Path of Dragons 18 - Chapter 30 - Abandoned but not Forgotten (Patreon)

Lucy looked good.

Older.  A little more worn.  But good, nonetheless.  If Elijah had only just met her, he would have put her in her late thirties.  Given that she and Elijah were basically the same age, that was both remarkable and quite alarming. 

For context, Elijah could confidently say that he looked to be in his mid-twenties, and not a hard-lived version at all.  His skin was smooth and wrinkle free, his hair was still going strong, and he hadn’t even begun to go grey.  In short, he looked like he was in the prime of his life.

Meanwhile, Lucy had gone past that youthfulness and into the early stages of middle age.  Considering that she was the better part of a century old, that should have been a good thing.

But as he looked into her eyes and saw the slight wrinkles at their corners, Elijah couldn’t escape the reality that he was aging a lot slower than most people.

It was further affirmation that he would outlive just about everyone he’d ever known or loved.  That included Lucy, who seemed to have stalled out in her leveling.  She wasn’t even a demigod yet, and given her non-combat profession, there was a chance she’d never get there.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said with a sigh.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied.  There had been a time – long, long ago – when he’d believed he and Lucy would marry, have children, and live a norma life together, growing old and dying only a few miles from where they’d grown up just outside of Seattle.

That had changed when Elijah’s parents had died, and he’d retreated into solitude and bad decisions, only coming out of that malaise after he’d run away to college in Hawaii.  Their relationship, which had once been so strong, disintegrated somewhere along the way. 

It was all Elijah’s fault.  Maybe he had a good excuse, if grief could be considered in such terms.  But Lucy deserved better.

She still did, reminding him that he hadn’t even thought of her in years.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she said, shaking her head.  She pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear, saying, “God.  You look almost exactly like you did the last time I saw you.  Younger even.  How the hell is that possible?”

“Clean living and cultivation,” Elijah joked.

“Right.”

“Lucy, I…I’m sorry.”

“For what?” she asked, taking a sip from her own coffee. 

“I don’t know.  For…abandoning you, I guess?  I haven’t seen you since…”

“Decades ago.  But don’t look at me like you think I’ve been pining away for you all this time.  I’ve been living my own life,” she revealed.  “I have a family.  A husband who loves me.  Kids too.  And grandkids, if you can believe it.  I’m perfectly happy without you hanging around.”

“Oh.”

She laughed.  “You sound so disappointed.  Did you want me to be a mess, Elijah?”

Elijah shrugged.

“You haven’t changed at all, have you?  You still think you’re the center of everyone’s world,” she said with a smirk.  “And fair enough.  You kind of are.  Do you know how awkward it is to take my grandkids to Dragon’s Day parades?  Seeing people dress up like you?”

“Really? They do that?” he asked.  Then, he added another question, “What do those costumes look like?”

“Bad blonde wigs, hobo clothes, and a staff,” she answered. “They look like they’re cosplaying hobbits, complete with the curly hair.  You could see for yourself next week.”

Elijah shook his head. “There’s absolutely no way I’m ever going to do that.  If I’m still on Earth next week, then I’ve done something horribly wrong.”

“Just one thing?” she asked, a slight twinkle in her eye.  It reminded him of when they’d cut school and end up spending a day at the lake.  Those were unapologetically good times, characterized by sun and the innocence of youth that told them that nothing bad would ever happen to them.

“Well, probably a lot of things,” he admitted.  “So?”

“So, what?”

“You didn’t come looking for me to talk about Dragon’s Day parades, right?” he asked.

“Maybe I just wanted to see you,” she suggested.  “You know, to check on you to make sure you’re doing okay.  From what I’ve heard, you’ve had a rough time of it over the past couple of decades.”

Elijah shrugged.  “There were some ups and downs.”

She laughed at the understatement, and rightly so.  Since the last time Elijah saw her, he’d been to other worlds, fought deities, and learned how to create his own miniature solar flare.  He’d thought he’d fallen in love with Kaela, then felt abandoned when her parents exiled her.  And he’d fallen in love with Imal not that long after. 

He’d been through a lot, and though Lucy didn’t know the extent of it, she’d probably heard plenty of rumors.

“You want to talk about it?” she asked.  “I’m still a pretty good listener.”

“You know what?  I would.”

And he did.  As they went through one cup of coffee after another, Elijah told Lucy about everything he’d experienced since the last time they had met.  And given that it had been decades, that constituted quite a lot of storytelling.  Eventually, Elijah exhausted his own experiences, and Lucy explained what she’d been up to. 

As she’d already said, she had gotten remarried and had had a family.  Her children were reasonably successful, with her son joining one of New York’s top guilds.  Meanwhile, her daughter had gone on to be a Painter. 

“My grandson wants to be a gladiator,” she lamented.  “He’s obsessed with the games.  But he’s only eight, so he’ll probably grow out of it.”

“Callux would love to see them.”

Lucy shook her head.  “You never do things the easy way, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You could’ve just settled down and had children the old-fashioned way. Instead, you adopt an orc, a tree, and a fungal colony,” she pointed out.

“And?  They’re still my children as much as if –”

“I’m not saying they’re not, Elijah.  I’m just saying that you’re not normal.”

“What good is normal anyway?”

“For you?  It would be a detriment,” she answered.  “I would like to meet Callux, though.  I bet he’s just like you.”

“Honestly, I hope not,” Elijah said, leaning back.  Certainly, he wanted to see some of his characteristics represented in his son’s personality.  Every father did.  However, he wanted Callux to be better, and he wasn’t thinking about cultivation or attributes.  He wanted Callux to be a better man, a happier person. 

“What?” Lucy asked when she saw Elijah’s expression change.

“I don’t know.  I guess I’ve just come to realize that I’m not that happy of a person,” he said.  “That’s weird, right?  I should be happy.”

It went deeper than that.  At some point, he’d once again lost touch with the things that brought him joy.  Sure, he was happy when he was spending time with his children, but that was a different sort of contentment than what he’d once felt. 

“What do you think you need to be happy?”

Elijah made to answer, but he stopped himself before blurting out some boiler plate response.  Instead, he leaned forward and stared into his mostly empty coffee cup.  Just past the brown liquid, he could see the maker’s mark.  Someone had put their heart and soul into that simple cup. 

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you think you should figure that out before complaining?” she asked. 

“Think of the problem and not the solution?”

“Not what I meant, Elijah.  It’s not about solving problems.  It’s about looking into your own heart and figuring out what makes it tick,” Lucy said.  “For me, it’s my children.  I think that’s partly true for you, too.  But your life is a lot more complex than mine.  You have way more problems, and the entire world is looking at you for solutions.”

Elijah continued to stare at the dregs of his cup of coffee.

Then, at last, he said, “Food.”

“What?”

“That’s one thing that’s been missing,” he said.  “When I’m happy, it’s when I’m eating new foods.”

It wasn’t as simple as that statement suggested.  Instead, the act of eating had come to symbolize much more than simple mastication.  It was about encountering new cultures and sharing them with friends and family.  Like when Sara had taken him to that fancy restaurant in the Empire of Scale.

Elijah didn’t even remember the name, but he could easily recall the way it made him feel.  And more importantly, how sharing that with Sara had changed their relationship. 

Suddenly, he realized something that should have been obvious.

“I need to introduce Callux to pizza.”

For a second, Lucy just stared at him.  Then, she burst out laughing. 

“What?”

She shook her head, still laughing.  “It’s nothing.  Just nice to know that with everything going on, some things won’t really change.”

Elijah just grinned.

It felt like he’d made a breakthrough, even if he knew the information was nothing new.  The reality was that his realization wasn’t really about pizza.  It was about his tendency to sometimes forget that, amidst everything that might be going on, he still needed to make an effort to enjoy life. 

That meant good food.

That meant appreciation for the wonders of the world, both natural and otherwise.

And it also meant not taking his loved ones for granted.  Once, that had included Lucy, and even though they had spent so much time apart, there was still a level of familiarity there that came from spending their formative years as inseparable parts of a whole. 

He loved her.  Not in a romantic way.  Not anymore.  But as a friend who knew him well before he became a dragon.  Or a Druid.  Or Earth’s champion.

Few others in his life could say as much. 

“I just realized something depressing,” Elijah revealed.

“Don’t ruin the mood.”

He shrugged. “It’s just that I don’t think there’s anyone else besides you or Carmen who remember me from before.  Miggy maybe, but he was just a baby.  Alyssa’s gone.  Nina too.  Even Fremont.”

She sighed and leaned back.  “That’s what it means to have lived through the apocalypse, Elijah.  Not that many people survived.  And now?  Even fewer are still around.”

“I know.  It just puts things into perspective.”

It also addressed something that had been on his mind of late.  He understood why Illska was so desperate to transcend because doing so would put her on even footing with her husband.  He wouldn’t have to go on with his life without her in it. 

Elijah threw his arm over the back of the chair and admitted, “I miss Imal.”

“How much longer will it be before she’s back?”

Elijah gave a one-shoulder shrug. “There’s no telling.  Sometimes, it’s over in a few months.  Other times, a few years.  It’s been known to last a decade.”

At present, Imal had been inside the deity chrysalis for years.  She’d missed the entire war in Orveth Kaal, as well as the trip into Sylvara. 

“I knew it would take a while.  I thought I was prepared for it.  But there’s only so much distraction I can accomplish.”

It also gave him a lot more perspective on what it must’ve been like for Sadie trying to go on and live her life while Elijah was trapped in Gorveth.  When he’d returned to find that she had moved on and that they no longer shared a future, he’d thought he understood.  And academically, he did.  But emotionally?

That was different.

“I guess there’s nothing for it but to get on with it,” Elijah said.  “What about you?  What are you going to do now that the kids are grown? It won’t be long before the grandchildren are too.”

She gave a resigned shake of her head. “Not long.  It’ll be a decade or more before they go off to live their lives, but that’s not a long time now, is it?  I might live to be five hundred years old.  Ten years is nothing in that context.  I’ll live to see great grandkids ten times over.  Twenty, maybe.”

“Daunting, isn’t it?” Elijah pointed out.

“Exciting, too.”

“In a way.”

“We get to see the evolution of humanity.  We get to think longterm about our own projects.  Not in the context of a few decades, but with centuries in mind.  Thousands of years for you.  You’re not constrained by time anymore.”

“That’s not entirely true.”

Lucy nodded. “May as well be,” she countered. “But to answer your question, I’m going to continue my work with the farms.  They’ve expanded a hundred times over since the last time you visited.”

“Want some help?  I have a Farmer friend who could teach you some things,” Elijah suggested, thinking of Ikiahj, who was still working just outside of Ironshore.

“I’ll take whatever I can get,” she said.  “There are some issues I’ve run into lately.”

“Is that why you came to see me?”

“One of them,” she answered.  “Disappointed?”

Elijah shook his head. “I’m never disappointed to see an old friend.”

“Good.”

After that, their conversation moved to lighter subjects, which was just one of the things Elijah needed at that moment.