CHAPTER 6: Forgotten Pain
1332 Words
CHAPTER 6: Forgotten Pain
“Your back looks great, my lord!”
Lucian froze as the words landed too cleanly and too unexpected to be dismissed as easily as everything else had been that morning.
Slowly, Lucian turned his head to look at Elior in disbelief.
“…what did you say?”
Elior stood a few steps behind him, hands loosely gathered in front of him as though he had not just spoken something entirely unnecessary. His expression remained composed, but there was a faint brightness in his eyes, as if he had simply observed something worth noting and chosen to share it.
“I said your back looks great, my lord,” he repeated calmly. “It is very straight when you work. It gives the impression of strength.”
Lucian stared at him.
For a moment, he did not speak.
The silence stretched before he exhaled slowly, turning fully now to face him.
“That is not something you say,” he said.
Elior blinked innocently.
“Is it not?”
“No,” Lucian replied flatly.
Elior considered this for a brief moment, as though reassessing a rule he had not been informed of.
“I see,” he said at last. “Then I will remember that.”
Lucian’s gaze narrowed slightly.
“That is not the part you should be focusing on.”
Elior tilted his head.
“Then what should I focus on, my lord?”
Lucian paused.
That, unfortunately, was a reasonable question.
And for a moment, he found no immediate answer that did not somehow make the situation worse.
“…the work,” he said at last.
Elior nodded once.
“I am focusing on your work,” he replied.
Lucian’s eyes flicked back toward him again.
“That was not about the work.”
Elior’s expression remained unchanged, though there was a subtle softness to it now, as if he was genuinely trying to understand the distinction.
“I thought it was relevant,” he said.
“It is not.”
A brief silence followed.
Elior looked toward the field, then back at Lucian.
“Then I will observe more carefully,” he said. “I do not want to misunderstand again.”
Lucian pressed his fingers more firmly around the tool.
That should have been the end of it. It should have returned to silence. But Elior, apparently, did not share the same understanding of endings.
After a moment, he stepped slightly closer, as if testing whether proximity itself was permitted.
“My lord,” he said.
Lucian did not look at him.
“What now.”
“You are very efficient when you work.”
Lucian closed his eyes briefly.
“That is not necessary to say either.”
Elior nodded again.
“I understand.”
He then paused as if reconsidering entirely, he added quietly,
“But it is still true.”
Lucian exhaled. He turned back to the field, pressing the tool into the soil with more force than before, as though the ground itself had become personally responsible for this conversation.
Elior who was behind him, remained quiet for a few moments.
Then, softly,
“I will remain silent for now, my lord.”
Lucian did not trust that promise.
And yet, for the next few minutes, there was only the sound of work.
Until...
“My lord.”
Lucian stopped mid-motion.
“…you said you would be silent.”
Elior paused.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I remember.”
Lucian waited.
Elior continued, completely calm.
“But I have a question.”
Lucian slowly turned his head again.
“…you are impossible,” he said.
Elior’s expression brightened slightly.
“Thank you, my lord.”
“That was not a compliment.”
“I understand.”
Lucian stared at him for a long moment. Then, without another word, he turned back to the field.
Elior, as if sensing that silence was merely an invitation rather than a boundary, remained where he was and began to speak again. At first, it was small things. Observations about the soil, the way Lucian’s movements were efficient but unnecessarily forceful, the way the wind seemed to shift more strongly near the east edge of the field. He spoke as though he were thinking aloud, yet each thought was directed outward, offered without hesitation.
Lucian did not respond.
He continued working.
He told himself that ignoring it would eventually discourage the behavior.
It did not.
By midday, Elior had settled comfortably.
He no longer stood at a distance. Instead, he had taken to walking along the edge of Lucian’s working line, occasionally stepping in only to observe more closely, as if the field itself had become a place for learning. At one point, he crouched near the soil and began inspecting it with far too much seriousness for someone who had no reason to be involved.
“This section is more compacted than the others,” Elior said thoughtfully. “Is it intentional, my lord?”
Lucian did not look up.
“No.”
Elior nodded as though that answer confirmed something important.
“I see,” he said. “Then it is inconsistent.”
“It is dirt,” Lucian replied flatly.
“Yes,” Elior agreed at once. “But even dirt has patterns.”
Lucian paused for a fraction of a second before continuing his work.
He told himself not to engage.
Elior continued anyway. He began speaking about entirely unrelated matters.
Lucian eventually stopped responding altogether thinking he would eventually stop.
Still, Elior did not stop speaking.
There were moments when Lucian considered telling him to leave again. Each time, he found that the words did not reach his tongue with enough force to justify the effort it would take to enforce them afterward. The previous dismissal had already failed. Repetition seemed increasingly pointless.
By afternoon, the sun had shifted higher, and the field had grown warmer beneath its light.
Lucian paused briefly to wipe the sweat from his brow.
When he looked up again, Elior was standing slightly closer than before, holding out the same water flask from earlier, as though it had simply been waiting for the right moment to be offered again.
“I thought you might need it now,” Elior said.
“I did not ask,” Lucian replied.
“I know,” Elior said. “But you still need it.”
Lucian stared at him.
Elior stared back, patient and unbothered.
Eventually, Lucian took the flask.
He did not thank him and Elior did not seem to expect it.
The rest of the afternoon followed a similar pattern.
Lucian worked while Elior observed and commented.
He moved along the edge of the field as though he had always belonged there, his presence settling into Lucian's space with persistence. His voice rose and fell in soft intervals, offering thoughts that were unnecessary, questions that did not require answers, and remarks that seemed to exist simply because he wished to say them.
Lucian did not respond.
He worked in silence, allowing the words to pass through without acknowledgment.
By the time the sun began to lower, Lucian’s original intention for solitude had already failed.
The quiet he had sought was no longer his.
And yet, as he pressed the tool into the soil once more, pausing only briefly as the weight of the day settled into his arms, he became aware that the thoughts that had followed him for so long had not come.
There had been no memory pressing at the edges of his mind, no familiar pull toward what had once been, no lingering reflection on the choices he could not undo. The past, which had remained constant even in silence, had not found its way into this day.
Lucian stopped for a moment, his gaze lowering to the ground before him as the realization settled without warning.
For the first time in a long while...
...he had forgotten his pain.
- Writer
