BXBX NOVEL Chapter 589: Lacking Belief but Championing Trust
Chapter 589: Lacking Belief but Championing Trust
-------------------------
The silence this time was much more solemn and punctuated by small sounds of sniffling while tears fell on each other. Lily gripped her mother just as tightly as Evaline gripped her and nothing more needed to be said. Both of them could feel themselves relaxing into the hug as time went on and a lot of the issues that had come up today suddenly seemed so much smaller to each of them. Sure, they were still important but they were family, and that was important as well.
Time passed calmly but quickly and before they knew it a full thirty minutes passed before they started to break apart. It wasn\'t because they wanted to, but because they hadn\'t picked the best position for this. Lily was leaning heavily into Evaline\'s side and pulling on that arm causing Evaline\'s shoulders to hurt. On Lily\'s end, the tight hold Evaline had on her was fine… but the rings on her fingers were starting to dig into her skin and causing a bit of pain.
By some unspoken agreement they separated slowly and looked at each other\'s eyes and let out a synchronised sigh. "I\'m sorry" said Evaline softly.
"I\'m sorry as well" said Lily, then she started to grin, "perhaps not as sorry, but I\'m grateful as well. Thanks for worrying about me"
Evaline nodded at the answer and said, "Well, now that we\'ve calmed down… I suppose I should ask you for the details on this transformation now. Why are you doing it and what will it do for you? Don\'t think I missed the fact you kept pushing me to ask about it. I just… I didn\'t really want to confront it properly I suppose. I didn\'t want to know WHY you would or the details, because having those details would make it more real.
"Even if a large part of me still doesn\'t want to believe in magic, I trust you enough to just sort of go along with things for now and pretend that it does for your sake." Lily went to interrupt but Evaline held up a hand, "Yes Lily, I can see that the signs are pointing to magic being real, and that I shouldn\'t have to just pretend I\'m going along with it but I have f-" Evaline let out a light cough, "I have a lifetime of signs pointing to it not existing so how do I reconcile that?"
"By realising that magic doesn\'t exist in this dimension but it does in others?" offered Lily uncertainly.
"Don\'t get smart with me young lady," said Evaline without any bite to the words, "you\'re dating a demon. That\'s plenty magical enough for me. Not to mention what you\'re planning to do to yourself. So tell me. Lay it all out please. Why is this happening and what will it do? The whole story please. Where did it start?"
Lily swallowed as she looked over her memories and tried to think exactly how things had worked out the way they had. It took her a few moments to get her thoughts in order. It felt like so much time had passed, and the late nights looking over the list hadn\'t helped any. "Right um… so I guess it all started after Kat did that big favour and got two in return. We found out they can be used for pretty much ANYTHING. Like… Kat could probably ask for a country or maybe even a planet and just… get one.
"These favours are serious business Mum. When I say she can use them for basically anything, I really do mean ANYTHING. If it\'s within their power, which is considerable, it can be done with one of just two tokens she had. Instead of using it for herself though, Kat pretty quickly decided that I\'d get one and Sylvie would get the other so that we could get magic and come with her on adventures. It wasn\'t even a question in her mind.
"Once that was established, I started looking into what options I had for magic and pretty quickly found out that changing my species or race was the best way to go about it. It would likely increase whatever mana capacity I have now, if I even have one, add additional affinities and likely just make me stronger all around. Now a bit later I\'d realise I needed to look into specific features, but at the beginning the world was my oyster."
"Why is changing your race the better option?" asked Evaline curiously, "You said you could get it done in other ways but the race change seems to be so much better."
Lily shrugged, "That\'s because it is? I mean, you can\'t do it too often or if you\'re too old. It\'s… well some race changes like becoming a vampire aren\'t too bad but the major factor is how strong and how malleable your soul is. Older people have stronger souls but also more set in their ways. They couldn\'t handle the change without shattering. Also if you do it too often the soul might just give up so it\'s not super safe to do multiple times. This isn\'t a casual thing. You should treat the change as permanent because not everyone can survive multiple changes.
"Also, the reason it seems better is because it is as far as I can tell. Remember I\'m using a favour to do this. It\'s not limited to the value of what I want, I get ONE thing and that thing can be basically anything. The reason you get so much from a race change is if you pick the right one, you can do a bunch of things at once…
"Hmm, how would I explain it. So… I don\'t have a tonne of information… but Oh I know! So, think of it this way. I can claim any one thing, so I could either pick say… one book that I liked, or I could ask for the latest collection of Encyclopedia Britanica and both of those would cost one favour. Even though technically I get a bunch of books with the second option, I\'m only getting one collection. In this instance… instead of fixing one thing about me… I\'m getting a whole new body"
Evaline frowned at the language used at the end and responded with, "Lily there is nothing wrong with you. You don\'t need… fixing…"
Lily grimaced at the retort knowing her mother meant well. *But I AM broken. Well, ok that sounds a lot worse then it actually is… but compared to Kat I might as well by a fragile little doll or a bug… though that might be a bit harsh… the thing is though… the scale we exist at is just so different. Even if I loved Kat all of my life before dying, and Kat stayed true to me for another century, that wouldn\'t account for even half of her lifetime. Heck, if she\'s careful it wouldn\'t even be a percentage of her lifetime in the end.
That\'s not even getting into the fact that I don\'t have magic. Something that I really do feel counts as being broken. Higher energy seems like it opens so many doors. It\'s like not having any legs or not being able to speak. It\'s a serious disability for me if I ever plan to stay around Kat for extended periods of time.*
In the end Lily sighed and said, "Look Mum… I know what you mean, and I don\'t really think that badly of myself but… if I stayed human… Mum… Kat is almost immortal already. She mentioned that earlier today remember? Even if we stayed together my whole life… that wouldn\'t be long for Kat."
"Just…" Evaline shook her head and continued, "Let\'s just move on. I don\'t like the idea this is one of your main reasons for it, but at the very least you aren\'t going to bound to her forever if you do I suppose. Just living longer is fine"
Lily used the entirety of her willpower not to react to that statement. It was true, she didn\'t have to be bound to Kat forever, she just had to be bound to A demon forever… and she was certainly going to pick Kat. Despite the knew understanding she was NOT going to be mentioning that part now, or possibly ever. She only had to lie about it for a hundred years or so. Evaline did say she didn\'t want to live forever after all…
"Right then" said Evaline shaking her head a bit, "what race did you pick in the end? I\'m sure you spent much too long looking over your options and while I have no doubt quite a few of them were interesting for you, I don\'t know enough about magic and it just isn\'t all that important to me."
"I picked a race called a Memphis," said Lily
"What the hell is a Memphis?" asked Evaline
"Exactly" said Lily.
Evaline\'s hard stare because she didn\'t understand the joke just caused Lily to grin knowing this had to happen. Evaline couldn\'t know they were actually made in the real world equivalent after all.