Liar’s Trial [Sylph POV]

Another day, another trial, another opportunity to hate Veridion a little more! He totally deserved it! Seriously, who kept one-upping themselves like that on every opportune opportunity? Sylph did that but only in being the cutest cute to have ever cuted (except Velka and Gnome). She was so cute, in fact, that John had just needed to come running at the mildest suggestion that she was in genuine danger!

Which was hot. So hot. What was important in John’s life? That’s right, she was and he would turn over the entire planet for her, despite her having a built-in respawn! The only acceptable injury to haremettes were during training. Everything else was a sacrifice made in the moment that would be paid back, like, a quintillion times… that was a big number, right?

Sylph could have found the answer herself, but it wasn’t important. Her thoughts cross-leapt between topics like an electric current jumped between shifting conductors.

“…I choose Sylph,” Veridion declared.

“Huh?” The volt bunny snapped out of her thoughts and wiped a bit of drool off her chin. Too much thinking about chocolate. “Sorry, I spaced out, what is happening?”

“Prepare your brain,” John warned her audibly, then blasted her with the memories of the last two minutes.

The trial of the day was the Liar’s Trial. In it, the character of the person would be put under strain. A fitting enough test for Oahu, the Gathering Place, most populated and tourist-swamped of the islands. Victory or loss would be decided by a Mo’o’s judgement based on how well the person kept it together.

“Alrighty!” Sylph chirped, not thinking much about this at all. “Let’s do this!”

The Kupuas laughed and streamed through a Spiralling Point. With a laugh and a wink, Sylph followed them. Past the stretchy-stretchy feeling of the portal lay a copy of Honolulu itself.

Tall buildings, wide streets, decorative trees, banners fluttering in artificial wind and a manifold of people all around her. Sylph was not stupid enough (anymore) to miss out on the crowd of hundreds that greeted her with cheers being the shapeshifters that had just walked ahead of her.

‘It’s called the Liar’s Trial, pretty very clear that there will be lying involved,’ she thought and bounced through the street. An ice cream truck caught her attention. ‘Might as well have sweets, right? I don’t hallucinate from those anymore! I can treat myself!’

“Now, who are you, miss?” the man inside the ice cream truck asked.

“Name is Sylph and I want chocolate, mint and orange scoops!” she blabbered.

The man inspected her with a curious but friendly gaze. “Do you have any money on you?”

“Uhm, uhhhhhhhhh, John will pay for it?” she stammered. “Yeah! He totally will and you know he’s good for it. He’s just a tiny little bit rich and important, you know? You know!”

The joke landed, the man laughing as he reached for a waffle cone. “He is just a little important,” he agreed, stacking the ordered scoops into the waffle. “I’ll send him a bill after. Do you want sprinkles with that?”

“Yes, please!” the sweet tooth exclaimed.

A spread of colourful sprinkles later, the truck owner bent forwards, to hand the cone to the hovering air spirit. “Remember to thank John for it,” he stated, with a crooked smile.

“As long as this isn’t some illusionary cone that disappears when I try to lick it!” Sylph babbled. “Because that would be so, so, so mean. Super, duper, mega mean! The meanest!”

Again, the truck owner just laughed, gesturing for the green-haired volt bunny to proceed. Sugary, cold goodness touched her tongue. “Delicious!” she squeaked and resumed her half-flying, half-bouncing journey. The shapeshifters all around her were dancing, moving about, putting on a festival for her. It was all so colourful and bright!

The tropical heat melted the cone fast, but Sylph was even faster at lapping it up. Sweet sprinkles were soon consumed. Chocolate, mint and orange, as a mixture and on their own, treated her tastebuds. When she got to the empty cone, chomping down on it was a bit of a challenge. Elementals ate for pleasure, their capacity to digest fairly limited. Three scoops of ice cream were pretty ambitious.

“Now, who are you, young lady?” an elderly woman, sat on a bench in the shade, asked the passing air spirit.

“I am Sylph – not just any Sylph either, I am the cool Sylph that got to be contracted with John Newman! I am sister to the bestest, cutest of Gnomes and the coolest of Undines and the hottest of Salamanders and the stabbiest of Sienas and the wisest of Stirwins.”

“You must quite love all of them.” The elderly woman reached out to a newspaper, neatly folded next to her on the bench.

“Yup, yup! And they love me, I know they do.”

“Even when they do this?” The elderly woman raised the newspaper, showing Sylph a picture of the tiny thing she used to be. That tiny, silly, past Sylph was stuck under a glass, confined like a buzzing bee.

“Yeah, that was fine, I was kind of annoying,” Sylph chirped back. “I didn’t know when to stop talking and they told me to stop but I didn’t stop and it’s not like I minded too much, I was too stoopid to realize that was a problem so they put me in a box so I could keep talking without bothering them.”

“You are a good girl,” the elderly woman said, putting the newspaper aside. “Self-reflecting on your shortcomings and accepting of other’s solutions.”

“I try to be! Wait, are you lying right now? Because this is a trial of liars, sooooo-“

“Oh, my sweet girl,” the elderly woman’s lips spread into a broad, toothless grin, “it’s the Liar’s Trial, not the Liars Trial.”

“What does that even mean? Like, is there a mega liar I have to find? Are you trying to say the liar is me?” Sylph bounced left to right, inspecting the old woman from several angles, but she just kept smiling. “Okay, getting the signal! I am moving on!”

Still bouncing, Sylph continued on. On a whim, she swerved into a side alley. It must have taken her into a bad, baaaaaaaaad part of town, because the windows were all barred. Metal barriers reinforced glass, for good reason at times. Several of the windows were smashed in. There were less of the Kupua here.

Sylph didn’t mind a bit of a scenery change. What were they going to do, stab her? Well, she was just too fast for that! She had solo-killed a Raid Boss, she could dodge some shapeshifters with sharp instruments!

She bounced past a poorly attached billboard. The text asked ‘Who are you?’, the person presenting the question obscured by a flopping corner of the thick paper. Only the pointing finger remained.

“Terribly crude advertisement, don’t you think?” a man in a suit asked.

“Bit unsubtle,” Sylph agreed. “Who am I? Is that the question you’re trying to ask?” The volt bunny switched to ‘the forbidden voice’, speaking plain and serious. It did not fit her cheery spirit. Sometimes, a situation called for behaving in ways that weren’t fitting with who she wanted to be. “Because I know exactly who I am.”

“Yes, you do, you are Sylph, you are the breeze of joy, the eternal optimist in the Gamer’s harem and the life of all those you care about.”

“Exactly!” Sylph was right back to her cheery self. No need to be all serious and stuff when it was understood who she was. “I am all of that and so much more!”

“Not a whole lot more. It seems you are rather empty on the inside.”

“Well, duh, I am an airhead!” Sylph joked.

There was no reaction to it. The man in the suit just looked at her with an empathetic gaze, before simply… walking away.

Sylph stood there for two seconds, then went on her way. Long strides of her short form moved her through the rundown neighbourhood. Still just walking according to her whims, she found herself deeper and deeper in a commercial hellhole. Billboards, more and more and more of them, plastered the building. It would have been comical if it weren’t so annoyingly one note!

Always the pointing finger, always that question. ‘Who are you?’ ‘Who are you?’ ‘Who are you?’ Sylph was getting sick of it! She knew who she was, she knew exactly who she was, and there was no need to doubt it! Everyone loved her and she could do whatever she wanted. What more could there be?

‘I want to go to the beach!’ Sylph thought and took to the air. Straight line up, a second of orientation, and then she was a greased lightning bolt, arcing across the manipulated buildings. She landed on the white Waikiki Beach. Though the Kupua tried, they could not copy the absurd tourism on the mundane side. It left her with a nice amount of space.

Happy to distract herself, Sylph sat in the gorgeous sand. Waves went in and out in predictable rhythms, simulated by the machinations of this Natural Barrier. The air spirit’s feet tapped the approaching liquid whenever it almost reached her. Her fingers dug into the sand, forming little castles.

“It’s a gorgeous beach, isn’t it?” a man asked.

“I like it!” Sylph confirmed, without looking at him. “It’s nice!”

“And it’s fake,” a woman chimed in. “The entire beach, engineered. The sand was originally imported from the continent. Now they pump it from the seafloor. This used to be wetland. Now it is a city.”

“And now you’re going to start making a point about how I am faking my niceness?” Sylph asked, her voice dropping. “Can you not? It doesn’t feel good when you just ask me things to ask me things.”

“You’re not fake at all, no one would make that claim,” a third voice joined. More and more followed, fusing into a constant stream of fresh speakers. “You are not this beach, because this beach was a change. You never changed. You are just who you are and you do not question it, even when you are hollow on the inside. Who are you, Sylph? Who are you? Who are you? Who are you? Who-“

“ENOUGH!” Sylph’s voice carried with it the might of a storm. Sand and people were picked up, **** several metres back. The world around her unravelled in the same instant, the gorgeous beach and the city around twisting into a desaturated version of itself. Kupua laughed and danced away. Sylph looked back, at the crowd, their human guises falling away in favour of bodies made of leaves, flowers, animal parts, or even minerals.

“Enough?” a woman asked.

From the water rose a female form. She was of dark skin, with even darker scales painting on her body the pattern of a shark’s belly. She had a matching tail, swiping through the water as she walked. Her eyes were green with slit pupils. Wet, green hair hung over them like fresh kelp.

“Enough of your lies!” Sylph demanded. “I’m not your plaything… okay, maybe I am supposed to be your plaything for this trial, but I am not taking it lying down!”

“Oh, sweet girl, we are not the liars here,” the woman whispered. “It’s the Liar’s Trial, not the Liars Trial… and the liar here is you!”

Sylph swat the hand aside before she could be booped on her nose. That was a privilege not everyone got. Glaring, she stared at the Kupua woman, who took a seat in the still moving waves.

“Sylph, the Sylph of John Newman, the perfect daughter of the wind,” she declared. “An air spirit as true as they come. Chatty, positive, capable of uplifting the hearts of her allies, of grating down the patience of her acquaintances, of bringing low your enemies. You are remarkable and yet… so unremarkable.”

“What do you mean?” Sylph asked, exasperated.

“Who are you?”

“You just said it!”

“Exactly, I just said it – and is that really all there is? Does who you are not go any deeper than your skin? Are you really just filled with air?”

“What would be wrong with that?”

“If nothing would be wrong with it, why aren’t you smiling anymore?”

Sylph touched her own face, feeling her scowl. ‘Why am I not smiling anymore?’

“Everyone can read you like a leaflet,” the Kupua continued mercilessly, drilling into insecurities Sylph hadn’t even known she had. “Perfect daughter of the wind, breezing through her nature. Evolving and evolving, reaching the top of the food chain. You are a product of nature, bereft of individuality. Your siblings in contract? Stirwin is the Celestial Devourer, his individuality is beyond question. Siena rebelled against her mother centuries ago, for better and for worse. Those two are unusual to begin with. The rest among you? Gnome, she is quite the typical earth spirit… yet she is so much more. She is an artist, a leader, and who are you? Salamander, certainly loves her fire, but she is a ruler of her own little domain and thrives in being actually helpful, and who are you? Undine, a knot of contradictions hidden inside translucent slime, a recluse craving company, a silent woman that sings crystal clear notes, a sad woman that yearns to bring happiness to others, and who are you?”

“I am Sylph, I am the perfect daughter of the wind and I… I-“

“Eat sweets, act manically happy and perform party tricks,” the Kupua finished. “With all due respect, do you think you would make for a good mother?”

A chill sensation spread from Sylph’s core. Speechless, she sat there, looking into herself and finding… nothing new. She was the same person she had always been. What had really changed since she used to be covered by glasses to keep her quiet? Only that she kept herself quiet instead. That prison was on the inside now.

Was she loved? Obviously, she was loved.

Could she do what she wanted? Obviously, she could do what she wanted.

But who was she, actually?

Had she not become too smart to be this little of an individual? That intellect that had grown over time, that elevated her from a useful, annoying blabbermouth to a useful blabbermouth, was now channelled into a reflection that she hated. Blissful ignorance crumbled away, revealing the simple truth.

Sylph was just… a very successful Sylph. Thousands had her name and disposition. Every shaking of the elemental plane could free new little soul sparks that, with the proper nourishment, would be just like her. Was the only difference between all of them and her that she had lucked out on her contract? Was that really all that defined her?

Yes.

At this moment, that was all that defined her.

“I wouldn’t be,” Sylph admitted, her eyes downcast. When there was no response, she slowly raised her gaze. The Kupua had stepped aside, leaving a Mo’o towering in her place. A grey-scaled beast, more serpentine than its kin. “You’re right. I’m just a bit… hollow on the inside.”

“Then you fail the test, but you gained something else.”

Sylph’s frown deepened, her rabbit ears slumping. She wasn’t used to disappointing those she loved. “Can I make a simple request?” she asked.

“Certainly.”

“Can I… sit here for a bit? They’ll be all like ‘Oh my -insert deity-, Sylph, we had no idea you felt this way!’ and will give me all the hugs and kisses and support they can give me. There’ll be so much of ‘everything you need, you get, so what do you need?’” A dry laugh escaped the air spirit. Though she blabbered as per usual, there was little mirth in it. Sylph looked at the Mo’o, but she wasn’t really looking at the Mo’o. “And neither did I know I felt this way, so I think… I would like to consider that question on my own for a minute.”

“As you wish.” A simple gesture was all it took for the Kupua to back away.

Leaving Sylph kneeling on a grey beach.