Raftina looked around groggily, her head spinning. Yeesh... She had known the meds would knock her out hard, but it was to grasp what day it was... She knew at least a week had passed. It had to be at least a week. Whenever she didn't sleep for long stretches at a time, that was how long she went down for. It could've been as much as three weeks though... She wasn't sure. She wanted to check her watch for confirmation, but the digital age was long over... She couldn't have timekeeping devices on her all day, everyday. Guh. She hated what the Metal Demons had done to her precious Filgaia.

  She got up and headed down to the main dining hall, her stomach growling in protest. She needed to eat. Now. Not five minutes in the future, but now. She went into the kitchens and the cooks looked like they'd seen a ghost. "How long has it been since I was last here...?" She felt faint from lack of water and food, but the sleep had definitely done her a world of good. She did feel the lack of energy from not eating and drinking, but she felt better than she had in quite a while. Once she got the food into her system, it'd help her feel like a whole-ass person again.

  "About two and a half weeks, my lady. What would you like?"

  "Anything's fine. Just give me a lot of it." She had learned not to be picky a long time ago. She utterly detested some planet's food but she had to be polite and eaten it because it would be so rude to turn down the food that her host families were sharing with her. She preferred good Filgaian food, but even that had drastically changed over the past millennium due to the lack of natural resources and arable land. Things were limited, so she really had no room to talk about anything. All she knew was she needed a lot of food to make up for the lack of eating during her slumber.

  The cook nodded and bowed. "Very well, my lady. We'll try to have it finished as soon as possible." She nodded and slid into a table that was out of the way. A servant sat down a loaf of bread with some butter in front of her and she gave the woman a thankful smile. Even this would help her start to feel slightly filled up... Granted, with her needing over twelve thousand calories in a day, though... Well, bread and butter didn't go far, but she was thankful for every calorie she could get right now.

  The kitchen was so terribly hot right now though. Hearths had fallen out of fashion thousands of years before, so to go back to it was really difficult. She didn't spend much time in the kitchens because of the open flames the hearth produced. She was so used to everything running on magic and being an induction stove. Even natural gas had long fallen out of favor due to magic being able to be used so easily. Plus, magic could precisely control the temperature down to fractions of a degree. Not that that was necessary, but some people liked to be able to control their temperatures so effectively.

  Eventually, several cooks sat down what amounted to a small feast in front of them. She smiled at them. "Thank you. I really appreciate it." They always looked a little spooked when she said thank you... It sucked that there were people who weren't appreciated for their contributions to society. Filgaia had never gotten to the point of not having poverty, but they'd at least gotten past the point of having homelessness. But now... That high standard of living was long abolished due to the First Demon War... It hurt her heart so much to see what her precious Filagaia had become.

  She ate and passed the dishes back off to the staff, then headed back to the admin area of the castle where the meetings room were. Even before she reached the wing, shouting greeted her ears and she could only imagine what was going on. Well. She heard it loud and clear, so she didn't have to imagine. Cecilia was standing up for herself and the advisers were refusing to back down.

  She slipped into the room as silently as possible and listened to the advisers insist that she attempt to get pregnant as soon as possible. The wedding had been about a year prior, but Cecilia still hadn't borne any children. "And you think badgering your queen to do something she doesn't want to will get you anywhere?" Raftina put in.

  The advisers immediately shut up and Cecilia looked up. "Oh, Lady Raftina! I wasn't expecting you to come back today! I'm glad to see you up and about though!" She smiled warmly and Raftina saw the blood drain from all the advisers' faces. Their gazes dropped and she smiled. They tried to pull underhanded tactics whenever possible when she was away. She could only imagine the hell that Cecilia had been through the past few weeks but not that she was back, not much else would have to be done. They still felt emboldened against the young girl, but against the immortal goddess revered for being the Blade of Love? Yeah, no. She wished she could just sack them as they were absolutely good for nothing, but there were so few noble families to choose from... She wasn't sure if she would trust the younger any more than the older.

  "I'm back. So now what were we discussing?" Raftina smiled, her tone pleasant. Too pleasant.

  They knew they were going to get their comeuppance for whatever they'd done to Cecilia.

  Θ

  The sun was setting by time Raftina was let out of meetings. She still felt terrible that Cecilia had been forced into a political marriage when she'd loved Rudy so much, but he couldn't bear children with her. Commoner marriages weren't the biggest deal for Adlehyde. Looked down upon to a degree, yes, but not uncommon with how few people there were in the nobility in general. But to secure a future with the Rosetta area, she'd needed a marriage contract with a noble from the area... They were far more prosperous and had more resources than Adlehyde in a lot of ways. Adlehyde was bigger, but it had far more desert than arable land. So to secure supplies, Cecilia had needed to marry a noble from the area. Emile wasn't a Crest Mage, nor did he have any mages of note in his family, but the Adlehyde line was strong and would carry through even a generation without a Crest Mage.

  But Raftina eventually escaped into the city for a little bit of time before she went to sleep. She would grab dinner from a restaurant. It wouldn't be enough, but having something made like that would be nice... It wouldn't rival the royal kitchens, but small, homey meals still held appeal to her. She also had a bit of shopping to do... She had a dress she needed to pick up and she just generally wanted to get out of the stuffy meetings that forced her to deal with snakes that want only to harm her descendant.

  She weaved in and out of shops, attempting to grab what she could before they all closed for the night but…

  There was no way.

  A small crowd had gathered around one street corner and she heard it.

  Her voice.

  She stopped dead in her tracks, her whole body quivering. She didn't want to. She couldn't believe it. But... The Elw did reincarnate unlike most humans who usually just stayed in the afterlife... They were immortal. But...she had been half mortal. How? How had she been reincarnated? She didn't think that half Elw got reincarnated. Then again, she didn't especially pay attention to the afterlife and all of the mechanics that went into it. She just... She couldn't believe it.

  What should she do? She wasn't really sure. Elaeah. Sweet, dear Elaeah... Her first and only true love. Everything with Arlan had been unfounded and built on loss, pain, isolation, and trauma. But Elaeah. Elaeah had been true and kind and sweet and gentle. Yes, they'd had their disagreements and rough patches like any couple but they'd been in love for two hundred years. Until she'd just turned up dead in Raftina's arms one day…

  "Excuse me."

  Raftina froze when she saw her former lover just feet away from her. Her eyes were bright, warm, and gentle, much like when she'd been alive. "Are you Lady Raftina? I was told by some other Elw that I should meet you. I can't imagine why, though." She smiled at Raftina warmly. Of course... All memories were wiped when reincarnation happened. So the person could live a new life, full of joy and warmth and love and not simply be bound to who they'd been in their previous life.

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  "I... Yes. I am Lady Raftina, Guardian of Love." She put her mask on as immediately as she could, though she felt her heart trembling in her chest. "Who might you be? I'm not sure why the Elw would send you here." She was lying, but it was all a part of the mask. the Lady Raftina mask... She did what she had to in order to continue on. She had to figure out what to do on the fly all the time. No matter what happened to her, she had to try to be the diplomat and work with people.

  "Would you mind leading me to the castle then? I'm still confused as to why the Elw would send me here. But they said something about you would be happy to get to know me..." Oh would she ever... But this wasn't her Elaeah. This wasn't the woman that had grown close to her... She had grown up in a purely Elw society, not one integrated with humans and Tenno alike. She should just shut her heart off now. There was no point in hoping for what wouldn't and couldn't be. Just as Elaeah wasn't the same one she'd known, she wasn't the same Raftina the old Elaeah had known. She was different, marked, traumatised, forever scarred by war.

  "Yes, of course." She kept her smile up the best she could, her heart absolutely broken in her chest. She felt the tears pooling at the edges of her eyes, but she pushed them down. The Guardian of Love, Lady Raftina, couldn't break no matter how much she wished she could. She dipped her head to Elaeah and started back toward the castle.

  "Are you okay?" What? How could she tell what—

  Her damnable wings. they were absolutely clamped against her back.

  "You just remind me of someone I once knew. So it's a little hard to see you." It wasn't a lie in the slightest. Not the full truth, but not a lie either.

  "Oh, I'm sorry. Am I imposing? I just...don't have any money with me. Physical currency was stopped being used long before my birth." The Elw Filgaia truly was an old Filgaia... They still had the resources and infrastructure for digital instead of physical. She missed it. Having to carry physical currency was such an annoyance... She hated it. And precious metals too…

  She shook her head. "The castle will take good care of you. You might have to work as a housekeeper or something, but they'll make sure you eat as best we can afford. Though... Will you be okay here? This isn't the Filgaia you're used to." She was worried that the horribly damaged world would cause Elaeah's death. Mariel was the only currently remaining Elw on Filgaia, trying to reclaim the desert world. Raftina wasn't sure how many Elw the planet could support safely. "Plus, with how damaged the planet is, I'm not sure how many of you it can support..."

  "It could support a small population of us, but we don't want to feel the planet crying out in pain every waking moment. Scans have been done of the planet but no, we'd rather not be in agony. It's...hard to be here, but for some reason, the Elw elders said they thought I'd be happier here if I were able to spend time with you." She sounded so naive. The elders were attempting to play matchmaker. That's all there was to it. She had spoken to some of them while in the Elw dimension and they were happy to see her back... Elaeah was still probably young by Elw standards.

  "It's hard for me to confirm anything personally. My power is basically nothing here. The Elw dimension made me at the height of my power, but it cuts off when I come back here." That was frustrating and upsetting. Granted, it wasn't like they had the Guardians, but...they could function without the Guardians apparently. Filgaia had been fine in lieu of not having the Guardians for over a millennium. The mortals had completely forgotten about the Guardians and moved on... As had the Elw.

  "That makes sense. It's sad that you can't do anything to help the planet like you would've been able to in the past. And with the Elw unwilling to help... It's just going to have to suffer." She shook her head. That was the unfortunate reality. She couldn't at all blame the Elw for their reluctance to help. An immortal people battered by a century-long conflict... She wasn't sure how many of them had been killed in the Day of Falling Feathers or just by the war itself. Everyone had needed to fight if they were at least sixteen. All she knew was that they were a decimated people and she wasn't sure if they had managed to return to their previous population or not in the millennium or so since the First War had ended. Their dimension had been a post-war event, not something she was aware of until going there herself.

  "If we could get help from old allies, but I'm not sure who all might still be around. And the technology on Malduke is ancient. If anyone has still been alive for the past twelve hundred years, I'm not sure if they use the same wavelengths or anything anymore." She wasn't sure if it was even worth trying.

  "Why not ask Eveen to try? She could probably figure out some innovations. She is the Guardian of Knowledge, after all."

  "Maybe, but we don't have the technologies and resources to try to build anything new." If she was at the peak of her power, she could easily just will an entire spaceship into being, no resources necessary. But without the belief in her, she couldn't do that. They wouldn't be able to build anything without large-scale mining and they didn't even have the ability to build mines on that large of a scale. They were absolutely stuck as far as she was concerned.

  "Well, couldn't you just create new contraptions in the heavens? Then again, I'm not sure how the heavens work... Even Elw are forbidden from going there."

  Raftina rubbed the back of her neck. "The same laws apply. I can create things like trees and animals and such, but I can't just make a new spaceship or something without belief in me. It'd be one thing if the Elw dimension was connected to it, but it's not." She'd checked as soon as the Second Demon War had ended. But no. The Elw dimension was completely separate from it and she definitely didn't have the power to punch through spacetime to connect the two. "And I don't currently have the power to do anything about it..."

  "Why not have Dan Dairam do it? I mean he is the Guardian of Timespace after all..." Raftina's heart broke in her chest. This was typical Elaeah; always the problem solver and able to see things from a different point of view. She wasn't sure if she still maintained a lot of her old behaviors but...she was very much behaving like the Elaeaeh she remembered. She wasn't sure how far Elw reincarnation went. They really ought to have their own ways of handling things and being their own people... She wasn't sure just how far Elw culture had gone since being separated from Filgaia over a millennium ago…

  "That...would be helpful." She hoped he wouldn't try to do something stupid over this issue. If she could have powers in the heavens, then it would help to some degree... She wasn't sure if he could patch Elw belief through to Filgaia... If he could, that would do a lot for her.

  They arrived at the castle and Elaeah looked around. "I've not seen a building made of pure stone like this before... Why build such a structure when metal and concrete are options? Why cut stones?"

  "It's just the way things are done right now. These fortifications need to be able to withstand siege and war. You've probably never known war, have you?" She'd kept Elaeah away from the front lines during their two-hundred year relationship. It was just another thing that caused strain on their relationship, Raftina being away for campaigns, but it was better than having her gentle, pacifist significant other behind the front lines and possibly die. It was so hard to deal with…

  She shook her head. "I've never known it, no... There haven't been any wars in the Elw dimension to my knowledge. I mean I'm only two hundred years old but... Nobody's spoken of war in our history, at least as far as the pocket dimension goes."

  "Wars break out on Filgaia a lot over resources. The castles have to withstand magic and other forces. Brick and concrete aren't as good as thick stone for those purposes." She knew all too well what it was like. She'd been through siege campaigns before. She hated those especially... The uncertainty of dwindling supplies, watching things slowly degrade over time... People losing their will to continue on... She shivered a little at the reminder and tried to push those memories down.

  "Ah, there you are." She saw a woman with light pink hair who blinked.

  "Oh, Lady Raftina. Is there something I can do for you?"

  "This is Elaeah. She needs to stay here but she wants to pull her weight. Can you figure out something for her, Emique?" Emi was in charge of a lot of the domestic staff and household staff as well. If anyone could find somewhere for Elaeah to work, it'd be her.

  "Yes, of course. If Lady Raftina things you'll work, then we'll find you a place." She took Elaeah's hand and Elaeah waved to her. Raftina offered the best smile she could muster until Elaeah disappeared around the corner. She let out a breath and made her way to her room. She threw up some soundproofing spells and magical locks, then threw herself on the bed and started weeping.

  She hadn't put Elaeah behind her, but she thought she had put her enough out of her mind to be able to function for the most part. But seeing her now... She was back. She probably should have foreseen this at some point, but she hadn't thought about it. The Elw weren't a worry with them not on Filgaia anymore.

  But no. A cruel twist of fate had brought her lover back to her, but so distant. She could recognise parts of the old Elaeah for certain... She was always quick to think on her feet, bright, and warm-hearted. So far, she bore a superficial resemblance to the girl that she'd loved so many thousands of years ago... Why...? Why had this been forced to happen...? And now she would have to see her everyday around the castle... Who had sent her to Filgaia? She didn't... She didn't understand...