Triiffic-Soul: Can I Be In Control?

Chapter 39 – Just Chopping Wood, an Exotic Talk, and a Disaster

Syrus screamed, “One, two, three! Do it!” 

“Argehhhhhhhh!” A scream of determination turned into one of fear as the axe fell on the piece of log.

Eva couldn’t close her eyes as Syrus forced them open to ensure the wood was cut.

Anna had been assigned wood-chopping duty today, it was nothing hard, but Syrus found a quiet spot to do it in and added a little bit of chaos to the work, by forcing Eva to do a part of it.

It would make sense to some mathematically for the trio to do equal amounts of work, but when one of them enjoyed doing physical tasks way more than the other two, it usually meant only one ever did the actual hard work–not that Syrus would consider chopping wood hard.

Syrus examined the cut closely, [That was an alright cut, but do better later, for now, we will switch back to me.]

[Oh thank the stars…] Eva sighed in relief.

[It wasn’t that bad Lilly.] (Luna)

Anna was strong, no doubt about that, but the only one who could use the full strength of their body was Syrus.

Just because any muscle training Syrus affected their shared body, that didn’t mean Luna and Eva knew how to use the muscles properly. Well, it was mostly Eva who had trouble, which was why Syrus wanted to start teaching Eva how to use her body properly.

[So, how was the exercise Lilly?] (Luna)

[Awful…] (Eva)

It had only been two days since the daycare incident and in the morning Eva had felt the week couldn’t get much worse, but she was wrong. Syrus’s warning that she would start the conversation this week about her attribute was already a massive mental burden, and then the daycare incident happened. After that, she felt the week couldn’t get worse, but she had a feeling Syrus read her emotions and decided today was the perfect day for her to start exercising.

[Are you making fun of her, Luna?] (Syrus)

[You know I’m not, now hurry with your section, it's been ages since I got to do some decent stretches and have the chance to exhaust myself.] (Luna)

Syrus continued with the work. The order that Syrus decided on, was that Syrus would start, followed by a short session with Eva, then Syrus again, and Luna would end it with the final chunk of logs.

[Anyway besides this, Eva, it is time.] Syrus slammed down the axe and cleanly chopped the wood in half.

Syrus was a quarter through her stack when she suddenly spoke to Eva.

[...] Eva paused, causing their body to freeze in place, she was expecting this conversation to happen. She never once doubted Syrus' words after all, she had expected it but when it was asked it still shook her.

[Do you wish for me to start anywhere specific?] (Syrus)

[...No… your choice.] (Eva)

[Fair enough, so I will start with the simplest aspect of them. Exotic gifts/attributes are just really rare attributes that have a high concentration in bloodlines.] (Syrus)

[Umm, what?] (Eva)

[Confused?] (Syrus)

[No, umm, don’t worry I’m just being stupid.] Eva shook their head and cleared her mind.

[Exotic gifts are honestly just gifts like any other… On a base level anyway.] Syrus started her explanation, [Examples of more common exotic gifts would be Ferocity, Instinct, Blitz, Berserk, Incarnate, Slumber, Morph.] Syrus paused before sighing, she had already concluded long ago that this was going to be a difficult discussion. The fact Eva had no semblance of an idea of what exotic attributes were, meant she didn’t know about a very big aspect of many civilizations.[Going to make this slightly confusing for a second, there are some gifts that would be considered normal or rare can also be considered exotic, as their effect can change drastically in people with exotic bloodlines.]

The topic started to interest Eva, she was still scared, but her natural curiosity wanted to know more, [But why?].

[Okay...Now, for the donkey in the room.] Syrus quietly groaned, [So simply put, people with exotic gifts tend to look like humans, human shape, mostly human proportions, but they tend to have a bit extra mixed in.]

[That sounds like demons…] Eva worriedly thought.

Luna quickly interrupted, [Some demons are known to be human-shaped, but not all of them.]

Syrus added, [And there is still a big difference between demons and humans with exotic gifts… Now back on topic, continuing the basics of exotic gifts. Normally a bloodline that contains an exotic gift will have those physical changes appear even in descendants who don’t possess that gift. Most exotic bloodlines also contain more than one exotic gift, but most times only one manifests. However, it is quite common for a ‘normal’ gift to manifest along with an exotic for these people.]

[But why does this happen?] Eva wanted to know the answer.

But Syrus couldn’t provide, [It's one of those crow and egg things.] 

[You mean chicken and the egg?] (Eva)

[Yeah that also works.] Syrus continued, [Did some humans one day gain exotic gifts and their bodies change? With those changes being passed down through family trees? Or are exotic gifts exclusive to those other ‘species'? We have no idea, I believe the former though. It just makes sense with what I know about gifts, which to be fair, isn’t that much.] 

[What are these people with exotic bloodlines called?] (Eva)

Syrus shrugged, [Nothing? Some people have tried giving them names, but the best you are going to get is a family or tribe having specific names. They are still human after all.]

Luna felt extreme shame as Syrus was giving her lecture. Her time in the church did influence some of her beliefs, even when she tried to resist. So she felt extremely apologetic for making Eva feel scared and worried when she had moments of disgust pour from her emotions when the topic was brought up–even after apologising.

[But Eva, did you really not know about any humans who looked a bit different?] Syrus knew the answer, but she still had to ask.

[No, never.] Eva could only reply with confusion.

[Yeah… that is very weird…] Luna added. She understood that in countries where people with exotic gifts were looked down upon, there was a high chance of the population of exotic gift wielders being low or even absent as they would move away. But the knowledge of them still spreads, even as just rumours or folktales.

[Why… haven’t I heard about this before?] Eva understood it should be near impossible for her to not learn about this. Especially for her home country that prided itself on knowledge.

Syrus said, [Where I was from, there wasn’t any issue with having an exotic gift. I mean, sometimes if someone really wanted an excuse to punch someone, sure, but no one really cared. Even the majority of religious organisations. The ones that tried to make it a problem were laughed at.] 

Syrus sighed, [Though, from my guesses, I can’t say the same about the churches in these parts] 

Luna asked, [Lilly, if you could tell us where you were from, maybe we could provide some answers?]

[I…] It should’ve been easy to say, it was just her home after all. Instead, she asked a different question first, [So… I am… was supposed to be one of those people?] 

[Probably, I don’t know shit about the blood stuff or anything with how it works. Some people with exotic gifts I know looked extremely close to normal humans, while others… yeah… were a bit weird. But honestly, it could be possible to just be born with an exotic gift, I think so anyway.] (Syrus)

[Your soul form didn’t have any visual traits indicating you had an exotic gift, so I was surprised to hear you likely had one.] (Luna)

[Okay.] Lilly sighed internally, she held a lot of trauma about the home she loved and while she didn’t want to be apart from it, she understood she was being held back by it. She spent the last few days preparing for today, and she was going to have this conversation and her knowledge wasn’t going to be left incomplete, [I’m from Eletscoep….]

Luna gasped, “...oh no…”

[Yep never heard of it. Luna from your reaction I am going to assume Eletscoep didn’t have a great perception of exotic gifts?] (Syrus)

[Oh no no no, if anything they were one of the most accepting of exotic attributes.] Luna quickly countered.

[Were…?] Syrus raised an eyebrow, something with how Luna said that word gave her worry.

[I mean… argh… there wasn’t a sudden shift in power or anything, well there kind of was.] Luna began to ramble, the facts of the famous incident surfaced in her head, [It was a tragedy…]

[What happened…] Eva felt lost… How could she not, Luna was showing an extreme visceral reaction. She covered their mouth and Eva could feel a groan in their stomach as emotions of worry, concern, sadness, and dread spilled out of Luna.

[...The extermination of a quarter of the population, the great disease, the death of the royal family.] Luna started listing everything trying to see if Lilly knew anything about what she was talking about.

While Lilly was just shocked hearing it all, [Eletscoep had a royal family…?]

[What the…] Luna couldn’t understand why Lilly had no idea about this massive event, [It only happened twenty years ago, no, well twenty-nine years ago. But a major disaster hit the country, it was a disease of some kind and killed everyone with a visible exotic bloodline over the course of a year.]

[What the hell happened…] (Syrus)

[As I said… it was something… a disease that killed all those with exotic bloodlines. I mentioned how Eletscoep didn’t mistreat those people right? Well, they saw exotic bloodlines, and bloodlines in general much differently than the cultures of other countries and to top it off, the royal family had a very powerful bloodline running through it. But that didn’t stop them all from dying…]

[Are you sure it wasn’t an inside job, maybe the people of the country revolted or something?] Syrus tried asking stupid questions, she had faced disease and sickness before. But the idea that a quarter of the country’s population would die from one disease in a year was insane to her.

[No no no, hate in Eletscoep was at an all-time low…  Eletscoep is a bit closed off from their neighbours but their people were happy. I’m not saying it was perfect… If it was…] She wanted to say Lilly wouldn’t have died, but she kept that quiet, [But the citizens' needs were provided for, it was why any church found it so hard to spread their influence into it.] (Luna)

[That’s… true… we didn’t have any churches from what I recall.] (Eva)

[Eletscoep wasn’t on friendly terms with the church, so getting into the country was hard. Trust me, the church tried to figure out the cause and not only that, they tried to spread it into other countries. But no matter what they did, nothing worked. The church tried so desperately hard, speaking to those who could have a motive, those who disliked the royal family, but none had an answer. The rotten bastard however said after it was all done, ‘it must’ve been an act of a god’ after they couldn’t find the reason.] (Luna)

[But everyone died? How… you said visible right? That has to mean some survived.] (Syrus)

[The only reason I’m even saying visible in the first place is because Lilly exists.] Luna was surprised to hear Lilly had an exotic attribute in the first place, but that couldn’t compare to the news that she had that and lived in Eletscoep originally. [Syrus, Eletscoep is the most advanced country I know of, some countries might be better in one or two ways, but overall Eletscoep is the most advanced. And what they were the best at was technology, magic, and medicine… and they tried their best.]

[...] 

[...] 

[Why… did I never know about this…] Eva didn’t know whether to cry or not, she just felt so lost.

She prepared to face some amount of her emotional trauma, but what she learned… was so much not what she was expecting. A whole other dimension of her home she knew nothing about.

[‘To learn and discover’ was a motto I latched onto in school… I loved learning… but I didn’t even know about my own home’s history…] (Lilly)

[Luna… how could this even happen… How does a country’s culture disappear in a few years…?] Syrus asked, terrified.

[I………………… don’t know… it can’t be one reason…] (Luna)

[But how do you keep an entire population quiet?!] Syrus wasn’t looking for an answer, she was getting the rage out of her system. This whole situation didn’t sit right with her.

[...] Luna stayed quiet… and she thought and thought until she had an answer 

[I think shame….] (Luna)

[How, why, shame of all things?] (Syrus)

[They loved their king… and they loved their neighbours, the queen especially was known to be an extremely loved individual… It was a famous point in history, the whole country joined hands to do one thing… and they still failed.] (Luna)

Lilly finally started to cry, [So many people… why couldn’t they tell us… they deserved to be remembered, even by someone as worthless like me…]

[I don’t think this news was hidden from everyone Lilly, some parents properly told their kids about a friend or uncle that passed… but it was still kept secret for a reason…] (Luna)

[It’s… still so stupid.] (Syrus)

[That it is…] Luna decided to leave theorising on why that happened for a later date.

Luna stretched her arms out and hugged their body, [I know… this conversation has been a lot for you today… but if you take anything from it, even if it has caused you untold amounts of pain, your exotic attribute is something to be proud of. In my eyes, and your old home's eyes.] 

Eva closed her eyes tight and promised, [Yes… I will.] 

Then her tears continued to fall.

It was a long time before they finished chopping all the wood.