inevitably show up again.
ReplyDeleteHaha, lovely to see you again. Like Ankou said, maybe you can use your list of Disqus comments as a kind of bookmark. :)
ReplyDeleteThis was brought up in the comments fairly recently, and I offered a minor spoiler-y explanation there (page 682, if you want to know), but it will of course be fully explained in the actual text in due time.
ReplyDeleteOh, alright then. I suppose mutation is most likely for Gohvis, but maybe he's integration and the scales are just some kind of armor he created. Might also be transfiguration, if he transformed his muscles into something, probably a modification of carbon.
ReplyDeleteah, genius! well, at some point later I'll post comment like this, "my bookmark comment, please don't reply".
ReplyDeleteDefinitely an out-of-box method
She's 12. He's 17. A five year age gap isn't that uncommon, especially when you're essentially immortal.
ReplyDeleteSTOP RUINING THE ROMANTIC SUBPLOT!
ReplyDeleteThat is incorrect. I'm not weighing in on any ships here, but Hector is currently still 16, though he will be 17 soon. The text has already given the ages of all the Elroy children, and they are as follows:
ReplyDeleteGema: 18
Cisco: 16
Emiliana: just turned 14
Marcos: 12
Ramira: 9
Here she is. Diminutive enough to make whatever havoc she wreaks on the 'bad men' even more fun. Here we go.
ReplyDelete...and where does Lynn fall into all of this hmm?
ReplyDeleteAw man, don't tell me I was wrong bout Alicia's grabdmother looking young as well...
ReplyDelete