127 Family

Emp was standing in front of Galana, he had been asked an important question but he didn't know at all how to answer it. She was making that frustrated pout she always did because he was taking too long to think of a proper answer.

He chose to speak in the noble tongue to stop every passerby from listening on their conversation and exposed his thoughts and feelings as best he could.

"I have a hard time giving you a straight answer because I am not really sure myself."

She was about to interrupt him but he placed his hand in front of her mouth to stop her, continuing his explanation.

"I told you in my letters that there was a problem with my soul, a bit over a year ago, I was unable to feel anything, I didn't know what it was like to actually love. I still have a hard time understanding my own feelings sometimes but I understand I need to show you all of it to help you.

I've known you the longest of all the girls I ever met and I know you well thanks to the letters we exchanged but I've also barely spent any time with you at all. It's a strange feeling, I'm often thinking "what would Galana think or say about this" or "I wonder if she's doing well" but yesterday and today too, I found out I didn't know you as much as I thought I did.

I've missed you but also, I do not understand why I missed you so much if I didn't know who you were at all. The Galana I knew was just a facade you made up to hide your problems. I still care for you a whole lot but I can't sort through what were lies or half truths and what was sincere. Now I'm curious to meet the actual you, I want to spend more time with the real you instead of the cautious distrustful you or the despairing you.

For now, I'm filled with joy to know you are right here with me and I sincerely wish for you to find happiness. I don't know if it's because I know so little about the real you or because my feelings simply aren't that strong but even though I think I would be thrilled if you chose me, I do not feel like I would be overly upset if I wasn't the one you gave your heart to. I think as long as you were truly happy with your choice, I would be happy for you as well.

I do not want to be a second Balpoisson. I do not want you to feel like you owe me a huge debt and accept me because of it. I told you you owe me nothing but I still think you aren't listening when I say so and it scares me a bit. My gift for you was meant to be your freedom. It was never about the books, I just wanted to give my dear friend the ability to make her own path as she should have from the start. I do not wish to take that gift back even though you have my seal on your forehead.

Yes, I do like the small part of you I know and I like it so much I want to make it happy. I do not want you to choose me because you are out of time or options or because you feel like you have no choice, it would just sadden us both I think.

I wish you would stay close to me all the time because I like when you're there and I value your thoughts and your opinions, I like your voice too and the way you don't let anyone step on your feet even when they're way above you. I don't understand you so I wish to spend time with you to change that. I don't want to hold you there though, I don't want to make you feel like you have to be there. If you stay with me and you want to be there then I will be glad but if you stay even though you want to be elsewhere, It will make me unhappy instead.

Then, even if we supposed that after spending more time with me, you liked me enough to give me an offering, I would be unable to accept it because of a promise I made. I am not allowed to accept any offering of Holia until Mable gives me her own. For that, she has to convince her father to allow her to do so which will probably not happen for as long as she is in the imperial school. It might take two years but it could go for much longer too, probably at least five.

You just complained about how those five years took so much of your life, It would truly be unfair to ask you to wait for this long again.

That's pretty much it, those are all my feelings and thoughts on you. You feel like you do not deserve me even though I think it's silly while I feel I can't impose anything more upon you.

I like you but I don't know if this is true love or deep friendship, I don't want you to suffer the wait while I find out. Whatever you choose to do, I'll continue to support you. Not because I have to or because I want you to feel indebted to me but because this is what I believe a true friend should do. That might not be a really good answer or the answer you hoped but that's the best one I can give you."

Emp waited a bit for her to say something in response but she didn't come up with anything and just stared at him. Emp had no idea what she was thinking about and couldn't decipher her expression. The only thing he noticed was the stares of all those strangers that were getting more and more annoying.

"You don't have to say anything now but we should get going. Everyone is staring."

She blinked and looked around to see what he meant. In no time, she released his arm and they started moving again.

For the whole time they took to travel the remaining distance to the shop, neither of them said a word and Emp still couldn't figure out what she was thinking about.

When they stepped into the store, Palonia greeted them with a smile but then frowned right away seeing their strange faces.

"What's up with those faces? Did something bad happen again?"

"No, we just had a talk and now I can't figure out what she's thinking."

"What sort of talk was it to put you two in that state?"

"She told me how she felt about this whole thing and then demanded I do the same. I did but now she's quiet."

Galana made her frustrated pout again.

"Just give me some time to think through it alright? Every time you say something I have to translate fifteen layers of fucking nonsense before I get to the actual meat of it so give me a break. Bloody lake, why don't you ever answer with a single short sentence. It always has to be this long winded thing."

"My answer was long winded? What about your speech just before! It was way longer!"

While Emp was speaking, Palonia came up to them and stepped in between.

"Alright, stop. Maybe you should both change your thoughts, clear your heads a bit. How about we speak of something else while you're thinking about whatever you said." She pointed towards Galana before pointing towards Emp to express who she was talking about. "I'm sure that fighting like that won't help. How about we speak of equipment instead. You said you wanted a new hammer right?"

Emp wasn't really upset, just worried, so he was easy to convince. He nodded in answer and told her what he was looking for.

"My thunder-chew hammer lost its head in a mock fight with a mage so I need a new one. I didn't make one myself with Marcy because I didn't have the time and I can't find the right material."

Palonia smiled brightly and waved at them to follow her.

"We'll see what I can do, follow me."

The group moved up to the row of hammers Palonia had exposed for the clients. Some of them were the same as the last time he came but many had changed and some had been added to the row.

Emp stared at them with interest while Galana kept quietly putting her thoughts in order.

Palonia pointed one of the hammers to him, it had a very long handle and a head of dark metal.

"Like last time, you should try them on until you find one with a good weight for you. This one is just a tad heavier than the one I sold you last time so you should be able to lift it. Tell me how it feels."

Emp picked it up with one hand and raised it over his head with ease.

"I got a bit stronger since last time, this one is too light."

"Eh!" Galana squealed from behind him. She still remembered how ridiculously heavy the last one was so she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

On the other side, Palonia made an impressed sounds.

"Oh... Now we're going somewhere, as expected of a Muracier. We'll get to try some good ones today."

"It has nothing to do with my name," Emp protested, "it's all thanks to all the help I received and my own hard work."

"Well said! Let's see just how far that hard work got you, try this one next."

Emp was made to try many more hammers after that, like last time, some of them were pretty strange looking. One was curved like a strange cucumber, one was like an overlong mace instead of a hammer, one was full of spikes and the next was almost like a staff with a plank at the end. Even though all of them ended up being too light for him, he asked a lot of questions about what the purpose of those strange characteristics where.

They talked about this all for a long time and Emp had a lot of fun. It had been a while since he last talked like that about weapons.

Out of all the heavy weapons she had in store, there were only a handful of them he couldn't lift at all and a few more he could barely get off the ground. Galana had tried to lift the very first herself just to get an idea of the weight but had to give up on it. She only watched with increasingly more surprise as he went through all the hammers.

In the end, he found a few with an interesting weight to them and after listening to what Palonia had to say about them, chose one for its handle, or rather its lack thereof. His last hammer broke at the handle after all, he didn't want it to happen again.

The one he chose was mostly in a single piece. It was the large horn of an unnameable of chaos that had been painstakingly ground until part of it was thin enough to be held in the hands of someone. It didn't really need it as it was extremely sturdy on its own but many supports of normanic-iron had been twisted and welded around its length to ensure its solidity. At the end of it where the horn enlarged into a perfect bludgeoning weapon, a solid bloc of that same heavy normanic-iron had been added on to it to turn the round surface into a mostly flattened zone the size of a hand across.

The head of the thunder-chew hammer had been much bigger than this one but a smaller impact point only meant a more focused and powerful blow. Opposite to the hammer, a large curved spike sprouted out of it like a beak. It really looked like a bec de corbin, the only difference was that it had a head that was a bit larger and was made with a really long horn. The balance was heavily leaning towards the head as it should but the beak was long and massive enough to center the weight with the shaft.

On top of all this, the weapon was enchanted. Runes had been carved over its entire surface to make a complex magic happen. It was designed to make use of the normanic-iron properties towards the cold. The spell would make the whole head extremely cold, hardening the iron and turning to ice everything it touched. Moisture in the air would turn into tiny crystals around its head and Palonia warned him to never touch the thing with his bare hands unless he wanted to loose his fingers. If he was to hit a living being with it, it would not turn into a solid block of ice but the insane cold would be enough to freeze the blood of the opponent in their veins around the point of impact.

The handle was safe to hold up to very close to the head but she still suggested for him to wear his gauntlets all the time while using it. Aside from that, she gave him a lot of instructions on how to keep it and use it. He would have to keep it in its specially made protective sheath when not in use in order to not damage the things around it, he was told to never hit a surface of water with it like a river or a lake because he would end up with a giant block of ice around it, he was told to keep it far away from children and to look out for any wear on the sheath. She also told him that many things became brittle when turned cold so a second hit at the same spot with the hammer should be devastating in most cases.

Emp was unfamiliar with cold things so he believed her without questions but he felt that hitting someone a second time in the same spot would be less effective than just turning another part of them into ice.

Like for his previous hammer, Palonia assured him that this thing should never break. With it made from a single large piece of an unnameable of chaos and hardened by the frozen cold normanic-iron, she should be mostly right. Emp was eager to see how it would fare against any sort of enemies.

Satisfied with the weight and properties of his choice, he brought it to the counter to pay for it. He placed it on the ground in front of it instead of on top of it because he didn't want to damage the counter of Palonia and paid with a whole bunch of crowns.

Palonia thanked him for his purchase with a smile and right after, Galana pointed her finger at the hammer he was shoving into his bag.

"How did you get so strong since last time?"

Emp felt like they had already had this conversation.

"I'm not that strong, there are still some hammers I can't lift and Palonia is still stronger than me."

"Don't try to play it down like last time! This is clearly abnormal! She's known for her strength and she's using magic while you aren't! You can't compare that!"

"Why not?"

"He's right, this guy is a Muracier, he has to be able to keep getting better like that or he will fail to meet everyone's expectations."

Galana made a sound of exasperation but didn't protest further.

With a new hammer in hand, Emp only had one last thing to do in town before he was ready to leave.

"There's a few other things I need to buy in Red-water, could you stay here with Palonia while I go get it?" He asked Galana.

"You don't want me to come with you?"

"I don't really need you for that and I feel like it might give you some time to think about what you want to do. You can come if you really want to but maybe Palonia can help you or at least, you'll not be disturbed here."

"Fine I'll stay here."

She still didn't seem in a right mood so Emp was glad she agreed to stay. He parted with the two women with a wave of his hand and walked through Red-water city alone. He had a bunch of small errands to fulfill before he left.

Emp first walked up to the lord's castle to receive the compensation money. The count insisted to show him around and he had to spend a few hours with him, his wives and many children. Emp didn't like the experience much. They were acting in a very friendly manner but all of it seemed off in some way. It felt like he was speaking to a whole group of Heida which was really uncomfortable. He escaped at the first chance he had and moved on to the next thing.

He made a short visit to Balpoisson in order to get back some of Galana's old books. He knew that some of them had not been sold to the very end because she cared too much about them. He also knew she would not want to leave them behind so he had included them in the repayment to her. Today, he only needed to collect them and throw them all in his bag. It was swiftly done and the viscount had no desire to see him here any longer than necessary which arranged Emp.

Finally, there were a few last thing he wanted to buy and keep as a surprise. It was rather expensive but with all his books that had exploded in value, he wasn't short on money at all. He sold one of them he didn't really care about to buy the things he wanted instead.

With all those things in his bag, he walked back to Palonia's store. At every turn since he left her store all the way to when he stepped back in, he kept getting called by random people asking anything and everything. Like earlier, he wasn't especially bothered and just ignored them all since none seemed to have something important to say.

He was willing to help as long as he could but he wasn't willing to waste time to taste food or look at a mask of painted wood. A girl bolder than the rest even stepped in front of him and presented him an offering of Holia out of nowhere. He had never met her before, didn't know her name or face but she wanted to marry him anyway? It didn't make sense to him. He refused as politely as he could.

Mable had once told him she believed he would just accept any offering at all to not disappoint the other party but he wasn't that bad. Even he understood that accepting the offering of someone he knew nothing about would be a stupid thing to do.

The girl seemed really disappointed but she stepped out of his way all the same and he managed to reach his destination without more trouble.

It felt really special to him that for once, he walked out to go buy something and didn't get into any strange trouble. Maybe it was because everyone knew who he was and nobody wanted to mess with him. Perhaps everyone knowing his existence wouldn't be so bad after all.

Once he reached the shop again, he headed inside and stepped right in the middle of an argument between Galana and five person Emp didn't know. He had no idea of what was happening in front of him, what was the problem or where they knew Galana from but it was instantly clear to him that she disliked them very much.

Palonia was sat behind her counter with an annoyed look but seemed unwilling to intervene. It was probably not because she feared them however because none of those five person seemed like they were anything more than simple commoners.

Three of them were women and two were men, all of them spoke in a very familiar manner with Galana. Before he properly listened the words of everyone, he noticed many similarities between them all including a curved nose resembling Galana's, the same general shape and even similar light brown eyes. Emp understood they were family.

He had probably missed most of the conversation but it wasn't hard to understand what was happening even with just a snippet.

"-and I don't want to see you! Who do you think you all are to ask me this after everything that happened! Get the fuck out of here! You won't get anything from me!" Galana was screaming.

"Even if you don't want to talk, at least, be reasonable and leave the money to us. What will you even do with it as a slave?" One of the men argued back.

"Won't you be obedient for once in your life!" A woman spat in frustration.

"No! Get, Out!" Galana insisted, separating each word to emphasize them.

Those people still refused to move so Emp decided to step in. He walked in the middle of everyone to interrupt the dispute.

"What's happening here?" He simply asked.

Everyone answered at once in annoyance so Emp didn't understand a single thing. He raised his two hands to shut everyone up and started over again. This time, he went straight to the main point instead of asking for details.

"Galana, do you want to speak with them or not."

"No." She said clearly with her arms crossed.

"Do you need them to find the grave of your grandma?"

She made a grimace followed by her annoyed pout but still didn't approve of their presence.

"I want nothing to do with them, I want them to leave."

Emp nodded once and turned his head back to the rest.

"Then you should leave."

"There's no way we're leaving empty handed! That stubborn piece of annoying/"

"This is the only warning I will give you. Leave her be now or I'm throwing you out myself." Emp interrupted them.

He didn't care one bit about what they wanted or the reasons behind their annoying behavior. All he knew was that those never helped Galana when she needed it. If she didn't want to see them and refused to help them, they should accept this as deserved payback. Emp had no sympathy for those that didn't make any efforts to protect family and friends.

They had all been pretty heated from their "discussion" with Galana but seeing Emp threaten to throw them out cooled down their burning will quite a bit. Even if they had not seen him before, they couldn't mistake him for someone else and even if they did, his imposing armor was more than enough to scare them away. Four of them turned around to leave right away but one of the two men took the time to glare at Galana first.

Emp had warned them to leave "now", he felt compelled to put his words in action.

He reached out for the waist of the man, lifted him off the ground easily and after a simple swing, had him fly over the other four, right through the door and into the large street. The man was late to react and only understood he was being thrown out after he was already in the air. He screamed of fright and crashed against the dirt and stone outside under the curious gaze of the crowd.

The other four got even more scared of him when they saw the guy fly over their heads with his arms and legs flailing and all changed their walk to a run in order to leave the shop faster.

Emp turned back to the girls while Palonia was bursting out in laughter. Galana wasn't laughing like her but she did seem in a better mood after seeing this. The corners of her mouth rose a bit seeing her aunts and uncles scamper like that.

"I didn't kick them out myself because I didn't want to get in trouble just for those guys but you just threw them out like kids. I can't believe you really chucked him out of here! They definitely deserved that though." Palonia approved of how he handled them.

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"He didn't move fast enough, I said "now" not "in fifteen minutes once they're done glaring at her". What was this all about anyway?"

"They wanted to feed off my corpse like scavengers." Galana complained.

"Her family came here to ask her the craziest things. She refused to do any of them or give them anything at all."

"But Why did they want anything in the first place."

"For nothing, they just feel like all my things should be theirs!" Galana said in disgust.

"Were they really this shameless?"

"They were! I'm glad you didn't decide to help them like you always do."

Since they weren't motivated by need but greed instead, Emp dind't feel like he would have helped them but he still gave Galana a proper reason.

"If they had really wanted others to help them, they should have helped themselves first. They didn't move to protect their own family and made no efforts to earn whatever they asked of you. They just requested it after the facts. It was all your hard work and tears, they do not deserve the help. I do not mind helping someone that worked hard and struggled but I don't want to give something to someone who did nothing. Also, I don't hold any respect for someone that won't stand for his own people."

Galana answered his words with a pout.

"I'm just the same though."

"You aren't, you worked hard and struggled to the very end, you more than deserved my help. As for not standing for your own people, I haven't seen whether you would do it or not. I know you think you would do like them but I think the opposite. If someone you cared for really was in trouble, you would do your best to help just like your grandma did. That's what I believe."

Galana didn't seem that convinced by his words. She was making that unbelieving frown and throwing him a gaze showing him how ridiculous she thought what he was saying was. She was skeptical about this whole thing but like when he was talking to Erin the other day, he was pretty sure of what he was saying. He had gotten pretty good at that. He might not know her as much as he wished he did but it was enough to give a good guess on how she would react in case someone dear to her was in trouble. The only thing was that she didn't have anyone dear to her.

He chose to let the subject go and turned the conversation towards what they should do next. He made sure no one else was in the shop and that her family wasn't coming back before talking again.

"I was gone for a while, did you manage to decide what you wanted to do in the meantime? Do you still want to follow me?"

Galana nodded.

"Oh, straight into the main subject huh?" Palonia commented. "We've had quite a long conversation while you were gone."

Galana nodded again and explained what they had come up with.

"I decided that... I think I should go with you. A lot of what you said was right. I thought about it and thanks to Palonia, I felt that if I go with you, I won't lose on anything. Who knows what will happen in the future and who I will meet? Even if... you know... things don't turn out well with you, I'd rather give it a shot while I can and discover new places and people while doing it instead of staying by myself because I'm afraid of losing out or failing. At least, I'll have made sure that my friend stays my friend. Maybe once you're free I'll have already found the person for me or maybe not, I think you being unable to accept any offering for a while is a good thing for me instead. It removed all the pressure, I don't have to make a choice because no choice can be made. Like you said, If I spend some time with you, the good feeling of being saved by you will diminish and soon, I'll know for sure why you're a bad choice. With your help and protection added on to the offer, it would be idiotic to not go."

She said a lot of things but essentially, she was putting the whole thing to rest for now. Emp didn't know whether it was a good thing or not but for now, it was enough.

Palonia looked over them kindly from the side, she was happy that everything was back to normal between them. He was pretty sure that his aunt wanted Galana to get closer to him even though he didn't know exactly why yet.

He didn't ask in front of Galana and chose to speak to his friend instead.

"Alright then, I'll bring you to Dark-glint like I said I would yesterday. Do you want to see the execution or not?"

"Why would I not?"

"Well, we already know how it's going to end. We're all gonna go there, the crowd will jeer and scream as he is brought on stage, the Count Staedler will make a speech and then Maurice will curse us all, you and me in particular, before his death. Then, we'll have to watch him turn into a corpse and the count will ask me if I don't want to go to some feast afterwards but I'll refuse.

I will understand if you tell me you really need to see his end to put this whole story to rest but I'm not really looking forward to that, it just seems like a long waste of time to me."

Galana thought hard about what he just said and asked another question.

"How will he die?"

"The count said he would be beheaded."

She shivered.

"I guess you're right, maybe we shouldn't go take a look. If anything, I already wasted enough of my time with him and I don't feel like getting cursed."

Emp approved her good decision with a few smiling nods while Palonia chuckled.

"Should we go today then? Do you have something you need in Red-water? Do you want us to go look for your grandma?"

"No, Its fine, I don't think I need anything. As for grandma, we'll never find her without one of my aunts or uncles and I really don't want to see any of them."

Galana was fine with going now but Palonia didn't understand what he meant exactly.

"Do you really want to leave today though? We already passed midday and I don't know of any caravan leaving today anyway."

"It's fine, we don't need a caravan we'll walk there. We should reach Dark-glint well before the night if I carry her on the way."

"Right, of course, you said you ran here from Bêtéclair in a day."

"Wait, you said you'll carry me?"

Galana didn't seem thrilled by the prospect.

"Yes, we won't get there today if I don't and we'll have to camp in the forest for days. I can't loose all this time for now, I told you I'm busy."

"Okay, fine. Just don't do anything weird."

Emp didn't get what sort of weird thing he could possibly do so he ignored her warning and told his goodbyes to Palonia instead.

"I'll see you again soon hopefully, tell the twins bye-bye for me too." (1)

Galana said the same sort of thing and thanked her again for what she did for her. Everyone parted in a good mood and Emp stopped a second at the adjoined forge to say goodbye to Tiberius as well.

"Goodbye Tiberius, I'm going back to Dark-glint now. You should come see your sister sometime."

"She has feet of her own, she can come here if she wants to meet. I'm not moving from here."

Emp shrugged and left with Galana. That was exactly the sort of answer Marcy would have given too he believed so he wasn't bothered by the seemingly harsh words. On the way to the city gate, Galana asked him if he had collected her belongings already and he nodded. They didn't speak much aside from that and since the guard Bonver wasn't at the gate this time, he passed it quickly.

Once on the other side, he turned towards Galana, slid an arm to her back and swept her from the ground by wrapping his other arm around her knees.

She yelped in surprise and the guards at the gates as well as the travelers found it amusing. Her face turned a bit red but her voice sounded very annoyed.

"No way, you want to carry me like that?"

"Obviously, your dress isn't wide enough for you to hold on to my back properly. Plus, I don't think you're well enough to hold on to me for so long. This way will be easier."

"I guess so..." She had to concede. "You won't drop me though right?"

"Of course I won't. Why would I drop you?"

On those words, Emp started the trip back home with a mildly embarrassed Galana who hurriedly wrapped her arms around his neck to prevent herself from falling off.

*-*-*-*

(1) The twins, I haven't spoken about them yet because they were irrelevant to the story. Emp talks about them more with Marcy in a few chapters. The main thing to know is that Palonia and Tiberius are mama and papa.