Creation's Fallen Gods

I did not understand his surprise, but after Isaac spoke it hit me:

"I thought you did not speak our language!", he said delighted, "Father had even banned guests from using translating points to prevent someone from detecting your native language to limit as many people as possible from knowing your home planet... even I can't know."

This time I was the one who was surprised! What the hell was going on anyway? How come I just started speaking in another language without even realizing it?

"Did you open that thing you're saving?", Henry asked slightly annoyed.

It seemed that I had broken some concept he had about what was normal or not. I shook my head energetically denying it, and he continued:

"It's interesting how you do these extraordinary things out of nowhere...", he kept smiling, "but now that I have come to notice, the strange memories you said you have may be a magical access you have to the knowledge of your past lives.

I was stunned by this theory. That was a good explanation for the things I remembered, felt, and dreamed about. But I had never felt myself as such an extraordinary person as to "remember" a whole language that I had never studied. I had learned two or three phrases, but this was not a fluent vocabulary. I had never been exceptional in my studies too. I had my ambitions, of course, and I had my own esteem, but I never thought I'd hang onto those magical things. That strange feeling of being compared to Nadia filled my c.h.e.s.t again.

"Okay, I can have, as you said, access to the knowledge of my past lives... but I'm not Nadia."

Henry grimaced, he did not expect to hear something like that.

"Of course you are not her! The people in this universe are unique, and even when it comes to reincarnations, they hardly have the same personality, or even the same thoughts about the world. When a person dies, the soul becomes an unique type of energy that can be imbued in another living being. And those more s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e, can decipher the trail of energy acc.u.mulated by the various previous lives and have access to the memories and knowledge acquired... it is as if…", he paused to think of something that he could compare, "it's as if you had a data collection of everything these people did before you, and could read and search at will. But every good book does not turn readers into their characters, it just makes them learn more."

"Hmm…"

I had never had access to such information about souls or anything related to magic before. Because magic was a very... "Jomon" thing. Humans began to figure out how to manipulate these powers when they live long enough for it. And despite being recurring among the Brards for millennia... there was still a certain stigma against magic between us. My mother would certainly have been vehemently against it, always saying that there was nothing in magic that technology could not supply. Even I had never had reason to disagree.

Besides, it has been a long time since I'd been excited to talk or take part in conversations. Being able to speak and be understood by other people was a relief.

[...]

The timing was counted different in Keret, and even if it was not, the night was very long. So by the end of the second hour, I was exhausted. A new day was only counted when the sun rose in the capital. One day had thirty hours: the fifteen of the day, and fifteen of the night. When the clock ticked fifteen o'clock in the evening, it would finally be the sunrise, and the first day of the first month of the new year would begin.

Then the meeting with the people who knew the secret of the Relics would only begin after Marco's speech. The last had been carried out, they say, almost eight imperial years ago, as soon as Nadia died.

Before I could restrain myself, and without any sense of shame, I simply leaned back in the armchair beside Henry and Isaac when we had finished talking and slept, curled up into a ball. I put my feet on the seat and hugged my legs. I had not yet become accustomed to this long rhythm of a single day, after all it was almost double the time a day had on my planet.

At the seventh hour of the night all the guests in the hall had gone out onto the balcony again to see the traditional sky-light show. An endless collection of light cannons, lasers, reflectors and hologram generators, they created designs and images across the sky, displaying spectacular, colorful and diverse shapes, inspired by a retrospective of the year.

I woke up to the noise of exaltation from the crowd outside. I saw a piece of the presentation, but I was still too sleepy to be interested enough to watch closely. Henry was the only one still in the room beside me.

"Why didn't you go there with everyone?" I asked sleepily.

"I have no interest in these things…", he said visibly bored, "and apparently not you."

"Ah... It's because the parties I... I…", I had to stop to let escape a big yawn, "that I liked to go, were dancing parties. The music here is beautiful, but not for dancing... and even if it was, what purpose would I have to dance here?"

Henry smiled sympathetically, and I almost immediately regretted it. It seemed like I was trying to gain some sympathy or pity. I shuddered a little at the thought. I still felt unstable.

"Do you want to leave?" He whispered, as if planning a big mischief. "We already have attended the party, and about later... the meeting was just to introduce you to them, and if they already know you, we have no real reason to continue here... everything else can be solved later."

It took me a while to really absorb what he was saying.

"Let's not look for more unnecessary problems with him…", I said with a better tone "I'm fine, and the way Marco is, he can come to trouble us. You do not know when you'll have another chance to talk to Isaac."

Henry gave a half laugh, half sigh:

"So that's what he told you…", Henry whispered, and to my surprise, he pulled my hand and nestled it tightly in his warm arms and locked me in a hug, "...I must be really pathetic…", after a while, I noticed he would not let me go. I tried to force myself away from him, but what was my strength near someone who could break a heavy stone table with a single punch? If he did not want to let me go, then I could not help it.

The sleepness became stronger, even more with how comfortable the contact with Henry's body was, I fell asleep the rest of the night in his arms, and when I finally opened my eyes, the sun was already shining outside.

"She's awake!", exclaimed Mr. Iago Kairoh on the other side of a huge table with a chair for everyone, which had been placed while I slept.

"So can we start already?" Marco asked impatiently, sitting down at one end.