Chapter 868 A Burning Memory, Part 1



"Once upon a time, in a land far, far gone and demolished, there was once a man named Torem Ignis. My dipshit father." 

A cold opening to what was priming up to be quite the long, riveting story of snark, profanity, and lots and lots of that classic, unadulterated Ria-charm we all come to unwillingly love and tolerate.

"Now Torem was a rather bright fellow, actually. In fact, he was considered to be brighter than most. So smart and clever he was, that in his time, the mere utterance of his name creamed the pants of all of his many young admirers, and welled bitter tears in the eyes of his jealous inferiors. But just why exactly was he so universally acclaimed? Just how much smarter and cleverer can he actually be compared to your average snobbish smarty pants? Irene - care to explain to the rest of the class?"

Ria made a gesture toward her and waited for a moment in anticipation. Yet time matched on, the question persisted, and the teacher's pet remained seated. 

Much like me, it seems this was a history lesson Irene had absolutely no knowledge of. That, or she was just about done with indulging more of her antics. It's a little hard to tell.

"No? Nothing? Can't even quote a single passage from one of your big, burly books given by ol' daddy dearest?" Ria pulled a haughty smirk worthy of a broken nose. "Well, can't say I'm surprised. It's not a story the Churches would tell you. Hardly a story at all probably - major bits and pieces lost or misconstrued over years and years. Hell, who's to say that what you know now is really what happened then, hm? Food for thought." 

"Torem, Ria," I said, putting her train of thought, so quick to stray, back on track. "What was he known for?"

It took a couple of seconds for her to respond. A handful of fries, and a bite of burnt lamb apparently took higher priority, and through gobbled smacks and chews, I manage to hear her churn out a signal word.

"Healing."

"Healing?" Irene repeated, looking as if she had her garbled mouth noises wrong.

"Healing, that's right," Ria said, swallowing, before continuing in a clearer, unmistakable voice. "And if what you know now lines up with what it was like back then, then you'd know healing is a branch of magic that has no mastery." 

Even someone as green as me knew this one. I remembered the fuzz Adalia kicked up when she had me heal myself that one time using Mom's cloak, and then having the intricacies and the many dangers explained to me further by Irene made it abundantly clear that magical first-aid was no joke. 

Only two known beings in the realm are known to be capable of wielding such volatile, voracious magic.

Mom was an obvious example, and as for the other…

"He was an absolute natural," Ria continued on. "Severed limbs, chronic illness - hundreds upon hundreds would cross the seas just for the chance of meeting him. He could mend almost anything, anyone, and while other magic users inadvertently wind up killing themselves trying to imitate his accomplishments, Torem on the other hand, made it look as easy as a flick of the wrist. That's just how good he was at it.

"Eventually word spread further and wider of his impossible talents, and for his altruism and humanitarian ways, the Seven Churches appointed him an honorary member within their closer circles, granting him status, wealth, and power like you can't even imagine. And so yeah, there he was, at the top of the world, rubbing shoulders with the best of the best, and it was through his connection with the Churches that he became acquainted with a Magus that he'd soon blossom a particularly close relationship with. This Magus, let's call him… Silas." 

At that, Irene shifted in her seat ever so slightly. Her stare a little sharper, her expression a little harder… subtle little things that did not escape Ria's attention, her lips curving again in that distinct shape of a detour.

"I sense that one of our student is itching to raise her hand here."

"Silas is supposed to be your father, isn't he?" Irene said, yet sounding less like she was asking and more like she was stating. "You told me he was your father."

I remembered that too. Vaguely anyway. In the early rays of morning, sharing information at a bustling waffle house… I think I remembered Silas's name being tossed somewhere along those lines.

"Aww, so you were paying attention to me when I'd go off on some stupid silly tangent," Ria said, her face softening in an outpour of genuine endearment. "And all this time I thought you were just pretending to for my sake. I'm actually touched."

"You lied?" 

"Of course not," she immediately refuted. "But more on that later, alright? For the time being… right, where was I again?" 

A slight pause, and almost instantly after, Ria found herself, and continued on.

"Now with the kinds of successes, glory, and recognition Torem has been getting for years and years, it isn't really unusual that it all began to get to his head a bit. Got him thinking bigger, grander than his station - I mean, you can't blame him. He's only human, after all. One day, a day like any other, Torem decided to finally bring his newfound ambition to reality.

"To mend the unmendable, fix the unfixable, cure the absolute incurable. He decided he was going to conquer the common illness called death. Torem believed that man could be so much more than just flesh and bone, that the human body was just a shell limiting true potential. That death was simply an obstacle, not the absolute inevitability everyone believed it to be. Of course, at the time, this was all just theory. Immortality wasn't even a concept entertained by any Magus worth their salt. Because, duh, nothing is ever made to last forever."

Ria chuckled softly, then giggled a little more, as if someone had said a joke that was much too terrible to not be downright hilarious.

"Of course now, with the benefit of hindsight," she muttered, a slight smirk still lingering on her expression. "We can see that there is always an exception to everything."