Perspective: Omniscient Narrator
Source: Combined Leaf-Records of the Sylaris and the Hour-Books of Aeralune
Part 8: The Lie (~12,005 to 12,000 BP)
The 3 Wars and the Glass Meridian
It happened in the autumn of 12,005 BP.
Celestara was waiting in Evensong Garden, wearing her blue knitted sweater, her heart beating fast with anticipation for his weekly visit.
The Fool arrived. He didn't bring apples. He didn't make a joke.
His face was carved out of grey stone.
"I'm leaving," he said, staring at the tree line past her shoulder.
Celestara froze. Her smile lingered for 1 confused second, then dropped. "W-What? What do you mean?"
"I love Lillieth." Every word was measured and flat. "I am choosing her. This is goodbye."
The garden went dead silent.
Celestara stared at him. She let out a small, breathless laugh, waiting for the punchline.
"S-Stop it," she whispered, her voice tightening, a breathless whimper catching in her throat. "T-This isn't funny... You always smile when you're joking. Why aren't you smiling?"
The Fool didn't blink. "I am choosing your sister, Celestara. We're done."
Her chest seized.
Her breath left her in a ragged, choking gasp. She lunged forward, her hands seizing his coat lapels, her star-eyes wide with wild, frantic panic.
"N-No... no, look at me!" Her voice cracked, rising into a ragged plea. "What did she do to you?! W-What kind of dark curse did that witch put in your head?!"
The Fool didn't pull away, but he didn't touch her either. "She didn't do anything."
"Y-You're lying! Look at me!" Her knuckles turned white in his coat, her whole body shaking violently.
"You wouldn't say this to me! You spent months working your fingers on this wool for me! You sat right here on this grass and held me until sunrise! Y-You know she is evil! You know what she is—she's an omen, an evil witch born in ash! The ash on your coat... I smelled it years ago! What did that vile creature do to your mind?! Did she poison your drink?! T-Tell me what spell she put on you!"
The Fool finally looked down at her.
His eyes were completely hollow.
"She didn't poison me, Celestara," he said, each word deliberate and cruel.
"Stop screaming. I'm tired of you. I'm tired of your bright smile and your followers bowing to you every single hour. You're exhausting to be around. All you do is demand to be adored. Lillieth actually needed me. You don't need anyone. So I'm leaving."
Celestara staggered back, clutching her throat.
Her hands slipped from his coat. She clutched the blue wool over her chest, trembling from head to foot, choking on air.
"I-I don't need anyone?!" Her voice tore in her throat, a ragged sob breaking as tears flooded her cheeks, soaking the collar of the sweater.
"I gave you my eternity! I let my immortality break for you! W-Why did you teach me to laugh?! Why did you ask me what I wanted if you were just... j-just going to throw me away?!"
The Fool's gaze dropped for a fraction of a second to the lopsided pink heart on her chest.
His jaw tightened until the bone showed.
Then his face turned to stone again.
"Throw the sweater away," he said.
"I only made it to see if I could."
He turned and walked out of the garden.
Behind him, Celestara collapsed to the grass, burying her face in the blue wool, choking on dry sobs that shook the earth.
The fairy spies hidden in the branches recorded every word she screamed.
Here is what they didn't see: inside his coat pockets, the Fool's fists were clenched so hard that his fingernails tore through his linen bandages, bleeding into the wool of his lining.
*
At that exact hour, in Manovalent's Garden, Lillieth stood before him in the ash.
The flower crown rested upon her white hair, fragrant and alive.
"I'm leaving, Lilli," the Fool told her, his voice flat.
"I love Celestara. I prefer her light. This is goodbye."
Lillieth's crimson eyes dilated in pure, suffocating horror.
The air froze. Her hands flew up to the blossoms at her temples, clutching the stems so tightly that green sap stained her pale palms.
She took 1 step back. Then her face twisted, not in grief at him, but in frantic, venomous realization—the explosion of a terror she had buried for 12 years.
"S-She showed you her body, didn't she?!"
Lillieth surged forward, slamming her hands against his chest, her voice shattering across the clearing in a ragged scream.
"T-That untouched, radiant goddess took off her robes for you! She used her body to seduce you away from me! T-Tell me she did! The golden thread... the starlight on your cuff... I knew it! I knew you went to her garden! She has her priests kissing her feet, an entire world singing her hymns, and she couldn't stand that 1 person loved me instead! She dragged you into her bed because she's a shameless, j-jealous whore!"
The Fool caught her wrists, his grip unyielding.
"She didn't seduce me, Lilli."
"Y-You're lying to me!" Tears scalded her pale cheeks as she fought his grip, whimpering into his chest. "Y-You loved me! You asked for permission to look at my face! You said my thorns were b-beautiful!"
"I chose her, Lilli," he said, his voice ruthless.
"You hide under a hood because you're terrified of your own face. You sit on this swing waiting for everyone to despise you so you can feel sorry for yourself. Celestara isn't afraid to stand in the sun. I'm tired of waiting for you to stop hiding."
Lillieth's strength vanished.
Her knees buckled, hitting the grey dirt.
Her withering aura detonated outward in an uncontrollable shockwave, shattering the dead oak trees into black dust for 5 miles.
"Y-You said I wasn't an omen..." she gasped into the dirt, coughing on ash and snot, her fingernails clawing through the soot.
"Y-You said... You said you l-loved me..."
"I changed my mind," the Fool said.
He let go of her wrists, stepped over the splintered wood, and walked into the fog.
The elven scouts hidden in the crags wrote down every line in their Hour-Books.
They also recorded that even as the petrified trees around her disintegrated to ash, the flower crown upon her head remained vibrant and red.
They couldn't understand why. They called it an anomaly.
*
Both sisters wept until their throats were raw.
And then sorrow calcified into murderous hatred.
She stole him from me.
My sister took the only thing that ever loved me.
In the great Hall of Hours, Celestara stood before the 12 Star Spirits and the High Elf host, her star-eyes blazing with cold, blinding light.
"I have given you 1,500 years of dawn," she proclaimed, her voice ringing off the crystal vaults. "Now you will give me 1 thing in return."
"Command us, Lady Celestara."
"Lillieth poisoned the only man who ever loved me! She dragged him into the Abyss and rotted his thoughts with foul curses! He didn't abandon me—she broke his mind until he spoke her words! A mortal doesn't choose decay unless an evil witch forced him! We march on the underworld! We butcher her demons, we tear her curse out of his head, and we bring him home!"
In the burning chasms of the Abyss, Lillieth stood before 40,000 demons and dragonics, her hood cast down, the flower crown blazing red upon her brow.
"Celestara stole him! That golden whore stripped naked and used her body to seduce who was mine! She has an entire empire bowing to her, and she still couldn't stand that he chose me! Demons! Dragonics! Burn her shining towers to the ground! Rip out her golden throat, and take him back!"
They were both wrong about why. They were both right about what they had lost.
Neither sister fought for territory or power. Each fought because she believed that by crushing the other sister's armies, she could break the spell, tear him free, and bring him home.
What followed was the greatest slaughter in the history of the world: The Reckoning Wars.
1. The First War:4 years. High Elves and Fairies clashed with Demons and Dragonborn across the Great Plains. Death toll: 47,000,000.
2. The Second War:7 years. Curses collided with starlight pillars. Oceans boiled away. Fault lines split the continents. Death toll: 114,000,000.
3. The Third War: The final catastrophe. Carnage so absolute that entire languages vanished in a single weekend. Death toll: over 170,000,000.
Over 330,000,000 lives snuffed out in 15 years.
And throughout the entire bloodbath, neither sister had him.
He had vanished from the earth.
Celestara wept in her war council: "Where has that witch hidden him?! Where is she keeping him locked away?!"
Lillieth screamed at her generals: "Where is he?! Where did that whore lock him up?!"
Neither could accept the 1 truth too terrible to bear: that he had simply walked away from both of them.
In the final weeks of the Third War, Celestara broke.
She could no longer stomach the slaughter. She abandoned her throne, fled to the ruins of Evensong Garden, and hid among the scorched rosebushes.
With Celestara gone from the field, the Fool appeared 1 last time in Manovalent's Garden.
He walked into the burning ash where Lillieth sat alone in her tattered hood, shivering among the corpses of her demon guard.
He knelt in the dirt before her.
Lillieth lunged at him, her fists slamming into his chest, her nails raking across his duster.
"Why did you come back?!" she sobbed, hitting his chest again and again. "You told me you were tired of me! You said I was just feeling sorry for myself! You chose her! I burned half the world looking for you, and you just walk out of the fog?!"
Her fists slowed. Her forehead dropped against his chest.
"The crown never died," she choked. "Every morning I woke up and checked. I hate you. It never died."
The Fool caught her wrists. He pulled her hood back, exposing her tear-stained face to the smoke-choked sky.
And for the 3rd time in her life, he pulled her into his chest and held her tight.
"Listen to me, Lilli," he said, his arms tightening around her trembling shoulders. "You were never a burden. You were never an omen. The way you were born was never a mistake... Thousands of years from now, people will look at your face with respect, not terror. I swear it on my soul."
He kissed her forehead.
"Now get up," he said, his voice flat. "Both of you have caused enough damage for 1 century. It's time to talk."
*
He brought them to the Glass Meridian—a floating plateau of solidified light suspended between the burning heavens and the ruined earth.
A single paper lantern flickered at its center.
Celestara stood on the glass, barefoot, her robes covered in ash, the blue sweater tied around her waist.
She saw the Fool walking toward her, his face bruised and pale. And then she saw Lillieth walking behind him.
Celestara's star-eyes flared white with fury.
"W-What did she do to your face?!" Celestara screamed, charging forward with blinding light gathering in her fists, her voice splintering into jagged fury. "D-Did that witch hurt you?! L-Lillieth, if you touched 1 hair on him—I smelled your disgusting ash on his coat for years, but if you hurt him, I will tear your throat out where you stand!"
"M-Me?!" Lillieth shrieked, the glass turning pitch black beneath her trembling boots as tears cut through the soot on her cheeks. "Y-You're the one who stole him! I f-found your starlight thread in his pocket, you blessed hypocrite! You flaunted your body to take the only person who ever looked at my face, and you dare accuse me?!"
"H-He chose you!" Celestara roared, her chest heaving with choked, breathless sobs. "H-He told me to my face he loved you!"
"He t-told me he loved you!" Lillieth cried, her voice cracking into a raw scream.
They stopped 20 paces apart.
2 goddesses who had butchered 330,000,000 souls over a single sentence.
The Fool stepped directly between them, waving his arms to push them apart.
"Stop screaming! Both of you, shut up!" he barked, rubbing his temples in utter exasperation.
"I have a massive headache, my ribs hurt, and you 2 have been screeching across the heavens for 15 years. Stand still and close your mouths."
Both goddesses choked on their fury, glaring at him in complete, stuttering shock.
"Y-You told her you loved her!" Celestara shouted, pointing a violently trembling finger at Lillieth.
"Y-You told her the exact same thing!" Lillieth shouted back, her lower lip quivering as she pointed at Celestara.
"Yes! I lied to both of you!" The Fool threw his hands in the air.
"I told each of you the opposite so you'd hate each other instead of letting Nemesis slaughter you! Congratulations, you killed 330,000,000 people over a bad breakup. Are you proud of yourselves?"
Neither sister spoke. The rage in their eyes shattered into stunned silence.
"Now," the Fool muttered, wiping soot from his jaw.
"Nemesis was never going to let us live. The moment your seals broke, our deaths were guaranteed. The wars were his design—he let them burn to grind your divine strength to dust. If I had stayed with either of you, he would have killed 1 of you in front of me to prove a point. I said the cruellest things I knew how to say so he would believe I had abandoned you."
Celestara's lips trembled. "Then... what was the war for...?"
"To break the Balance," the Fool said quietly. "And now, you 2 have to die."
The sisters stared at him in horror.
"You will be hanged," he said plainly.
"A soul Nemesis erases is destroyed forever. But a soul that dies through mortal execution can slip into the cycle and be reborn. 1 week of agony. That's the cost to end his reign forever, and make sure no daughter is ever born as his tool again."
He looked at each of them.
"Give me tonight. I will speak to each of you alone. If either of you says no in the morning, I will walk up to Nemesis myself and let him do whatever he wants to me."
Neither sister spoke.
Neither said yes.
Neither said no.
*
That night, the fairies were barred from the chambers.
They wrote what they heard, which was silence.
Here is what was actually spoken:
To Celestara, in her cell of woven starlight.
She sat on the stone floor, wearing the blue sweater, her knees pulled tight to her chest.
"Come here," the Fool said, stepping inside.
She didn't move. Her fingers clutched the crooked pink heart on her wool chest.
"Y-You told me to throw it away..." she whispered, her chin trembling violently, her voice cracked and raw. "Y-You stood right there in my garden and told me... told me you only made it to see if you could..."
The Fool sat down on the cold stone right beside her boots.
"I lied," he said plainly, nudging her knee with his elbow. "Look at those stitches. They're crooked and ugly. It took me 4 months of stabbing my own thumbs with iron needles. Did you honestly think I went through that much suffering just for a hobby? You're an idiot, your Radiance."
Celestara let out a wet, breathless gasp, half sob and half laughter.
She looked into his bruised, exhausted face.
"A-And the war? 330,000,000 people...?"
He didn't look away.
"That's my sin," he said, his voice flat and quiet. "I set the trap. I carry every single grave. But you are still sitting here breathing. That was the only thing I cared about."
Celestara broke. She threw her arms around his neck, burying her face into his collar, clutching his duster tightly against her chest.
"Y-You told her you loved her," she sobbed into his throat, her fingers knotting into the wool until her knuckles turned stark white. "I heard you on the glass... I-I heard you say it..."
"I told her what kept her alive," he murmured, wrapping his arms around her. "I'm telling you the truth. If I didn't care about you, why would I sit on freezing marble instead of sleeping? My back hurts."
"I h-hated her for 15 years," she whispered, her chest shuddering against his with small, broken whimpers. "I prayed for her death every single morning. A-And you were never even hers..."
"I was never hers," he said, brushing a tear off her cheek. "I'm yours. I've always been yours. But I need you to do 1 last ridiculous thing for me."
"Anything," she said instantly. "Ask."
"Let them hang you. Let the rope break the divine seal. Slip past Nemesis and get reborn in my time. Within a normal world where we can sit under a big tree and argue about storybooks. I'll wait for you. Have I ever been late?"
"N-Never," she whispered, a small whimper catching in her throat.
"Then stop crying," he murmured, wiping her nose with his coat sleeve. "You're getting snot on the sweater."
She laughed through her tears, nodding hard against his chest.
Then she went still.
"I-I never learned your name," she whispered. "20 years, and I never asked..."
"You'll learn it in our next life."
"T-Then give me something to remember until then."
She lifted her face to his.
The Fool cupped her cheeks in both bandaged hands and kissed her—slowly, carefully, his thumbs brushing the wet tracks under her eyes. She sank into it. Her fingers slid up into his hair and held him there, and neither of them pulled away for a long time.
The starlight woven into the cell walls dimmed, then brightened, in time with her breathing.
When they finally parted, she kept her forehead pressed to his.
"A-Again," she murmured against his lips. "Slower. I-I'm keeping this 1."
He kissed her again.
She believed him. That was the tragedy of it. In 20 years of apples, crates, and prayers, he had never lied to her about anything that mattered—except the 1 thing that saved her life.
*
To Lillieth, on the scorched glass plateau.
She knelt beside the broken chains of her swing, her hood pulled low over her eyes.
"D-Did you love her?" she asked, her voice hitching, small and hollow under the tattered fabric. "When she... when she took off her robes... did you love her?"
The Fool sat down on the jagged glass beside her, leaning back on his hands.
"Lilli," he said, shaking his head. "Do I look like a man who can be seduced? I get a headache just looking at her light. All that singing is obnoxious."
Her shoulders hitched violently beneath her coarse linen. "Y-You told me you wanted her light. You said I was just feeling sorry for myself... that you were tired of me..."
"I told you that so Nemesis would think I hated you," he said plainly. "If that monster knew I actually liked your terrible swing, he would have erased your soul on the spot. I had to insult you so hard he'd look somewhere else."
Slowly, Lillieth pushed her hood back. Her crimson eyes, raw and swollen from tears, stared at him.
"Y-You're lying to me again..." she whimpered, tears cutting hot paths down her soot-streaked face.
"I'm sitting on sharp glass in the freezing wind," the Fool muttered, rubbing his sore ribs. "If I didn't care about you, I'd be in bed. I hate my poor sleep schedule. And your swing is completely broken."
A shaky, breathless sound slipped past her lips—half a sob, half a laugh.
"I-If I burn," she whispered, shivering, "w-what happens to me?"
"You wake up in another life," he said, his voice quiet and sure.
"And I will find you. If you're born an outcast, I'll walk into your woods. If you hide behind another stupid hood, I'll pull it down and tell you to stop being dramatic. If you are reborn as a terrible cook, I'll eat the whole bowl and ask for seconds."
Tears spilled over her red eyes, but this time she was smiling through the shuddering in her jaw.
"And nobody will ever run away from your face," he said, reaching over to wipe soot from her cheekbone. "In that life, I'll bring you a rose, and it will grow because your fingers touched it. That is my promise to you, Lilli."
"P-Promise me you won't be late," she choked, a wet sob catching in her throat.
"I'm never late," he said. "Now scoot over. You're taking up the entire rock."
She didn't scoot over.
She grabbed his collar with both fists and dragged him down to her.
The kiss was hard, clumsy, and desperate. Her teeth caught his lower lip. Her nails dug through his coat into his shoulders, holding on so tightly that he couldn't have left if he tried. The flower crown slipped sideways in her hair. She didn't fix it.
When she pulled back, she didn't let go of his collar.
"Y-You're mine," she said, breathing hard, her red eyes an inch from his, her voice fierce and breaking. "In this life. In the next 1. In every single 1 after that. If my sister shows up in the next 1 too, I'll fight her again."
"Lilli—"
"S-Say it."
"I'm yours."
"A-Again."
"I'm yours, Lilli."
She kissed him again, softer this time, then buried her face in his neck and stayed there.
"...A-And nobody else loves you more than me," she mumbled into his skin, her breath warm and shaking.
"Yes... you do," he whispered.
She bit his shoulder.
*
In the morning, the 2 sisters walked out onto the Glass Meridian and said yes.
Neither of them said the truth out loud.
Each of them acted as if she was the only 1 he had chosen.
*
The execution took place at the center of the Glass Meridian.
Every race in the world was forced to assemble and watch.
On Day 2 of the Rope Week, a total solar eclipse blotted out the noon sky. Celestara was bound in heavy starlight chains and hoisted upon the wooden gallows—proving to the watching cosmos that even stars can choke.
On Day 5, a man in a dark duster coat stood beneath the gallows for the length of 1 candle.
The High Elf guards did not stop him. None of them could hold his gaze.
Celestara looked down at him through the ropes, her breath rattling, the blue sweater soaked in sweat and dying starlight.
"Is it done?" she whispered. "Is it safer yet?"
"Not yet," he said, his hand resting flat against the gallows beam. "2 more days of pain, and then the dawn begins."
"I'm not afraid," she said. A tear fell from her chin and dissolved into light. "Just tell me something true. Something I can hold when the rope tightens."
He looked up into her star-shaped pupils.
"You're really pretty," he said softly. "I always thought so. Even under all those robes. But you're gonna be really annoying in the next life. Clingy, whiny, and way too dramatic. But that's okay..."
Celestara's cracked lips curved into a weak smile. "I'm not clingy..."
"I know. But you will be, since we're gonna be together at childhood."
The candle guttered out.
"Okay," Celestara murmured, and closed her eyes.
On Day 8, at first light, Lillieth climbed the wooden steps carrying the Ashen Torch.
Her snow-white hair blew across her shoulders. The flower crown rested upon her head, its petals shivering in the high wind.
She stopped before her sister.
"He chose me, you know," Lillieth whispered, her knuckles whitening around the torch until her skin pulled translucent.
"That's why you're the Goddess that'll face her end."
Celestara looked down at her through the hanging ropes. Her starlight was dim, fluttering like a candle in a draught, but her eyes were calm and infinitely gentle.
"I-I'm glad he gave you comfort, sister."
"D-Don't pity me!" Lillieth's voice cracked, tears cutting hot channels through the soot on her face.
Celestara's breath hitched. A faint, trembling smile touched her cracked, blackened lips.
"D-Did he tell you... that he'll find you again in the next life?"
Lillieth froze.
The torch wavered in her trembling grip.
1 second passed. Then 2.
"...W-What?" Lillieth breathed, her crimson eyes widening in terror. "H-How do you...?"
Celestara looked down at the frayed, blue wool hanging over her ribs, at the crooked pink heart stitched with bandaged thumbs.
"H-He told me that too," Celestara murmured, a small, wet whimper escaping her throat before a silent tear rolled down her cheek into the ash.
Lillieth's knees almost gave way. The breath tore from her lungs in a jagged, strangled gasp.
The wind pulled at her white hair.
In that 1 second, both of them knew.
The same promise. The same private jokes.
The same man, sitting beside each of them on the very same night, whispering I'm yours twice.
They knew he had lied to both of them.
They knew he had cheated on both of them.
Neither of them knew why.
Maybe he loved both. Maybe he loved neither.
Maybe the real reason was buried under 330,000,000 graves where no living creature could ever dig it up.
And neither of them asked.
Because confronting the truth meant admitting that the only love that had ever kept them breathing was built on a lie. And losing him hurt 1,000 times more than being deceived.
They didn't accept the lie because they were weak. They accepted it because he had promised them an escape—a normal life in the next one.
A life where they were just ordinary girls, laughing under a summer tree, eating apples and arguing over silly books, free forever from the crushing balance of gods and the suffocating terror of their father.
If playing the fool was the price to reach that life, they would pay it willingly.
So they let him fool them.
2 goddesses who had seen the birth and death of galaxies looked at each other across the wooden gallows and chose, together, to pretend they hadn't seen the truth.
You knew too.
Of course you did.
"H-Hold still," Lillieth whispered, her chin quivering violently, tears streaming down into her collar. "T-This is going to hurt..."
"I-It already does," Celestara whispered back, her smile breaking into soft, radiant peace.
Lillieth touched the torch to the kindling.
The pyre ignited into a towering pillar of golden flame.
Celestara didn't scream. She threw her head back, lifting her chin to the weeping sky. The blue sweater caught fire, the yarn melting against her skin, the crooked pink heart burning black last of all.
Across the roaring inferno, her voice rang out like thunder—the quote that history, elves, and fairies would carve into the Hall of Hours for 12,000 years:
"Hang me from your heavens. Burn me until my starlight turns to ash. Erase my name from every prayer. A goddess dies today—but a normal girl will wake up tomorrow with the one she truly loves."
The elves wept as they carved it.
The fairies sang it through the centuries.
None of them ever understood that she spoke it while knowing he had lied to her.
She loved him anyway. That was the whole sacrifice.
On the night of Day 14, the Fool sat beside Lillieth on the scorched glass, at a distance of 1 pace, and said nothing for 3 hours.
She never asked him about her sister. Not once.
At dawn, he asked:
"Permission to look at your eyes?"
"Always." she said.
She let him look. She looked back. She kept every question behind her teeth.
7 days after the pyre, on Day 15, Lillieth walked out into the center of the glass plateau.
The solar eclipse was gone. The noon sun that her sister had forged beat down with merciless, blinding heat.
Lillieth reached up with both hands.
She pulled her hood all the way down, letting her white hair catch the wind.
The flower crown upon her head finally began to wither—the petals shriveling, the stems hardening into cruel, black thorns that sank deep into her skull and temples.
She didn't flinch. She didn't cry.
Liar.
My liar.
She looked straight up into Celestara's burning sun, smiled, and let the fire take her.
*
And so the 2 sisters died.
The elves wrote the Fool down as the man who foolishly loved their goddess.
The fairies wrote him down as the foolish man who dared to love a curse.
Both called him the Fool, because neither race could fathom a love so terrifying that it demanded the death of gods.
Now here is the part nobody wrote down.
When the smoke cleared, and the sun was still burning over the empty glass, the Fool stood alone for a very long time.
Light is gone.
Dark is gone.
Nemesis, the One True God, was immortal for exactly 1 reason: the Balance. The blessed and the cursed. The light and the darkness he had forged on purpose, kept on a leash. 2 daughters holding the scales in perfect tension, with him standing in the center.
The Fool had spent centuries and 330,000,000 lives walking both of them out of the Balance.
Why the Reckoner allowed it is the 1 question the offering answers, and nobody who knows the offering is talking.
What matters is what was left behind: a god with nothing left holding him up.
3,000 years later, Nemesis disappeared into the void.
The Fool vanished with him.
Nobody has ever asked the right question about that.
Did Nemesis leave?
Or did he finally become something that could die?
Leaving behind only a dying world, a rekindled sun, and a promise waiting 12,000 years to be kept.
...
Both girls reincarnated to their 2nd lives 12,000 years later.
One was named Celia, the other named Elfie.