Elevation of Mana Chapter 221 Stories for Adia

While most people of Earth would have worried to call their wife an 'elder' I didn't. It was one of the odd quirks of our people, that age had basically no negative associations beyond a bit of hideboundness to it. Well, that and the fact that older elves tended to be a bit less kind, but that was also powerful people, so...

Upon seeing the new, singular white hair we began to prepare for Isha's big debut. That too was a bit of a classic thing, where the new elder would present themselves in public, basically demanding people to either accept them, or face the consequences. When I did it it was a show of force and demand for station. Isha would not have issues with those of course, as I now effectively ruled the city.

So we opened a box, a box we'd been putting together for some time.

“Iron, copper, clay and shell?” Adia asked as we began to pull out the ancient beads. They were still the de facto currency.

“Yes,” I told her. For the history of it.

“Most of those are basically worthless though?” she said, looking at me like I was weird.

Iron beads were now the standard unit of currency, and they were even a rough standard weight. Copper was sometimes used, as were a few other metals for high cost items. The few bits of gold or silver we had were jealously guarded, and Isha would be getting some of those too.

“They weren't always,” Isha told our daughter. “Believe it or not shell used to be the normal ones,” she explained.

“But... they're not worth much beyond being pretty.”

“They used to be,” I went on. “As were wood ones, which you almost never see these days, carved in intricate patters. Now they're only for decoration but really good wood or crystal beads used to be quite the find.”

“Why not use clay at least though? You can make much better clay beads than any of those,” Adia asked, helping put them in her mother's hair.

“Because your father was the one who first made them, and made them in all the pretty colors,” Isha told her.

Adia stopped, blinking and looking at me like I'd grown another head.

“It was when I was young,” I explained.

“But, didn't you make the metal too?”

“I did,” I confirmed.

“But those are all so basic...” she said, almost stunned.

I had to laugh at my daughter in that moment. There was so much she didn't know, so many things that had so quickly changed that she still looked at the world growing around her like it was just normal. It was wonderful to me, wonderful that she didn't have to think about or grow up with so many of those horrible things from the past.

Like the slaves, or indentured servants or whatever anyone wanted to call them. I'd banned that as soon as I could, and while there weren't ever many it got rid of all of it. People weren't pleased, but people could suck an egg. I was dictator, benevolent or not, and I could do what felt right to me, so I'd banned it.

“Your father and I grew up in a small village,” Isha told her.

“I know, you've told me the story.”

“Well I'm telling you again. Back in those days there weren't a lot of the things we have now, times were hard, and when the cold seasons came it was bad. It's your father who fixed a lot of that.”

“Was it really that different dad?” she asked.

“Oh it was, we'll have to get you to talk to your uncle Chien when you get a chance, ask him to tell you what the city was like in those days. There weren't any sewers, that much is sure.”

“Gross.”

“It was, nor were there smiths, or cement, or a lot of other things.”

Odd that the three of us had never before had this full conversation. She knew that I made a lot of things, a lot of things, but we'd never been too explicit about it. We'd never really told her more about our own childhoods than she'd shown great interest in. Why? We could put it off if we wanted, and everyone agreed things were better now.

“So it was like the people from the south?” she asked.

“What do you know about that?” I returned.

“They're really backwards, that's what everyone says. They don't know about a lot of things, and are always so weird, even their tools. A lot of them are stone for goodness sake. Who uses stone for tools?”

While we braided and prepared Isha the two of us told her stories. We told her of our friends, of the hunts, of old Elaya and how she'd run our village. We told her of her grandparents, small things we hadn't shared before. We spoke of the quiet moments, the ones where we'd helped each other as children. Isha even told her of the shadow beasts that had attacked our home, and how we'd fought them.

As we continued on we worked forward in history, telling Adia of our various adventures and actions. We made sure she knew what we had to say, what the stories were. It was our job to teach her these, even the small ones, so that she could know if she ever needed to for some reason.

“I don't believe you did all that alone,” she said to me eventually, pouting.

“No, of course I didn't. Chien joined me for much of it, almost since the beginning. The two of us have been close for so long now it's almost like we were from the same village. You can ask him about some of the stories if you want.”

“I will,” she assured me.

Fear didn't find me as she made her threat. If anything Chien would tell her even more about how things had been, and how they were so much better now. He'd been in the city, seen the darker parts, he was a monster of a man in his own right, but still one of us. I never tired of spending a day working with him at a forge or workshop, even if we didn't get to do that as much as we used to.

Before long my wife was even more lovely than she was on a normal day. Decked out in beads that shone and glittered, and clothes prepared specifically for this occasion. She looked lovely, and she would be the one leading today, the one in the spotlight. I smiled at her, happy with the life we'd made.