Triiffic-Soul: Can I Be In Control?

Chapter 38 – Visit From Afar

“We are so sorry you had to deal with so much today Anna…” An exhausted Jen crouched down and embraced Anlesa in a tight hug.

Luna patted Jen’s back, “It’s fine.”

George shook his head and hugged the two of them by the side, “No it’s not, you dealt with too much today.”

It took ten hours for the parents to get back, and when they did, mouths started flapping. Every kid told their parents about their own version of events. Which led to some trouble for the parents trying to piece the whole story together.

After a solid ten minutes of questioning the parents finally understood what had happened while they were gone. Some kids were rewarded while others got in trouble. No one blamed Anna for the potential accident that could have occurred as they were all reasonable and understood that she did her best, and her best was already something they were asking too much of a nine-year-old.

The parents were a tired mess and Leah nearly getting mauled by a wolf just made them more exasperated at the specialist they had the misfortune of spending the last ten hours with.

Jen and George explained they were basically constantly on the move without any break for the ten hours. No lunch or moment of rest to recover. It wasn’t even a leisurely walk because they had to move fast to make it to all the destinations. 

When they were alone, Jen insulted the specialist to Anna, “That worm bait bastard didn’t have a single drop of sweat on him. He fucking enjoyed watching us suffer.”

“Language!” George replied.

After they were done with the examinations, they as a group moved all the way back to Village Two–which was the furthest from Anna’s home village and began to say their goodbyes.

Then the large multi-villager group had to stop by each village, dropping off the parents from each village one by one once the job was done. This was something else Anna found completely stupid, it was so purposely inefficient it had to be designed so. 

As they were alone, Syrus asked, “Hey Mum, Dad, so what did you have to do exactly?”

Jen answered, “Nothing much, go around, navigate through the area, defend the perimeter, and yeah, annoying not much besides too much walking.”

Eva asked, “So… what were the rules you had to follow?”

Jen answered again without thinking whether she should answer the question, “Nothing too complicated, besides the age requirements I mentioned earlier. We had to meet at the meeting point by a certain time, we weren’t allowed to split up or leave when not asked, and some other smaller rules which could be summed up as–listen to the one who is in charge.”

Syrus bluntly commented, “They sound so stupid, why did you have to follow them?”

“...” Jen stayed silent, she didn’t know how to answer that.

“It’s complicated, we will explain later.” George rested his warm hand on Jen’s shoulder to comfort her.

The family trio stayed together for a couple of moments longer before Jen and George had to do one final task.

George said, “We have to go, stay here, we will be right back.”

Luna replied, “Understood.”

The parents had the annoying task of saying goodbye to the specialist, but some of the parents stayed back to ensure the kids wouldn’t riot.

[Welp, time to spy.] (Syrus)

Away from the children, the parents and the specialist said their happy goodbyes.

However, Anna got in earshot of the conversation and they watched as the adults talked to the specialist.

The specialist’s figure was short and unimposing, with a simple but clean brown uniform, he had a wide smile as he said his goodbyes.

[Luna, do you think he is from the church?] They knew the church hired him, that was the story, but if it was from the church itself, then that brought up potential concerns.

The man spoke, “Thank you for all the help today, I’m sorry to hear that accident nearly happened though. I never thought such a thing could happen in these parts.”

[No… the church would love to use their own staff for things like this, better self-promotion that way. They wouldn’t keep that fact hidden.] (Luna)

[But what about his behaviour?] (Syrus)

[He… is a standard overly kind gentleman. Plenty of people in the church who act like that, but also plenty of people who interact with the church also act like that.] (Luna)

Luna was honestly unsure, but from her experience, she believed the church would care more about its self-promotion than some scheme on farmers.

[Okay.] Syrus replied, she was still suspicious.

The goodbye ended, and families reunited, but it didn’t take long for Anna to say bye to her parents again. Anna left to go to her room, wanting some alone time after dealing with kids all day.

Now that they were alone again, Syrus decided to speak her thoughts, [I’ve been trying to think of the motivation behind the visit.] 

[Couldn’t it possibly be just a standard check?] Eva rebutted, she didn’t necessarily believe there was nothing afoot, but she felt it was important to consider both sides. [Maybe they were worried the land could still be damaged from the incident years ago.]

[Nah, everything about this was too much.] (Syrus)

[Reasonable… then what do you think could be the reason?] (Eva)

[Thinking of the common reasons–exploitation, control, spying, abducting…hmmm] Syrus paused, then asked Luna, [Luna what are the chances the church is abducting people?] 

[Abducting?] (Luna)

[Yeah, do you believe they would abduct people? From villages and towns like ours for example?] (Syrus)

Outside of exercising their control and spying on the villages, the most logical idea for this performance by the specialist was to gauge the villages before another operation down the line. Syrus knew she was probably overcomplicating it, she was using her knowledge of wars and conflicts and applying that to a small farming village that the other side really had no reason to mess with.

[Depends… how you would define it.] Luna felt sick, [I’ve mentioned before how I wasn’t let in on the darker sides of the church, but straight-up kidnapping wasn’t something they did. Convincing people to let their kids go willingly was something they did… and I would consider that kidnapping but that isn’t the type of abduction we are talking about right now.]

[But do you think they would?] (Syrus)

[I… don’t believe so… there would be too many holes, too many ways to be caught… The church is just really good at taking advantage of opportunities.] (Luna)

[Examples..?] (Eva)

[...Villages being destroyed, officials being found corrupted, droughts, floods, demon attacks, monster sightings, etc] Luna listed common instances that the church used to grow their influences, [Honestly, simply anything that could be a good opportunity that wouldn’t hurt themselves later, they took.]

[But are you sure the church wouldn’t get their hands dirty? There is more than one way to deal with a problem–inside or out] Syrus pressured Luna for answers by stealthy bringing up the fact the church had a hand in Luna’s death. 

Luna paused, as she remembered that day. [I… don’t believe so.] 

She was there for most of her life, even if they tried to hide everything from her, she would’ve noticed something like that occurring. Luna always tried to be observant, it was her greatest ally in her early years there after all. 

[We could just be overcomplicating this, it might’ve just been an abuse of power to satisfy the man’s weak ego.] (Eva)

[...?!] Luna and Syrus were shocked by what Eva said because it wasn’t something either of them ever expected of her.

Syrus replied, [If we have overthought this, so be it, but better than ignoring the potential issue.] 

[...Agreed.] Eva held back from gulping as a sudden wave of nerves filled her.

The trio finished up their conversation and helped Jen and George with the final bit of prep for the day, so they could eat dinner as a family and get some well-deserved sleep.