Remnant Tails

What Is Love?

There was a book I used to read Pohlin. What is Love, it was called.

I hated it, though it was Father's favorite. It soon became Pohlin's favorite as well.

I couldn't even begin to imagine why.

In the book, there is a boy who follows a mole to a feast for all life. When the boy tries to eat, the food is taken from him and all the Earth's creatures try to throw him out, so the boy asks why. All the animals and plants tell him it is because humans lack love, and the feast is only for creatures who share Mother Earth's and Father God's love. So the boy leaves the feast to discover what "love" is and why humans don't have it. He searches the very edges of Earth until he is very old.

The story, for all its beautiful illustrations, doesn't have a happy ending.

When Pohlin and I were still together, he'd have me read it to him every evening before I left for work.

"Why do you like this story?" I'd asked. "To say that we are discriminate and uncaring and take without giving anything back to the world is wrong. I don't like this story."

His answer shocked me.

"I like it because the boy reminds me of you, Emare. You love without even realizing it and go overboard when you don't have to."

I was speechless.

I was nothing like the boy in the story, but just for today, I hoped I could be.

I arrived at the gate to the second level and showed the keeper a residence pass. It was the one my father's sister's husband gave me so he could receive the payments for my brother's expenses.

Father wasn't my real father so his sister considered me nothing to her. My brother's relatives had hated Mother.

I had no other relatives I knew of.

I only had Pohlin.

I took the pass because I had no idea what would happen to Pohlin if I didn't pay.

For the most part, Ann and Caid Setes did seem to care for Pohlin as their own. I think part of it was due to the fact that they hadn't been blessed with children of their own. But the demon was right to direct me to them. They were middle class and could provide for Pohlin in ways I could only dream. They even put him in their will.

Pohlin attended an expensive school and had a meal at all three wakes with snacks in between. They bought him clothes at every growth spurt, or even just on a whim, and the presents they lavished him with made the little notions and knick-knacks I used to smother him with senseless.

I mean, what is a kiss and a colored pen as opposed to a gateway.

Pohlin had a family in the sense of the word and I only served as an embarrassment.

I looked up at a clock and saw that it was at the fifth hour.

Because I knew nothing of this place, I decided to head straight for the Setes residence.

Pohlin, I feared, would be done with school by this hour.

I could knock out two task at once and be done with it.

People stared at me, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out what was different this time. I looked the same as usual. Was it because this was it? My last time here?

Then I realized what it was. I had never been here during the peak hours. Sometimes I came early in the morning, and other times I came after dark. There were never so many people out when I frequented and I scarcely crossed people my age. But at present, they were everywhere in this level.