Chương 77: Tempted by Love

"The Golden Apple?" Adlon asked. Farryn lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him, her eyes bright with a hope she'd clearly been holding for a long time.

"Yes. The Golden Apple. In the Forest of Truth, they say there's a tree with golden leaves and golden apples for its fruit."

"I've never heard of it." Adlon tilted his head.

"You want me to... eat it?" Farryn looked away, out past the canopy to the setting sun. It was beautiful. Though she suspected that had less to do with the sky than with the fact that he was sitting right beside her. She didn't want this to end. She wanted to see a thousand more sunsets exactly like this one, with him.

"Legend says that whoever takes a bite of the Golden Apple will come to know the truth of the world," she said.

"But I've got no use for the truth of the world…whatever that is."

"Yeah. But there's one more thing." She turned back to him. She took his hand and lifted it between them.

"It grants longevity."

"Longevity?" Adlon's brow creased.

"You mean, like immortality?"

"I don't think so. Not never dying, exactly. More like... a long, long life."

"That..." He looked doubtful.

"That sounds too good to be true, Farryn."

"And if it isn't true, then at least we'll have tried!" He still didn't look convinced.

"Do you..." Her voice dipped.

"Do you not want to be with me for as long as you can?"

"Of course I do." His hand tightened around hers.

"Of course I want that, Farryn. I just... I don't think this is something we should do."

"Why not?"

"Because, if the tree's really there, then it sounds like the kind of thing that's forbidden to touch. Has anyone ever actually eaten one?"

"Not that I've heard. But it's a fruit, Adlon. We wouldn't be hurting anyone."

"Farryn." She stopped.

"I don't want you breaking some sacred rule of this place for my sake. Just bringing me here was risky enough. You think I didn't feel the stares? The whispers?"

"... Am I making you uncomfortable, here?" Her face fell.

"Is that what you're saying?"

"N-no! That's not it at all. I'm saying—you've already done more than enough for me." He held her gaze.

"It's enough, Farryn. This is how it is, how it's meant to be. I'm only twenty. We could still have sixty, seventy, eighty years together." Farryn looked away, and let his hand slip from hers.

"You know that's barely any time at all," she said quietly.

"For me." Adlon turned too, toward the sunset.

"I think we should make the most of what we've got." For a moment, neither of them spoke.

"Of course I'd love to live for centuries beside you," Adlon went on, softer now.

"Think of everything we could do. I'd have time to save up, properly, to finally give you the life you deserve."

"Then—""But it just doesn't feel right. What happens if we're found out? What would they do to you? And we don't even know what that fruit would do; no one's ever eaten it. Nobody knows." Farryn said nothing.

"I just... don't want to risk it. I know what this place means to you. What Silvanis means to your people. I couldn't stand to see you face any—""And I can't stand to watch you die before me." Her voice broke on it. And then they simply sat there in the quiet, both in pain, knowing full well what the right thing to do was, and one of them unable, no matter what, to make herself accept it. After dinner in a modest little cook shop, the two of them walked to an inn and took a room.

The receptionist had seemed fine enough, but as they climbed the stairs, Adlon felt the stares return. He couldn't make out the words, but he knew the staff were whispering to one another.

"It won't end well for those two."

"Poor elf. Getting her whole life ruined by that man."

"Maybe it's already too late. You think he's already had his way with her?" It was all in his head, but only because he'd heard it all before. There were few elves outside Silvanis, and whenever they laid eyes on an elf-human couple, the whispers ran the same. Some of Farryn's own acquaintances had even sought Adlon out in private, just to tell him about those risks to his face. He lay on the bed while Farryn showered.

Tomorrow, he'd go back to being a clerk in Lundy, one of Lycora's major trade hubs, grinding his life away behind a desk. Farryn would return to her receptionist's post in Azmarin, a large town a few hours off. They would meet once a week, taking turns to make the trip. Next week was his to visit Azmarin. They'd go to their favorite cook shop, climb the hills to their spot to watch the sun go down, and steal a nap together at her place afterward, Farryn would cook something, and he would head home in the evening.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. It was a fulfilling little cycle. One Adlon wished could go on forever. Not that he wanted to stay a clerk. He'd climb, earn promotions, save more, and one day afford a place in Lundy fine enough for the both of them. Then Farryn wouldn't have to work at all. She could spend her days on the things she loved: baking, cooking, coaxing green things up out of the soil.

Then her voice surfaced in his head, and with it, the Golden Apple.

"It's a fruit, Adlon. We wouldn't be hurting anyone."

"I can't stand to watch you die before me." If he was honest with himself, he had been tempted. If a single bite could grant him hundreds more years, think of everything he could do with them. He could finally make good on his promise to Farryn, the better life he kept swearing he'd give her. And she'd never again have to lie awake dreading his short, mortal span. He'd already taken one life from her, after all.

Back when Farryn had been a healer for a rising adventuring party, a party that had since climbed to A-rank. Had she stayed with them, she'd have made a fortune by now. Instead she was a receptionist in a mid-sized town, watching other people's adventurer career take off while hers stayed put. All because of him. Almost every night, the same thoughts circled. What would become of Farryn once he was gone? What if it wasn't eighty years, but twenty? What if it was sooner?

Would she truly never take another partner, and spend centuries alone with his memory? Was he ruining her, simply by loving her? And... would the truth of the world, the thing the apple was said to grant, let him rise faster? Let him give her what she deserved before his time ran out? The door opened. Farryn stepped out, a towel around her shoulders, her damp hair clinging against her neck, and she looked pretty, as she always did. She caught the look on his face at once.

"Oh, no. It's Grumpy Adlon." He sat up.

"N-no. I'm fine. Just... thinking about things." Farryn crossed to the bed, climbed up behind him on her knees, and wrapped her arms around him from behind.

"Well, my professional recommendation is that you think about me for the rest of the night." She knew. Adlon was sure of it. She knew exactly what was turning over in his head, because she was afraid of it too, but there was nothing much either of them could do about it. He'd taken enough from her already. If reaching for that apple meant risking her standing in Silvanis, her place among her own people, then he wouldn't do it. He… wouldn't do it. Deep in the night, Farryn woke to a soft light.

She opened her eyes slowly, and there, hovering in the dark of the room, was a small glowing creature; its wings beating so fast and so fine that they made almost no sound at all. A girl, she realized. Tiny, no larger than her hand, her whole form wreathed in a gentle, greenish glow, gossamer wings catching the light. A pixie.

"What the—" The pixie beckoned to her, a clear come with me, then drifted to the door of the room and hovered there, waiting. Farryn understood at once. She wanted her to follow. In Silvanis, pixies were held to be the messengers of Verdelia herself. For one to appear before you meant the goddess wanted something of you, and ignoring such a summon would not be appropriate. Farryn turned to Adlon, still sleeping soundly beside her.

She reached to wake him, but in a flash the pixie was there in front of her face, shaking its small head. She wanted Farryn to come alone. Nothing ill could come of it, surely. It was the goddess's own design. Perhaps Verdelia had sensed her distress, the fear she carried, and meant to offer her help. She might have the answer to the impossible problem of her love. So Farryn dressed quietly and followed the pixie out. Down the stairs, past the receptionist, out into streets gone hushed and empty.

And on, through the quiet town, until at last they came to the edge of the Forest of Truth, where the Golden Apples grew. On Thíron Verdelia, the goddess's own beloved tree of gold. Does Verdelia want me to take them? The pixie flitted in among the trees, and Farryn followed. The soft crush of leaves beneath her steps, the whisper of them brushing her arms, the cool night air settling against her skin, and always, ahead of her, the small drifting glow of the pixie, lighting the path a few paces at a time.

And then, further in, the forest itself began to brighten. Not with sunlight, since it was still deep night. She thought she knew what it was. She stepped past a last screen of bushes, out into a clearing, and there it stood. A great tree, wrought entirely in gold—golden trunk, golden boughs, golden leaves—and hanging among its branches, catching and throwing back the light of its own strange radiance, several golden apples. It was Farryn's first time seeing it, the Thíron Verdelia.

The tree looked as though it belonged to some other world entirely. Regular gold would not be shining in the dark like this; and yet this gold seemed to generate a light all its own, glowing softly from within. The pixie that had led her here now hovered beside one of the golden apples, beckoning her closer. Does she truly want me to pluck it? Is this really allowed?

Farryn thought back to Adlon's warnings from earlier; his worry about what repercussions might follow after a bite of the fruit, about what the truth of the world might do to the one who received it. But it was the pixie who had guided her here, so it had to be Verdelia's will. The goddess herself had extended a hand to solve the very problem that had been gnawing at Farryn for years, as if her love for Adlon, and his for her, had moved Verdelia to assist her. So she stepped forward.

Slowly, at first, then faster, and faster, as she drew near. One of the golden apples hung within arm's reach now. As she looked at it, she let herself picture the future it promised; a future where her beloved Adlon lived long, and lived it beside her. She would make him breakfast, and wake him each morning, and send him off to work with a full stomach and a kiss. She'd open a little cook shop of her own, or a bakehouse, somewhere with a small, steady stream of regulars who knew her by name.

They might even have a child together; an elven mother almost always bore an elven child, after all. A little one with her ears and his eyes. Life would be good, and that good life was, quite literally, within her reach. With Verdelia's blessing, there would be no punishment for this. If anything, she might be the first. The one who opened the door, so that elves might one day love freely, whoever they chose. Yes, life would be good. Farryn stretched out her arm and closed her fingers around the apple.

She hesitated, just for a moment, a few beats where her heart hung between the reaching and the taking. Then she steeled herself, and plucked it from the branch. She held it in her palm and gazed at it, thinking; once Adlon bites this, everything will be well. She would go back and tell him that Verdelia herself had allowed it, the goddess had shown her the very way to the tree. He wouldn't have to worry about a single thing. When she lifted her head, she found herself standing at the entrance of the forest.

Farryn supposed even Verdelia had spared her the walk back. How kind. She looked at the apple once more. Its radiant glow had faded, but it was still gold, still smooth and pristine, cradled there in her hand. Then she turned and walked towards the inn.