36 Apprenticeship (2/2)

Alas, when they found out, it was I that became the heretic, not them. They burned all of my teachings. They arrested all of my pupils. They set their adventurers upon me like hounds, and I found myself chased across the lands, only ever managing to settle here, in this quiet city so far out west, so far from the capitol where none could use divination magic to see through my shapeshifting.

And as if to turn the knife in my back, with the consumption of humans came the adulteration of my spirithood. With human impurity came human emotion and thought. With that came an ailment of the mind the mortals call depression, and such was my sorry state during the test, if you can forgive me.”

”There's nothing to forgive. Look, I've heard enough. You're right in that you can teach me about restoring my divinity: I have an idea of what it means to be an Elder, but not what it means to be a Leshen. That's something I have to inevitably face.” Li watched as Iona's face brightened. ”But I also have to tell you that if I do hire you, I'll be hiring you to mostly help this farm. You have to understand that this farm is not a joke. It is not a game. It is not a disguise. It is who I am.”

Iona gave a questioning nod. ”I…understand.”

”No, you don't quite understand, I can tell. But you'll have to make yourself if you want to stay around here. A few conditions, too. You only come here to work for me as an herbalist. It would lessen my workload by half to have someone helping me brew and plant, I have to admit that, but you don't live in the cottage and you do not tell the old man inside that I am anything more than human. You have a place in the city, right?”

”By the docks, yes.”

”Good. Then you stay there. I'll want someone that's in the city to keep me informed about what's happening. Also, you can do the groceries for us as well. The walk to the marketplace is a chore, and an even bigger pain in the ass is all the noise and ruckus from the markets themselves.”

Iona clasped her hands together and gave a bow. ”Anything you wish.”

”Good.” Li saw that the knight was heading towards them, the horse's head bowed as it avoided the rain as much as possible.

”Anything else you want?” said Li to the knight.

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The knight scratched his moustache. ”Actually, to be honest, I'm-”

”What?” sighed Li. ”Another surprise identity? What are you? A god in hiding?”

”I'm afraid not, though sometimes I do dearly wish to be,” said the knight. He put down his helmet visor and coughed into his hand. ”Well, I merely wanted to apologize for wasting your time. I see no reason for slavery to occur here, especially on the respected grounds of a demon war veteran such as Old Thane. I daresay there was some bias within me that may have thought you men of the east were inclined towards the brutish practice. Goodness, and I even went through mandatory knightly sensitivity training. Well, I'll be off now. Do keep dry, you two.”

And with that, the knight rode off, yawning audibly through the pattering rain.

”Time for you to leave as well,” said Li. ”Start coming by at the start of next week. The stall will be done and I'll be brewing for the first time. I'll see how useful you are then. Consider it a trial run.”

”I swear, O guardian, I will not disappoint you.”

---

As Li watched Iona leave, he shook his head. He understood that she could be useful, it was true. Two hands to brew was always better than one, and she was surely an experienced herbalist. But he had pride in his own two hands. He wanted to do everything by himself.

Mostly, he had decided to hire her because he couldn't shake off a slight sense of guilt. She had mentioned her lands had been destroyed in a source ritual, and he found himself making connections with what the vampire Alexei had said, about how the elves had sacrificed a great amount to bring Li here.

The timeline was off, for sure, as Iona's homeland had been destroyed years before Li's appearance, but who knew how space and time interacted with this strange and new magic?

If Li had truly come here at the cost of so much of the precious nature he cared about, then he owed it to Iona to at least keep her alive.