My Servant Is An Elf Knight From Another World

948  Living The Best Life

By the end of Sammy's hellish gauntlet, my heart was left pumping only pure adrenaline. Even the air felt like static, I couldn't so much as breathe without feeling the amp of a thousand defibrillators transcending my soul to a different plane of consciousness. The field used to be a beautiful place—a pasture of bountiful greens for sheep to graze and horses to frolic. Claiming that we live on a farm would just be flat-out lying now. A derby was more like it; childhood memories of sprinting through reeds and flowers overtaken by ramps, barricades, two-meter high jumps, and pretty much everything else in between.

I hitched Lyn by a fence way outside the perimeter of the proving grounds, and we both hopped down onto the dirt. Sammy was staggering, laughing, still coming down from the high of what it felt like to be a ragdoll strapped on a raging bull. And for a while there, so was I; until I took a second look back at all the carnage we've caused. It was just ice everywhere in all kinds of shapes and sizes, scattered across the field—polished, glimmering, and an assault to the eyes in more ways than one. There's having fun, and then there's just outright mayhem, and I think we might have jumped and galloped ourselves too far into the latter. I should have put a stop to this way earlier than I did, but between Lyn's mirthful whinnying and Sammy's infectious enthusiasm, I kinda just got swept along for the ride—literally. "Fun! See, Big Bro—that was fun!" Sammy elbowed my arm. "You really gotta listen more. Like, life gets way more exciting when you do, you can't even deny it." "You mean being your enabler? The field's practically a skating rink and you wanna turn more things to your personal playground?" "I can enable myself without you just fine thank you very much," she said with a dismissive, conceited smile of pure teenage hubris. "And I use ice. You got that? They kinda have a tendency to melt… in case you weren't aware."

"They didn't before. The one you made…" "That one's 'cause I wasn't in control before. But now?" Sammy held up a thumb and finger where she suddenly had a small cube of ice pinched between them. She then tossed it, hitting me on the forehead with a brief glaze of cold. "Give it a few hours, and it's like we were never even here. Trust me, Big Bro. Your sister knows what she's doing." Thing was, take a retrospective step back, and we've only been essentially living with our newfound powers for less than six months. I remembered when all she could do was question it—the whys and hows, followed by the inevitable bouts of outrage and disbelief. Back then, she certainly wouldn't be as accepting of it all as she was now. "Oh, now you got that look on your face… oh no…" Sammy remarked, leering at me suspiciously. "What? Something you wanna say?" "Nah, I was just… thinking, I guess," I shook my head. "You've gotten pretty used to your abilities." She shrugged. "Practice makes perfect, right?"

"Seems more than just practice. You like having them, don't you?" "Wow, how'd you figure? Magical powers? No, they aren't cool at all," she said, echoing a dead flat tone that could rival Dad's. "Is it a crime to like having superpowers now?" "Depends on what you make of them, I suppose. And you…" "You learn to get used to them," Sammy simply said. "Or more like, you kinda just learn to live with them. Make the best of them. You know how it is." I was close again. Hearing her sound so reasonable and accepting was such a far cry to how she was before. The question was behind my lips again. And now felt like a better time than any to finally ask. "So, with Mom, then… what's she done…" I said slowly, watching her closely. "...you learned to live with that too?" Lyn gave a soft, restless snort, her hooves digging and dragging against the dirt, a twinkle like ice glimmering in her green eyes raring for another go at the track before it could all melt away as sustenance for the soil. I gave her broad shoulder a rub trying to simmer her down… and allowing Sammy the time to do what she would with my question. "Mmm, yeah, I knew you've been itching to say something," she said, a slight fizzle in her spunk. "Ever since we dropped by yesterday; that look on your face. So this is what you've been dying to figure out?" "You showed up with Mom, you're not desperately trying to get away from her company like you used to do, you're also not-not talking to her like you used to do, and I see you're also wearing her braid on your hair again, so does that mean… what—forgiven?" "No, I… I don't think so, no, not forgiven," she said, kicking dirt and grass in an unconscious tell of discomfort. "Like, come on, Big Bro, let's get real here. She lied. They lied. She's… she's a murderer. The worst kind. How is there forgiving that?" "I suppose there isn't," I said. "Yeah, so, like… even so… even though I probably could never look at her the same way again… I guess… I think… I can kinda see it from her side too, you know what I mean? I can sorta understand her position right now." Her words seemed to weigh heavy in her own head, slowly tugging and pulling, sinking… 'till her eyes stared down toward the earth instead of mine. "Was there really any proper way for her to say what she needed to say? 'Good morning, Samantha. Hello Dear. Hey, did you know I actually used to be a genocidal deity back in the day? And that your father's a Hero? Oh, and that he also used to work for the Mafia before you were born?' Like, did you even know about that one?" "I did, yeah," I muttered, feeling my voice turn sour in tandem with hers. "Not the full story, though. Not yet anyway." "He kinda just dropped that on me one day," Sammy said, supporting her drooping stature against the fence. "Just got done swallowing one pill before I'm suddenly choking on another." Yet as bitter as it was, I couldn't help but feel a strange sort of catharsis hearing her woes. A small nudge, a little reminder that I wasn't alone in trying to unravel this seemingly infinite mess. "In my case, I just try not to think about it, y'know?" I said to her. "And for me, that's easy enough. But with you, you can't really do that, can you? Not when you're being constantly reminded every time you go down to the kitchen for breakfast. Yet, despite that, you seem to be just fine. What's your secret?"

"No secret," Sammy shook her head. "I just think of me, think of you, and remind myself that we still are who we are." She put it so simple and blunt that surely what she said made some sort of sense… except I don't think I was getting it just yet. "What do you mean?" I asked.

"I mean just look at us, Big Bro. We are the way we are because of them, aren't we?" She said, reaching empty hands into the vast, open air. "They raised us to be like this. They taught us how to be good, to know right from wrong; they didn't have to. They could have definitely raised us any other way if they wanted to, teach us very different things, and yet, they chose to raise us the way we are instead. Love us the way they did. That's gotta count for something, right?" I could see exactly where she was coming from, and really, her reasoning was a perspective I could definitely get behind myself. Because in no way was anything she claimed wrong… we were who we were because of our parents' influence, choices… as despicable as they were… they have raised us to be better. "You saved that man, Harry," Sammy said. "Nearly killed yourself for his sake. You were that selfless, that stupid. And who was the one that taught you to be like that?" "Sure. I see your point." "Who made us breakfast every morning? Who sent us to school? Brought us out camping? Taught us how to ride horses? Tend to the sheep? Harvest the crops? Who made your brownies for your birthday? Who made my cakes? Who was always there for us every time we needed them?" She was convincing, so awfully persuasive that I almost felt weightless, peaceful. That maybe, surely, this was how we could reconcile with everything, with all that we know. And yet, the question still remained. "But does all that really excuse it all?" I asked. Sammy breathed in deeply. Between her fingers, I noticed, rolled again another small block of ice, a narrow stream dribbling along her palm before slowly letting it fall. "It ain't supposed to be an excuse, Big Bro," She said, her somber expression relenting a faint smile. "It's just supposed to be a way to live with it. That's all."  

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