Back at the tavern, in the present.
Silence stretched for a long moment.
Ed Tonor didn't speak. He couldn't. His mouth hung open, his eyes fixed on Samael, and on his face reflected all the wonder and terror he had felt in that clearing twelve years ago.
As if he too had been there, hidden among the trees, watching two tigers with steel fangs size up the grandfather with their gaze and decide it wasn't worth it.
"Tigers… with steel fangs," he finally murmured, his voice barely a whisper, as if afraid those beasts might hear him even now, even here, in the tavern. "And your grandfather… your grandfather faced them with just words."
"Not just words," Samael corrected, his voice strangely soft, as if speaking to a frightened child. "With his presence. With the certainty that if they attacked, they would die. That, sometimes, is more powerful than any magic."
Ed nodded slowly. His hands, which had been trembling since Samael mentioned the steel fangs, stopped. His fingers, which had been drumming on the table with uncontrollable nervousness, now rested still.
There was something in his eyes that hadn't been there before. Something that wasn't fear, nor wonder, nor the alcohol.
Something that resembled understanding.
"And… and after that?" he asked, his voice hoarse but clear. As if, for the first time in months, he were completely sober. "After that, what happened?"
Samael looked at him for a long moment. In his eyes, for an instant, that warm light that had appeared before shone again. The light of a memory that still hurt, but that also, somehow, healed. Like a wound that no longer bleeds, but never fully closes.
"After that," he said, and his voice dropped a tone, becoming more intimate, "we went home. My grandfather made me something to eat—he, who had decided to give me nothing before the hunt—and let me sleep on his lap by the fireplace."
His voice grew softer, slower, as if each word were a step on a path he was walking carefully.
"He didn't wake me to train that afternoon. Not the next day either. We just stayed there, in silence, while the fire crackled and the shadows danced on the walls. The smell of burning wood, the warmth on my face, my grandfather's hand stroking my hair…"
He paused. For a moment, he seemed to be there again. On that lap. In that peace.
"And I, who had just discovered that the world was much more dangerous than I thought, felt safer than ever."
When he spoke again, his voice was barely an echo. As if the words came from very far away.
"Because I knew that even if tigers with steel fangs came, as long as he was by my side, nothing could hurt me."
The silence that followed was not uncomfortable. It was the silence of two people who have shared something that cannot be put into words. Something that exists in the space between them, in the still air of the bubble, in the shadows that the light of the magical bulbs cannot dispel.
Ed lowered his gaze to his empty glass. He saw his own reflection in the bottom of the crystal, distorted, almost unrecognizable. For an instant, he didn't know who that man was.
When he looked up again, his eyes were moist.
"I…" he began to say, but his voice cracked like a reed under the weight of the wind. He swallowed with difficulty, feeling the words get stuck in his throat. He tried again. "I want to feel that too. Someday. I want to feel that… that I'm not alone."
The words hung in the air. Small. Fragile. Like bubbles that could pop at any moment.
Samael didn't answer immediately. He just looked at him, with those dark eyes that seemed to see beyond the visible, beyond the drunkenness and shame, beyond the defeated man sitting across from him. As if he were seeing something that even Ed himself couldn't see.
Then, slowly, he took a grape from the plate and brought it to his mouth. He held it between his fingers for an instant, as if weighing not just the fruit, but also the words he was about to say.
"Who knows," he said, and in his voice there was something that could be a promise, or perhaps just a possibility. "The night is still young, Mr. Ed. And stories… stories have a habit of changing those who listen to them."
Outside the bubble of silence, the tavern continued its course. The laughter, the glasses, the out-of-tune piano. Someone had requested a cheerful song, and the pianist played it with agile fingers, making the notes jump like drops of water on a puddle. In the back, a couple laughed at something only they understood.
But inside, in that corner apart from the world, two people shared something that neither of them knew how to name. Something that had no name, perhaps, because it was too new, too fragile, too small still to be called.
And perhaps, at that moment, they didn't need to name it.
They just needed to keep listening.
°°°
The next morning arrived.
About a week had passed since little Samael had gone hunting with his grandfather.
Seven days. Seven sunrises. Seven occasions when the child woke up with sunlight on his face, dressed in his white tunic—no longer so white, with grass and earth stains impossible to fully remove—took his staff, and went out to train.
Seven days when the grandfather watched him in silence, with that mixture of pride and worry that had become his most habitual expression.
Even though the hunt hadn't happened the way the child thought. According to him, they were going to fight the monsters. He casting fire spells, his staff pointing to the sky, while his grandfather would cut down the magical beasts with his sword.
An epic battle, like those he had seen in book illustrations. Like the ones he imagined before sleep.
But in reality, it was the complete opposite.
There was no violence at all. No fire, no sword, no air-slicing or dazzling spells. Only mutual respect.
Not only from little Samael toward his grandfather. But also from the two predators they had encountered while hunting.
Those enormous tigers, with their steel fangs gleaming under the filtered forest light, had looked at the old man and decided it wasn't worth it. They had lowered their heads, taken a step back, and dissolved into the shadows as if they had never been there.
Although Samael didn't fully understand the lesson he was given—or rather taught—that day. His three-year-old mind, prodigious but still childish, couldn't fully grasp what had happened.
He couldn't put words to that moment. He couldn't understand what it was that his grandfather had deployed without even drawing his sword.
But, because of how awesome his grandfather had been, making those magical beasts step aside with just a few words, it seemed very impressive to him.
The authority with which his grandfather-teacher carried himself. That weight in his words, that gravity in his voice, that certainty that what he said was law.
Making wild beasts flee just by opening his mouth. Without needing to use a staff. Without drawing his sword. Without any spell, without any gesture, without any display of power.
Just the voice. Just the presence.
That's why, from that day on, without even knowing what this "presence" was, the child Samael began to practice that skill.
°°°
Clap. Clap.
A familiar sound. Very, very familiar to Samael's ear.
Even half asleep, even with his mind still caught in the cobwebs of sleep, his brain recognized that sound before his consciousness could name it. The axe against wood. The constant, measured, unmistakable rhythm.
His grandfather was already working.
Light bathed his face. His eyes were half open, because the golden-yellow ray prevented him from seeing well. The morning sun, which always slipped through the small window of his room, had arrived before him. As every morning.
He brought a hand to his forehead to shield himself and thus gain vision. The shadow of his own hand fell over his eyes, and for an instant, he could see. His room. The wooden walls. The sheep blanket tangled between his legs.
He turned to the other side, and everything seemed very dark. Even though it really wasn't. After being in the light so long, the whole room had darkened for him. His pupils, small and contracted, were slow to adjust.
"Why can't I see now?" the child wondered, as he sat up in bed.
The blanket fell to his waist. The morning air, fresh and clean, caressed his skin. After a while, as he blinked over and over, the room began to clear.
The shadows dissolved. The contours defined themselves. The wooden wall, the small shelf where he kept his things, the staff leaning in the corner, always in the same place.
"My face is very hot," he murmured, placing his hand on his forehead.
The heat burned a little in his palm. It wasn't a feverish burn, no. It was something different. It was the heat of the sun that had been hitting him directly for who knows how long.
He covered his feet with the blanket again, as if the cold of the floor could reach him even though he was still in bed.
"Hmm…"
Something seemed very strange to him. A thing that, even though his brain was only three years old, struck him as out of place.
A detail that didn't fit. Like a wrong note in the middle of a familiar song.