Badri, I have a very serious and important question for you. I was too scared to ask you on Almachadta because I didn’t know you very well yet. Arguably, I still don’t. But now that I understand more my task and your role, I feel a kinship that can only come from certainty of a shared purpose, so I’ll be out with it.
Do you like being scratched behind your ears? Because I fucking love it, and I’ve been so curious if it’s consistent across all races with animal-like ears or not.
Oh, Light, yes. When I was younger I used to imagine it would be terrible to not have ears like ours because you’d miss out on the feeling of being scritched behind them. When I was older, I– well.
Yes, it’s quite nice, isn’t it?
I wasn’t going to be quite so forward about the ways I love it now that I’m not a pup, but yes, very much the same effect here. He’d hate me for saying so, but Caion does this thing where - you know what, I take it back, already too much. That being said, I think you’d like each other! I hope I can introduce you in person someday.
We didn’t get that much of a chance to chat back in Almachadta. How’s post-Sword Saint life been for you? I know that you have a family now, though I’m sure you still put those heroic charms to use when the moment calls for it. I know this is a difficult subject, but if I can be frank, my understanding is that not every Sword-Saint has gotten to have an “after”. It must be a strange feeling, or at least, I’d imagine it would be. Being the Archivist of the Academy of Samudra is so wrapped up in who I am and who I see myself as being, even though I know I’ll need to step down someday I can’t imagine how that day will feel or what I’ll do when it comes.
Hah! Apologies if I made things awkward. Every once in a while I curse how unintentionally expressive the ears are, to be fair, but even that, I think, is charming more often than it gives something away I’d rather play close to my chest. I’m not a very secretive person, I don’t think - never have been.
I don’t know how much Salme told you about my life story, but I became the Sword-Saint early, and I… on some level I definitely never expected there to BE an ‘after’. I wanted a family, but – that didn’t seem to be a thing that could happen for me. Even though I knew that there had been Sword-Saints that had families, I– it was probably all in my head. People couldn’t see me through the Mask.
And so, eventually, I found Salme, and took her as my apprentice, and that was– both enough, and not enough, for either of us. And then she took the Mask from me, much earlier than I’d ever thought I’d be giving it up, and I was– grateful? At first I hated myself for being grateful, but I was grateful. It is a strange feeling, having an ‘after’. I hope very much that Salme gets to experience it, too.