Fleeting Beauty, Enduring Conflict

An unspoken silence, nimble as a sparrow, fluttered between them, momentarily insulating the two from the boisterous world outside. More accurately, it was the amplified thrum of their own heartbeats that truly deafened them to the clamor.

Audrey, usually so quick-witted, found herself uncharacteristically flustered, her right hand unconsciously tracing the black beaded bracelet on her left arm. She retreated half a step behind Rhine, pacing slowly, hoping to conceal the tell-tale blush that bloomed across her face.

‘Was I too bold?’

‘Propriety, propriety is a virtue…’

‘Argh, what on earth did I just blurt out? No, I really want to punch him!’

Rhine found himself in a similar predicament. He maintained a facade of cool aloofness, uttering not a single word—though in his own estimation, he genuinely felt quite aloof—when in reality, he had completely lost the ability to speak.

‘Relax,’ he told himself. ‘This is merely a minor ripple in a long life. I’m already over forty; accommodating a teenage girl is perfectly normal…’

Despite this self-reassurance, Audrey’s radiant smile stubbornly lingered in his mind. Even when he tried to forcibly lock away that exquisitely detailed, frame-by-frame image behind the ‘Gate of Memory,’ his eyes still involuntarily darted towards that particular drawer, the one beneath countless celestial photographs.

It was like a ray of sunlight piercing a dim room, a golden gleam breaking into a grayscale world. His palette of muted emotions had been overturned, his regular, tedious rhythm shattered, and the melancholic strains of his solo composition were now jarringly interwoven with discordant, joyful notes.

‘I want to see it just one more time,’ he wished, allowing this strange and unnatural thought to swell within him.

Yet, another, far more familiar voice questioned him relentlessly:

‘Outlander, why have you come here? Why do you walk the streets of Lanburg County? Do you not feel utterly out of place in this reality? Having long since despised the trivialities of the mundane world, why do you now feel such genuine contentment?’

The voice was soft, yet it resonated through his very soul. He didn’t need to look up; he knew the source.

‘Green’—that surname perfectly encapsulated this figure: his former self, his forty-year-old self, his despondent self. He stood in his unchanging, tattered wizard’s robe, a wide wizard’s hat perched upon his head, at the very end of the river of memory, blocking the young man’s path.

There was no possibility of reconciliation. He stood there, longer than eternity itself, and understood Rhine better than anyone—even better than Rhine understood himself.

“I don’t know; don’t ask me.”

The figure pulled down the brim of his hat, remaining perfectly still and solemn, not moving a single step.

“Sooner or later, you will find your answer, but not now. Not now.”

The ‘Gate of Memory’ closed. After a momentary daze, Rhine once again registered the smooth, paved bricks of the commercial street beneath his feet.

This time, however, he did not hear Audrey chiding him for his distraction, as the person behind him seemed equally lost in thought.

Having passed two street corners in a blink, and with no pressing matters at hand, the two found themselves unconsciously strolling into the central plaza.

The plaza was vast and open, with several smaller fountains encircling the grand central one like stars around a moon. Various angelic bas-reliefs shimmered within the sheets of water, reflecting a dazzling, rippling light under the midday sun.

The Great Cathedral of Auetland stood directly before the fountain, its white dome resembling a colossal pearl. The intricate, romantic patterns on its stained-glass windows were like artworks, worthy of prolonged admiration. Legend had it that the cathedral’s dome was also carved with the mythical epic of the God of the Covenant’s journey through the world, a truly magnificent and awe-inspiring sight.

At first glance, the entire cathedral exuded an aura of tranquility, sanctity, and solemnity.

Neither Rhine nor Audrey, however, harbored much interest in pilgrimage. A glance across the plaza revealed, nearby, a clown with a painted face diligently performing a juggling act, drawing cheers of delight from the children.

Further away, several bards, harps in hand, either softly chanted or sang aloud, performing songs that lauded the virtues of the divine:

Through winds that wail and rains that weep we’ve trod,

Lilies crushed in thorns, in shadowed vales of God.

Spring flowers sigh, green grasses mourn, sun and moon grow dim,

By willow shores, in peony gardens, who can bear the grim?

Life, ever beautiful, in essence must remain,

God’s love nourishes each corner, easing every pain.

With spirit full, and love inspiring, we walk with the Lord,

Let life overflow with its own splendor, adored.

Audrey gazed fixedly, almost dreamily, at the beautiful spectacle of the Consecration Festival. She unconsciously removed her glasses, then lightly swept her foot across the scattered white feathers on the ground, murmuring half to herself:

“At precisely eight in the morning, a carriage emerges from the cathedral, and the old Archbishop stands upon it, scattering feathers as he parades through the streets. Almost everyone here knows him and holds him in great affection.”

“He seems very kind, but he’s so old; it makes you worry he might strain his back every time he bends down to scoop up feathers. And he’s so enthusiastic, always scattering feathers with too much vigor, then insisting on presiding over mass even late into the evening. Every year, as soon as the Consecration Festival ends, he immediately collapses.”

Rhine led the way, listening with a somber air. He merely listened, offering no opinion, his peripheral vision momentarily lifting before retracting of its own accord.

‘White feathers, huh? Blessings… blessings for whom? God, who are you blessing?’

‘Your ‘blessings’ once nearly crushed me to death, and many others besides. It’s a pity I survived. I walk, trampling white feathers—is this not the most trivial insult I can offer you?’

For some reason, he felt like laughing, but the mirth caught in his throat, unable to escape. He then self-deprecatingly mused that he had even lost the edge of his bitter laughter.

Pondering further, he suddenly felt himself far too gloomy, too uninteresting. Perhaps he truly shouldn’t have come out at all; how much better it would be to simply stay holed up in his room, researching physical magic.

The vibrancy belonged to others; he possessed none of it.

If he hadn’t come out, he wouldn’t be so unhappy. But then, if he hadn’t come out, Audrey would have been left to pitifully entertain herself alone… perhaps? In any case, Rhine was conflicted. While he might have relaxed a little in the present, his past ceaselessly cautioned him.

Beauty was fleeting, while death, despair, and pain were eternal. Was everything he currently enjoyed truly justified, and would it perhaps inflict even greater harm upon him in the future?

‘What meaning does fleeting beauty hold? If any, by whom is this meaning bestowed? To whom does it belong? Can this meaning transcend greater darkness? If none, what purpose does anything he does now serve, other than to merely add to his worries and weaknesses?’

He longed to ask Anjemuel again, or even Ferren, but these thoughts were unrealistic. Their answers could only ever serve as references, incapable of truly addressing the ‘Green’ at his mental doorstep.

“What are you thinking about?”

Audrey poked Rhine’s cheek, asking with a puzzled expression.

Rhine instinctively pushed her hand away.

“I’m wondering, if there’s a possibility that I’m not Green, then what would I be?”

“I see,” Audrey mused. “That certainly is a question worth discussing, especially since ‘Green’ is the surname of a Grand Sorcerer, symbolizing many weighty and noble things.”

Audrey stepped in front of Rhine, then walked backward a pace ahead of him, her hands clasped behind her back, her bright, keen eyes fixed intently upon him.

“Ahem, why do you dwell on such things so much? Rhine is Rhine. You were Rhine before becoming Green, and you will be Rhine after becoming Green. In my opinion, though a person’s edges may be worn and reshaped by the friction of the world, their essence ultimately remains within.”

“Do you truly think so?” The young man offered a faint smile.

“I can only believe it to be so.” A hint of sadness flickered in the girl’s eyes.

“At the very least, I believe it to be so.” The sadness, however, was fleeting, swiftly replaced by the brilliance of starlight in her gaze.