Finding Contentus

Chapter 11: Ten

"Everything I did, I did for my people. Not simply because I had to and not simply because it was my duty. I did it because I loved them. And all my actions, were always for the sake of our survival and well-being."

There was an undeniable atmosphere of heaviness that accompanied Renero's voice as he began to recall the events that led him towards this very day.

The focus painted on Kakara and Minaleese's faces was just as curious as the ones painted on those of the twins. In the four years that they had known Renero, they had only heard bits and pieces about his past. They knew that he had a family and was separated from them and his people.

They knew his position as a Racaan, and they knew he was captured by other humans. The rest was fairly unknown due to his reluctance to really speak on such matters, keeping it all to himself with a deep sense of melancholy and aching to return back to his loved ones.

Every day they would notice him looking out into the distance, reaching and calling for something that wasn't there. Something he wished to be there.

His people. His family.

And now here they were. After many years of seemingly ceaseless searching, he finally found something. His two children from his previous life. His one sanctuary Neosa, and his new beginnings Genesia.

The flaming lights illuminated the room they were all situated in, with their shadows being plastered around them like amorphous beings, giving off an overarching feeling of looming apprehension.

The fires in the light seemed to flicker every now and again, matching the changes in tone of Renero's voice, becoming brighter when he sounded more nostalgic in reminisce, and becoming dimmer when he sounded more dejected in opening up the wounds that would never heal.

"You know all about our royal chief lineage right?" Renero said, directing the question to his children whilst not taking his eye off one of the burning lights, being fixated on the levels of intensity it radiated.

"Ah, uncle said something about that," Neosa answered timidly, recalling all the lessons they had with Amoar.

"Did he also tell you who the last Racaan chief was?"

Neosa paused for a moment, gaining Genesia to look at her with a face of uncertainty.

"Well..." she began, catching her brother's eye. "Actually, we don't know all that much about everyone else, like Grandma and Grandpa. No one ever really talked about them."

Renero's gaze remained unchanged, albeit with a very slight twitch in one of his eyelids that was matched by a tiny flicker in one of the burning lights.

"We kind of just thought uncle was. He was the one that guided everyone," Genesia spoke with less confidence.

The reason for this heavy sense of unease between them was due to the pattern they had realized over the past few days. Just as they thought they knew something, that something got rebutted by something else in wafting revelation.

And just as they were curious about many things, those many things were answered in ways they may have preferred not to have known in the first place. Not to mention the similarity in how their father posed such questions to them. It was all too similar to their uncle Amoar.

Even now with this more serious and solemn side, they couldn't help but think of their uncle. How wise he was, how he had this uncanny way with words and the authority he commanded without even being that much of a loudspeaker most of the time unless the situation called for such, like when they tried reinforcing the enchantment barrier.