Chapter 283: Fruit in a Basket

“How can I help you, Jadis?”

It was strange to be sitting alone with a man she barely knew while contemplating the idea of revealing her most closely held secrets to said man. Jadis had told Aila, Eir, Kerr, and Thea of her extra-Oros origins, but she hadn’t revealed that information to anyone else, ever. Even the fact of her being one person with multiple bodies was a closely guarded element of her being that she was only recently getting comfortable with other people knowing. Now here she was, on the cusp of spilling her guts to Yorath. In a way, the situation was more stressful than fighting a demon matriarch.

“I have a problem that I need some advice on. Your guidance, really,” Jay started. “But before I go into any details, I need to ask a different favor first.”

“Go ahead,” Yorath replied gravely. “You have only to ask. So long as it is within my power and would bring no harm to my kin or charges, then I will do my utmost to fulfil your wishes.”

The two, or four, of them were sitting in a secluded part of the grove near its center. The place felt like a private sanctum, which it probably was for the elder Dryad. The vines that grew around the circular area shielded the inner space from view while the soft and pleasant light emanating from the plants within kept the area well lit. A burbling spring was pooling water into the center of the space while flowering lily pads acted as miniature tables for the cups of refreshing nectar that Yorath had poured for himself and Jadis’ three bodies.

Yorath had assured her that no one would be able to overhear their conversation while they remained in the sanctum. Not even Jack could spy on them without his immediate notice.

“What I’m going to tell you is… sensitive information. No one but my closest companions share this secret with me. I think for you to understand my situation and to give me the advice I need, you’re going to have to know at least some of it. But if I’m going to tell you anything, I need you to swear to me that you won’t ever tell anyone else. Ever. Not for any reason.”

Yorath listened seriously to Jay’s words, his expression solemn and unmoving. When she was finished, he nodded once before holding out his hand towards Jay. With the other he withdrew a knife made from stone from his belt and, without a moment of hesitation, drew the blade across the palm of his hand. Immediately an amber sap began welling up from the wound.

“I swear it,” Yorath said, hand still held out towards Jay. “I swear by my blood and by my soul that I will keep your secret.”

Staring at the Dryad’s hand for just a second, Jay pulled a simple utility knife from her own belt and ran it across her own hand. It took a fair amount of force to draw blood, but once she had she clasped hands with Yorath, letting her blood mix with his.

“Thank you,” Jay nodded with an internal sigh of relief. “It means a lot that you’re taking my concern seriously.”

“Of course,” Yorath said. As their hands parted, Jadis noticed that his sticky sap-like blood seemed to act as a natural glue, clotting her blood from flowing further. “It takes courage to speak of matters that one wishes to hold private with a stranger. I would not disrespect you by treating your worries with anything less than the same seriousness that you do.”

The small smile on Jadis’ faces briefly faltered. She truly appreciated how serious Yorath was being, but conversely the solemnity the elder Dryad was lending to the whole situation was making her even more nervous than she already was. She could feel herself getting cold feet the longer she delayed and she hated the blanket of cowardice that was trying to smother her intentions. Acting like a nervous wreck wasn’t Jadis. It was time to be bold.

“So, I haven’t always been a Nephilim.”

Jay’s statement hung in the air for an uncomfortable stretch of time. Yorath’s up to that point completely serious face slowly morphed into an expression of incredulous confusion as one leafy eyebrow raised up as high as it could go.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I am—or rather, I was, human once. I died and rather than going to any sort of afterlife, D found my soul. By D I mean Destarious. For reasons that I don’t want to get into right now, he reincarnated me into the body of a Nephilim. Going by my age when I was born as a human, I am twenty-two years old. But going from when I was reincarnated, I’ve only been a Nephilim for six months or so.”

During her explanation, Yorath’s other eyebrow rose to match the first. Then both rose even higher together, giving the old tree man a comically wide-eyed expression. When she finished talking, he stared at her unblinkingly for a long while before he seemed to gather his senses. Clearing his throat, he took his cup from the lily pad and took a long, slow sip. It wasn’t until he had completely drained the cup that he spoke again.

“I’m… not entirely sure what to say,” he finally croaked out before clearing his throat again. “Jadis, my dear, I have lived a long, long life. I have encountered many wonderous things over the centuries, many of which have repeated themselves simply due to the cyclical nature of life. Your story… is a first.”

“Weirdly enough, where I’m from it’s kind of a cliché story,” Syd said with grimace. “I mean, it was a real shock that it happened to me, but the idea is actually kind of overplayed in my opinion.”

“And where is it you are from, exactly?” Yorath asked.

“Pennsylvania,” Syd answered quickly and without much detail. “It’s a long, long way from here.”

“It must be,” the Dryad mused as he ran his fingers through his long and bushy beard. “I have never heard that name before. I presume it must hold some connection to Volto since it had the word ‘Sylvania’ in it. That is of their language.”

Jadis blinked, taken aback by Yorath’s hypothesis.

“Uh, no. No relation. The name’s just a, uh, linguistic coincidence.”

“Fascinating,” he said, looking more and more intrigued. “I would very much like to know more about this ‘Penn Sylvania’ land you come from.”

“It’s not actually that interesting,” Dys shook her head. “Anyway. We’re getting off track. The reason why I need your help is directly because I was reincarnated.”

“Does it have something to do with the purpose behind Destarious giving you a second chance at life?”

“Not exactly,” Jay wobbled her hand side to side. “Look, I was human before this. No connection to the gods at all, really. Now I’ve been reincarnated into a body that is an avatar race. Not only do I have D looking in on me, who is my very direct patron, but I also have Lyssandria keeping tabs on me too. Supposedly I should be able to receive their guidance. I was… assured of the fact by an extremely reliable source. But I have absolutely no idea how to actually get that guidance from either of them.”

“Jack told me that the way it works is it’s all just a gut feeling,” Dys threw a hand up in frustration. “But how the fu—how am I supposed to just trust that when it’s coming from him? And if it really is just a ‘gut feeling’ and nothing more direct, how do I know when it’s my own instincts telling me something versus one of those two sending me their guidance? For that matter, how do I tell which one is which?”

“Look, I’m doing the best I can with all this,” Syd explained as her shoulders slumped. “And I’m not even trying to have D or Lyssandria do my thinking for me or anything. Far from it. I just feel like I could use some direction every now and then. But also, I don’t want to be led around by either of them. I have my own goals in life and I’d really like to know the ideas that pop into my head are actually mine and not a god trying to steer me in a direction that they want when otherwise I wouldn’t go that way. It’s… it’s all really confusing.”

“I can see that,” Yorath murmured.

Having given her explanation, Jadis waited to hear what the elder Dryad would say. She soon found that his response was slow to come. Instead of answering any of her explicit or implicit questions, Yorath leaned back and closed his eyes. One hand continued to stroke his leafy beard while the other rested on his knee. A soft, almost musical hum rumbled from deep within his chest, but otherwise he was silent.

“Uh, Yorath?” Jay asked, not sure what was going on.

“A moment, if you will,” he answered softly, not opening his eyes.

So, with no other option, Jadis waited. She sipped at the sweet drink that Yorath had given her, but mostly she fretted about her situation. Half her thoughts were occupied with the concern that she had just revealed so much information about her unique circumstances to Yorath. The other half of her thoughts strayed towards Alex. She truly hoped the little demon was okay.

“Jadis.”

“Huh?” all three of Jadis said at the same time in reaction to having her name called.

“Would you care to take a guess as to what it is I have been doing for the past several minutes?” Yorath asked, his eyes still closed.

“Well,” Jay started, her eyes narrowing in thought. “My first instinct is to say you’re just thinking everything over, about all the shi—er, stuff I just told you.”

“However,” Dys continued, “considering you’re a Dryad, I bet you could be asking Villthyrial for some guidance right now.”

Yorath opened his eyes and smiled.

“Correct. I was in truth seeking Villthyrial’s wisdom. Not that I do not have my own thoughts on this… shit that you have revealed to me. I have many, many thoughts and even more questions. However, there was one question I had that I thought it would be best to bring directly to my Father. And so, I asked Villthyrial, is it possible. It is possible for a soul to be reincarnated?”

“What did he say?” Jay asked, leaning slightly forward in her curiosity.

Yorath’s smile widened.

“Nothing.”

Jay blinked. She and her two other selves leaned back, their eyebrows raised in confusion.

“Nothing? He didn’t tell you anything?”

“Nothing,” Yorath confirmed, his placid smile still in place. “Which is in of itself a confirmation. Should the tale that you have told me have been a lie, I am certain that my lord Villthyrial would have given me some warning. Instead, nothing. He is leaving how the situation should be handled to me.”

“Oh,” Jadis said, her three selves still confused. “Isn’t that, just, I guess an assumption on your part?”

“It is,” Yorath conceded. “But it is one born from years of experience. That, ultimately, is what you lack. Experience. Every avatar race, whether they are Dryads, Fetch, Seraphim, or even Nephilim, must learn to come to terms with how their patron god speaks to them. It’s not something that can be taught by telling you thusly and giving you a simple guide on do’s and do not’s. To learn how your patron is speaking to you requires a great deal of time and experience as you grow to understand them.”

Seeing the look on her faces, Yorath smiled patiently and leaned forward, his hands spread out wide before him.

“Think of it this way. How do you know that every thought you have is of your own making?”

“I don’t know,” Dys frowned. “That’s the point. I have no idea if my thoughts are being influenced by D or Lyssandria. Either or both could be pulling my strings.”

“Why don’t you know?”

“…Because I don’t know how I would tell the difference?” Dys answered, running a frustrated hand through her hair. “They’re all just thoughts!”

“And whose thoughts are they?”

“I don’t know!” Dys struggled not to raise her voice, her frustration growing.

“Then are you telling me you don’t know your own thoughts?”

“I—I know my own thoughts,” Dys said through clenched teeth. “I just don’t know if other thoughts are getting slipped in there.”

“How do you know they are your own thoughts?”

“Because they’re mine!” all three of Jadis shouted.

“Yes,” Yorath nodded, his voice calm and quiet. “They are your thoughts. Yet you struggle to recognize what is essentially you and no other. That lack of certainty is what you must overcome. The first step in learning how to speak with your patron is not learning to recognize his or her voice. First, you must learn to recognize your own voice. Once you know your own self, you will have much less difficulty recognizing when another voice reaches out to you.”

“That… That’s—” Jay started, stopped, and started again. “I guess that makes some kind of sense?”

It wasn’t exactly the answer she had been looking for, but the more she thought about it, the more Jadis saw Yorath’s point. If D or Lyssandria were trying to guide her with gut instincts, then the way to know what that guidance was would be to know the difference between their godsent instincts versus her own natural ones. In other words, if her mind was a basket, she didn’t need to know the name of every fruit that was being put into it. She just needed to know what she herself was putting in that basket. If she knew that she was only putting in apples, then she didn’t need to know whether the other fruit were grapes or grapefruit. Just by them not being apples, she’d know the difference and could identify the odd fruit out.

“Some kind of sense is what I can offer you, Jadis,” Yorath chuckled. “It’s all any of us can hope for, really.”

“Okay. Yeah. Thank you,” Jay said, her expression calming. “I guess I need to think about how I, uh, “think” some more.”

“Don’t overthink it,” Yorath warned. “I can tell you that worrying yourself over it only muddies the water. I will teach you a few meditation techniques that should help calm your mind and order your thoughts. Just bear in mind that it can take years to gain the experience you need to truly commune with your patrons.”

 “I’ll remember that,” Jay nodded. “And thank you again. You’re a big help.”

“You are most welcome,” Yorath inclined his head. “However, before we begin. I must have at least one or two of my questions answered or they will nettle me to no end. Tell me, what is your Penn Sylvania like? It sounds like a forested land. Are there any Dryads there?”

“No,” Syd smirked, giving the elder Dryad an amused look. “No Dryads that I know of. Where I’m from, the closest thing we have to Dryads are Amish folk.”

“And what is an “Amish” exactly?”

“Well, mostly they’re known for their beards, making really nice quilts, and living in a sort of paradise…”

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