53 - Rain

It's a bit short, but there wasn't really anything left to say

While the relations between the dwarves and the drow had not been repaired, a week of peace was enough that the urge to kill each other on sight had lessened a fair amount. This meant that they were able to successfully deliver a message to Elise while she was with the drow. It took longer than it probably should have, but after a quick game of telephone, Elise finally got the message from one of the scouts. Then, she immediately flew off to Dokkalfheimr.

When she arrived, Greta was asleep as usual, but the mood in the room was much darker. Hallbjorn was there with a grim expression on his face, and Kristofer barely acknowledged her arrival.

“How is she?” asked Elise.

“She won’t last the day,” said the healer. “She’s fading fast.”

“What happened? Wasn’t she fine yesterday?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “It’s impossible to tell once people reach this stage. It’s not any kind of injury or disease. Her body is just giving up.”

“Will she wake up again?”

“She might. Or not. I honestly can’t say.”

“Elise,” said Hallbjorn. “Can you put her in the Star?”

“I- I don’t know,” she replied. “You said it didn’t work on people who were asleep.”

“I know, but… Is it really sleep if she can’t wake up?”

Elise looked at the old woman, then flew over and landed on the bed next to her. Her breathing was weak and raspy, and her heartbeat sounded quiet, even to Elise’s sensitive ears. She pressed her face to Greta’s arm and tried to summon her into Astrid’s Star. A split second later, the blankets collapsed over empty air, and she heard a small gasp from the healer.

“Thank the gods,” said Hallbjorn. 

Kristofer looked at Elise with tears in her eyes and smiled. “Thank you,” he whispered.

The four sat in somber silence for a few minutes, then went their separate ways. There wasn’t much else to say. The crisis had been averted. Greta was in stasis for the time being, and there was nothing more to be done that wasn’t already being done. Excavation would continue on the tunnel, and Elise would continue to not lose the necklace until the day the dwarves emerged.

After the events of that day, Elise’s mood was odd. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but she got a slight feeling of vertigo whenever she thought about the situation. She was carrying her teacher around in her pocket. If she was taken out, she would die. In a few days, Elise would take her out with the express purpose of letting her die. It was all so surreal.

Even when the day that the dwarves finally made it to the surface arrived, Elise still was having trouble processing the situation. It seemed Hallbjorn wasn’t faring much better. Whenever Elise saw him and he wasn't working on something, he seemed spaced out. After three days, he invited Elise to go with him on his first expedition to the surface, and he felt that would be the best time to take Greta out. 

“If we wait any longer, we’ll just want to keep putting it off,” he had said. “We’ll let her go with the first group. It’s what she would want.”

Neither Elise nor Kristofer had any counterarguments to that, so they accepted it quietly. Now, the three of them were standing in a grassy clearing in the forest, looking up into the sky, waiting for one of the others to speak up first.

It was a relatively mild summer day. Elise had been visiting the surface each day for the past week, and that day was easily the coolest of them. The reason for that was obvious. To the south, there was a thick wave of dark storm clouds rolling in, and there was a moderate wind blowing at her fur. She watched them gradually grow closer for a few minutes until Hallbjorn raised his arm and pointed at them.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“A storm,” said Elise. “It’s going to rain soon.”

“So those are storm clouds then?” 

“Incredible,” said Kristofer.

“Storms are usually bad, right?” said Hallbjorn. “Should we wait until another day.”

“You were the one who said we shouldn’t delay,” replied Elise. “Besides, Greta would want to see them.”

“...You’re right. I suppose we should bring her out then.”

“I suppose.”

There was already a bed laid out for her, but no one moved. After a full minute, seeing the other two still rooted to their places, Elise made the first move. She flew down to the bed, sitting on the side, and a moment later, Greta appeared. She was still in the same exact state she had been when she entered, her heart and lungs weak, and for the first ten minutes, there were no changes. Elise glanced nervously up at the clouds.

What if she doesn’t wake up? What if it starts raining before she gets a chance, and she dies of hypothermia?

She was on the verge of recommending they take her back and wait for another day, when she noticed a change. It was subtle, and at first she thought she might be imagining it, but after another minute, she knew it was real. Her breathing got stronger, and her heartbeat faster. Her heart did not sound healthy–or at least nothing like Hallbjorn’s–but it sounded much better than it had before. After another ten minutes, her eyes opened.

“Teacher!” said Elise.

“B-brat!” rasped Greta. “Wh-where-?”

“We’re on the surface,” said Elise. “You made it. You’re here. Look! See?”

“The… surface?” Greta glanced around, her eyes looking a bit unfocused. “Are those… trees?”

“Yes,” said Elise. “I think they’re beech trees.”

“Beech trees,” Greta repeated. “What’s… that?”

She raised a shaky hand and pointed vaguely at the sky. 

“Those are storm clouds,” said Elise. “It’s going to rain soon.”

“Rain?” Greta smiled. “I’ve always wanted… to see the rain.”

“Well now you will,” said Elise. “It will probably start in thirty minutes.”

“Wonderful.”

“Mom,” said Kristofer, kneeling down nearby. “How are you feeling?”

“Kris?” said Greta. “I feel… fine. So stop worrying about me.”

“Greta,” said Hallbjorn. “You did it. You made it to the surface.”

“Runt?” Greta looked up at the king, narrowing her eyes. “I don’t like your tone… You put me in that thing, didn’t you.”

“Ha, still as sharp as ever,” he replied. “We did. But I think it was worth it, no?”

“Hmph,” she replied. “I would have made it fine on my own.”

Hallbjorn smiled, but didn’t respond.

“But you didn’t have to,” said Elise. “You had us.”

“Hmph.”

There was a minute of silence before Greta spoke again.

“What’s that?”

Elise followed her gaze up into the sky where birds were circling far overhead.

“That’s a hawk. Two, actually.”

“What’s that?”

“That’s grass.”

“No, that.”

“That’s a dandelion.”

“And that?”

“A bush. I don’t know what kind.”

“That?”

“That’s a… slime. Hold on.”

Elise shot a quick {Magic Missile} at the monster, then went back to answering Greta’s questions. Elise didn’t even know there were that many things to identify, but she felt like her awareness was expanding with every question. Every bug or bird that flew by, Greta wanted the name of. She wanted to know of every kind of flower in the vicinity, which wasn’t many, but Elise didn’t know any of them except the dandelions.

Eventually, Greta stopped speaking entirely, just using her eyes and occasionally small hand motions to indicate what she wanted. Hallbjorn and Kristofer made themselves busy fetching the things that could be fetched so she could get a closer look at them. However, she stopped asking once the rain started. It was just a sprinkle at first, and that grew to a drizzle, and that became a downpour, but Greta just smiled and soaked it all in. When her clothes were drenched, Hallbjorn pulled out some kind of metal device that created a mana shield over their heads to block the rain, but when he did that, Greta frowned.

“Let me… feel it,” she said.

Hallbjorn disabled the device, and her smile returned. She closed her eyes and relaxed as the raindrops pelted her face and ran down her wrinkles. Elise watched her closely, keeping her ears peeled for the inevitable. The rain made it difficult, but if she focused, she could still hear the old heart doing all it could to stay alive.

“Wh-what’s that?” asked Hallbjorn, pointing off into the distance.

Elise followed his finger, then her eyes widened and she nudged Greta.

“Teacher, open your eyes. You need to see this.”

Greta’s eyes fluttered open, but they looked more unfocused than they ever had. Still, she was able to look up at Hallbjorn, and find where he was pointing, and then her eyes widened too.

“It’s a rainbow,” said Elise. “It’s made when the light reflects off the rain.”

Greta stared in awe, then her lips stretched into the widest smile Elise had ever seen her make.

“Thank you, Brat.”

She took a deep breath, and with mighty effort, let out a sigh of pure satisfaction. Then, her heart stopped and her eyes closed for the last time. The smile never left her face.

Hallbjorn and Kristofer lowered their heads, but Elise found herself looking up at the rainbow. It was as bright and full and clear as any that she had ever seen. 

What a beautiful day for rain.

Thanks everyone for reading up to this point. I'm gonna write a slightly longer reflection, but I will preface that by saying there will be no hiatus and that after the epilogue on Thursday, Book 2 will be starting right away next week. I have no plans to end the series any time soon.

Anyways, we've finally made it to the end of book 1, and the end of the dwarf/drow arc. I know it wasn't everyone's favorite, but I thought it was alright. I definitely made some mistakes, but I think I was able to bring it to a relatively satisfying conclusion, in addition to doing some setup and worldbuilding for the next volume.

I have the first chapters of Book 2 already written, and I think that it will be even better than B1. There will be travel, and a lot more action and progression. That's not to say I'm going to take a hard left and turn this into a hardcore, grindy story. I just plan on creating situations where the ideal plan for Elise will be to go somewhere and do something, rather than sitting around and waiting. The basic setup for the major plot of Book 2 should (hopefully) take her across about half the continent, through multiple biomes and cultures.

Also, the Grays are coming back. I don't think that's a spoiler, since it's already been stated that Elise's first stop after leaving will be to check up on them. I won't say anything about how they're coming back, because that would be a spoiler, but I will say that the reunion might not be what you're expecting.

Edits for Book 1 are more or less complete. Most of the last I had to do were done just now when I rewrote the ending. I'm going to make some minor changes to the treaty negotiations before those chapters go to Royal Road, but they shouldn't be significant enough to require re-reading those chapters.

Thanks again for reading my story. It's been fun for me, and I look forward to continuing to write it for a long time.