Chapter Twenty - JENSI

                                    

                                          


                          
There was a lack of obligation that came with being unwanted. You didn't have to please anyone—or, well, you didn't have anyone to please. 
                          
But when you did want to be wanted, when you lacked obligation for so long you started to crave it, pleasing people was the only way to be looked at. It was a way to be remembered, and that... that was what Jensi feared the most: being forgotten.
                          
Part of it was being alone, but it was more than that. It was a fear of time, of immortality—though for the elves, that was called an "indefinite lifespan." 
                          
Immortality, to Jensi, wasn't the opportunity of forever to do with as he wanted. It was incomprehensible, too much time to do anything with, unlimited time that pressed around him until he feared running out of it.
                          
It felt stupid to feel that way, like he had a ticking clock lording over him every minute of every day. He hadn't used to think like that, not when he had plans. Not when Fernan had promised he'd be a part of the Collective and actually make a difference.
                          
But now, his dreams betrayed, Jensi didn't know what to do. He wanted to do something, but every time he tried to figure out what, it would slip from his grasp, and he'd be reminded once again how he was running out of hours.
                          
Because eventually, if he kept trying, and kept failing, he'd be lost in the black hole of history. Unlimited time, but only for those who knew what to do with it.
                          
For now Jensi was grading papers at the wooden slab he and his brother called a dinner table. Every now and then a vine, draping over the beams and chandelier overhead, would slide across the back of his neck, and he'd curse and shoo it away with his pen. The stupid plants were called Mistweaves, and apparently they added moisture to the air without getting anything wet. 
                          
When Fernan had come home with them, he'd said humidity helped him phase better. Jensi had asked, "What happened to Mr. The-Only-Way-To-Get-Better-At-Phasing-Is-To-Make-It-Hard?" That night his brother had reached over to hand Jensi a cup of lushberry juice, but instead his hand glitched and the cup crashed onto the table, spilling the sticky liquid onto Jensi's new Mentor's cape. "What can I say?" Fernan had said. "Abilities are rough. You just don't understand, Jen." 
                          
Suffice it to say, they'd kept the Mistweaves.
                          
	"Maybe you ought to drink some nhyon," Ulla said as she walked down the spiral staircase. No introduction, straight to the point—that was like her. 
                          
She breezed past the table and into the kitchen, clanking things around as she searched for a bottle of Youth. She called it "nhyon"—Trollish for "special water." 
                          
"Back in the sixteenth century, the Enlightened Language didn't have a word for 'Youth,'" Ulla said. "Nowadays we have words for all kinds of things. Still you kids complain—ungrateful ilfiches."
                          
Jensi didn't want to ask what that last word meant—probably some fourteenth-century elvin curse. So instead he replied with the only thing he could come up with that didn't lead to a three-hour history lesson: "Yes, Ulla, you've told me the story a thousand times before."
                          
Ulla harrumphed, but this time she didn't argue. Sometimes she did—said she'd never mentioned "the old days" before. But she had. She just forgot. Being an Ancient, living for that long... Sometimes elvin minds broke a little. That was why Jensi hadn't moved out of Thrynshew yet; he'd do anything to get away from Fernan, but he also had to take care of Ulla. He didn't trust his brother to do that alone.
                          
"You're looking pale," said Ulla, shuffling over and pinching one of Jensi's cheeks. "Have you been drinking enough nhyon?"
                          
"The solution to everything isn't Youth," Jensi huffed, jerking away. "I'm just stressed."