Chapter twenty seven: dharti
"The one who gave us life."
The words echoed in Caelum's mind like a quiet bell, as he almost laughed at the irony.
'Only if I could give myself life as well,' he thought bitterly.
Clearing his throat, he looked up with a faint smile and spoke plainly.
"Yes. It was I who gave life to all of you, that much is true." his voice felt soft to the ears, his eyes changing their target between the old man and the woman.
Caelum deliberately avoided the young boy's gaze, just to avoid any awkward moment.
"You were my creations," he continued in the soft tone, "born to rule all over this land."
But before his words could settle down, the old man spoke with a soft, yet heavy voice. "But... you left us alone."
Caelum's expression didn't change but Inwardly, he muttered, 'Then what was I supposed to do? Live with you? Rise you by Watching over you?' But he controlled his urge to say it out loud.
Instead, he met the old man's eyes and replied calmly, "No. It was for your own good."
He still wouldn't meet the boy's eyes, because unlike the old couple, the boy didn't understand him anyway.
The quill had only redefined the couple to understand him, to be able to communicate with him. But the boy wasn't a direct part of his creation, thereby was outside the quill's influence.
"For our own good?" The old woman's gentel voice rose, before the old man could even speak, she decided to look directly in caelum's eyes and speak out loud. "More than half of us died, is this the good?"
'huh?' caelum was ones again caught off guard, not knowing what to say.
The old lady stepped forward. Her white hair seem to shimmer under the sun light, Her tone remained gentle, but her words were laced with a hint of sorrow.
"Some died from hunger," she said, "others to those beasts that roam this land. Is that the 'good' you speak of?"
'More than half...? How many of you are even left?' caelum wanted to ask, but held back.
The young boy, still standing in the same position opned his eyes wider, his lips trembled as he looked towards the old woman in disbelief.
He had never seen her like that before, not even ones. This was his first witnessing the gentle and calm old lady crack up in anger.
"Even now…" her voice wavered as he spoke, "those creatures still come, hunting us like prey. And you call this 'good'?"
"That's enough," the old man said suddenly, rising his voice. Though his smile hadn't faded away.
But the woman shook her head. "If he really is that being," her eyes were locked on Caelum, "then let me speak."
But she didn't get to finish, caelum's steady voice cut her off.
"Yes, it was," This time, caelum also looked at her eyes directly. "It was for your own good."
He paused for a second, then added:
"I created you to stand on your own, so that you can survive and rule. Not to be guided by anyone but yourself, that is the only way you can become rulers of this land" He said everything in one go, and Truthfully, he had no idea what to make of all this.
He had expected some kind of interaction, because even though the humans he created had no knowledge, they still had the brain of modern human being.
But he did not expect this kind of confrontation, and his instinct told him to not show weakness.
'They're evolving faster than I thought… prehistoric humans shouldn't even have such a structured way of speaking like this, let alone questioning me in such a structured way.' His thoughts were a mess, as he rapidly tried to comprehend the situation.
'It looks like they have already formed their own pain and believe.' As he kept thinking, the old man stared at him, his eyes dimmed by age but shining with a desperate clarity. "Even if you say that… so many of us died."
"Ha!" Caelum sighed and made up his mind, to somehow change their view of him.
'Even if they are quick to learn and adapt, they are still primitive humans. This should be easy.' thinking so he spoke.
"Life," Caelum said quietly, "life is a gift Given by me to you, and dying... dying is part of nature. That's not something even i control."
He didn't flinch and held the old man's gaze firmly, "Everyone will die one day, no one is an exception. But you can still leave behind your childrens, they will rule this world in your place, they will continue to live in your place." His words echoed in the air, as he said all of it in one go.
The expressions of the old couple changed drastically but Caelum didn't pay any mind to it.
Then, without another word, he reached into his pocket. The familiar weight of the quill rested in his hand.
"And as for the beasts hunting you," Caelum said as he raised it, a faint glow tracing along its edge, "I'll help you deal with them."
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'The beasts they're talking about, they must be the lions,' Caelum thought, gripping the quill between his fingers. 'And if those lions have lasted this long, they're probably in quite a lagre numbers now.'
With a quiet breath, he poured a thread of willpower into the quill, the tip glowed faintly as he raised it in the air.
'What can I give them, so they can hold their ground against something like lions?'
The old man caught the motion in caelum's eyes. But his own eyes were filled with a a bit of hope, locked onto the quill in Caelum's hand.
"Ah, right." The tip of the quill flared as caelum drew a perfect stroke in the air.
A wave of translucent energy burst forth, quickly swirling toward the old couple.
SWOOSH!
The energy wrapped around them like rising wind, it seemed almost sacred as it danced around them.
"Zhallullm!? Zlllmauah zmaluuah!" The boy, seeing all of this happening, shouted in a voice thick with panic.
He ran a few steps forward but didn't dare approach the old couple. His eyes darted between Caelum and the old couple, confusion and fear etched plainly on his face.
Caelum still couldn't understand the boy's words, but he didn't need to anyway. His fear and confusion was enough to keep him away.
'For now, lions are the only predators in this world, then the answer is simple,' Caelum thought with a sense of pride.
"I'll just make your bodies stronger."
The energy surrounding the old couple dimmed instantly, then flowed inward, drawn into their very skin akin to water soaking into dry ground.
"Huh?" They barely had any time to react before their bodies suddenly jerked.
The wrinkles on their bodies were smoothing out, their Skin began to tighten up, the old woman's eyes widened as she looked at her hands.
"What's happening? What did you do to us?" she asked in utter disbelief.
"I'm giving you a chance," Caelum replied in a voice steady.
What caelum did was simple, since he couldn't redefine the young boy's body, he chose to redefine the old couple's bodies into a younger form.
"A chance?" the old man's voice echoed, but the his face looked calm. Maybe he believed Caelum wouldn't harm them, or maybe he thought that the 'being' who gave them life would never take it away.
"Yes, a chance. A chance to protect yourselves, a chance to protect your childrens and a chance live in this place without the fear of any beasts." Caelum didn't wait for them to react to his words, he quickly drew another stroke into the air.
TACK.
Two iron swords materialized out of thin air, and dropped to the ground beside them with a cmetallic ring.
"This is my last gift," he said. "Use them to defend yourselves from the beasts."
The swords gleamed under the sun, their surfaces reflecting light like polished steel. But neither the old man nor the old woman looked at them.
They were too focused on the abnormal changes happening to their own bodies.
"Zhhhlua? Zhhhlua?Zhhluaa!"
The boy shouted on top of his lungs again, his body still unable to approach the old couple, out of fear for the unknown.
As the translucent energy settled inside them, a swift transformation took place.
The pale and sagging skin of the old couple pulled taut, regaining the texture of youth. The white in their hair bled into black strand by strand.
Most striking change of all occurred in their eyes, what had once been ordinary dark pupils now glowed gold, their irises became sharp and unnaturally clear.
Their forms were no longer those of frail old man, it was as if they had reverted back into their middle-age time.
"I've given back what time took from you. Your strength, and a new path to survival. The rest is up to you." Caelum said in a high voice as he turned to leave.
His figure already starting to blur, fading from this small corner of the painted world.
"Wait—wait!" the old man shouted, startled by the sound of his own voice.
As caelum was already vanishing he didn't pay him any mind but, a new thought bloommed in his mind. 'I can't keep calling this place "the painting world." It doesn't even take up half the space yet. Shouldn't i give it a proper name?'
He paused briefly, trying to think of a proper name. 'This isn't earth, so i shouldn't call it that. The.....'
He cleared his throat before saying.
"You have to Survive on your own, and grow stronger. Become the ones who rule this land—this world." He glanced back once, his voice echoing like a wind without source.
"We will meet again, when all of you become the ruling force of this place… this place that shall be called 'Dharti' from this moment."
He didn't care if they understood what he said, or if they could even comprehend what just happened with them. Declaring the name of the world he thought of, Caelum vanished without any traces.
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Caelum's body slowly reformed in the white room, the blank expanse that floated above the every expanding world he had just named: Dharti.
His figure shimmered back into being, until he was whole once more.
"Nothing ever goes the way I expect…" he muttered with a sigh, already walking toward the world stabilizer humming softly in the edge of the room.
The steady thrum of the mechanism echoed faintly in the vast space, a low and constant vibration that reassured him things below were still functioning.
"I gave them intelligence on par with modern humans from Earth," he said aloud, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "So maybe I should have seen this coming."
He stood before the stabilizer for a long moment, The oval shaped structure rotated slowly, if caelum wanted, he could know what was going on below through the world stabilizer easily.
"Should I increase the flow of time again?" he murmured.
But almost immediately, he shook his head. "No… that'd put too much strain on the stabilizer—and on my willpower."
"Still… they should be able to manage almost anything now," he thought, watching the faint outlines of Dharti's landscape through the stabilizer.
"I defined their bodies to be as strong as their biology could possibly handle." Turning from the stabilizer, he drifted back toward the long bronze table at the centre of the room and sank into the chair, letting his arms rest heavily on the cool surface.
It was the only place in the white room that resembled furniture.
"There's also the golden eye…" he muttered, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "Hah."
He leaned back, closing his eyes briefly. "Those eyes… they are a mix of an eagle and a fly. The critical flicker fusion rate of both combined—that's probably what caused the golden glow i saw."
He said it aloud without any care. Afterall
there was no one else inside the white room except him.
There had been the only one solution he could think of at that short moment, to give those prehistoric humans a chance of surviving.
So he Reconstructed their vision, he defined them to be capable of tracking high-speed movement, reacting faster than the jaws of a predator could close. It was a gamble on caelum's side, as he had never tried something like that before.
Defining eyes that could see like both predator and prey. That was the essence of survival.
[Author's note: critical flicker rate means CFR or the speed at which eyes can see things.]