While they racked their brains for a suitable rationale, another group was equally at a loss.
Specifically, the younger villagers who opposed the elders.
This youth faction often clashed with the elders over a fundamental conflict of beliefs.
Given the dangers inherent to forest life, they considered it natural to heed those with superior abilities because that benefited everyone; in their eyes, those who’d merely been alive a long time should step aside if their skills were inadequate.
In other words, where the elders prized tradition and oral history, the young faction favored meritocracy above all.
If the elders had real talent—specifically, tangible combat or magic abilities—then the younger generations would happily follow them. Unfortunately, none of them did. And having these mediocre old folks breathing down their backs was incredibly galling.
This conflict had yet to cause outright hostility because the four most respected village leaders—the hunt master, Blueberry Egnia, the apothecary master, and the ritual master—did not want them going to war with the elders.
But now a stone had been thrown.
Aura’s arrival.
Though she was an outsider, her words carried weight with them because she was an incredibly skilled ranger. They respected her as much as they did the four leaders they’d long admired. Perhaps more, even.
They were keen to know her thoughts.
And her devotees were the most extreme members of the youth faction.
“So now what?” one of the devotees asked, his eyes never moving.
His gaze was glued to the gifts Aura’s uncle had brought. No one had volunteered to handle distribution, so they’d been carried to the elf tree used as a communal storage space.
“Who’s gonna take charge here? The elders?”
That was the expected answer. Sticking their nose in this kind of business was what the elders always did. Normally, the youths would maneuver to parcel everything out before the elders showed up, but this time, nobody made a move. Instead—
“That might be for the best.”
They were more than happy to leave it to someone else.
Once again, their respect for Aura was a factor here.
Ever since she had arrived, they noticed Aura didn’t possess any particularly fancy manners. This suggested such customs had died off outside the village, or those with real skill simply didn’t bother with such things. That gave the youth faction confidence they had been right all along.
But then came her uncle, Ain Bell Fior. Meeting him had given them doubts.
He was a dark elf—possibly with some elf blood mixed in—but they’d understood only half his greeting. It was hard to imagine he’d say anything meaningless at such a significant moment, so his greeting must have been following the etiquette the elders always went on about.
Aura may have shown no signs of it, but her uncle clearly did value those things.
What was the difference?
No one said it aloud, but everyone knew.
✦ ✦ ✦
She was a child, and he was an adult.
✦ ✦ ✦
And their uncle specifically asked that the children be allowed to play. Despite her raw talent, in his eyes, she was just a kid.
That seemed unfathomable.
Certainly, in a place as harsh as the forest, children’s first lessons were anything but manners. There were far more vital survival skills to impart.
So it made sense that a kid wouldn’t know any finer etiquette, and even their own village elders had never gone so far as to drill manners into the children.
The real problem here was that Aura’s uncle had made no effort to demonstrate any of his etiquette until the elders showed up.
Had he viewed the gathered crowd as children, merely a tad more mature than Aura? No one there, youth faction or not, had attempted to show good manners. And how would a grown-up act around children who lacked that knowledge?
There wasn’t much reason to pull out any formal greetings with that kind of audience. Adults would just meet kids at their level.
Turned out the manners they’d dismissed as meaningless had meaning after all. They were a sign of respect, and this visitor had offered that exclusively to the elders.
No one had missed the significance of that.
“If her uncle thinks we’re a bunch of overgrown kids and we pass out his gifts—he’ll assume the village is run by children. Otherwise, he’ll consider us a bunch of barbarians who don’t even know basic manners.”
“Maybe he won’t go so far as to deem us children based purely on our ignorance, but…maybe he will. And if he does, when he goes back to the city, he’ll tell everyone the dark elf village had a bunch of kids acting like they were big shots.”
“…That’d be the worst.”
“I agree. Turning our village into a laughingstock…wouldn’t feel great.”
“…Does that mean the reason he wasn’t super formal from the start was because he wanted to test us?”
“Yeah, and if we’d shown that we know proper manners, Fior would have changed his tune.”
That sure felt like they’d fallen into a trap. But perhaps it hadn’t been a malicious one. What benefit would he have from engaging them on that level? Unless he was just an asshole. They couldn’t rule that out.
“…It don’t sit right, but we’re gonna have to leave all that proper crap to the fossils.”
The elders had demonstrated impeccable etiquette, so Aura’s uncle had naturally responded in kind. They could assume he planned to treat them with respect. If the elders were the ones who passed out the gifts, he wouldn’t think anything of it.
“Yeah, if we just wait, the elders will step in soon enough. The only other option is to ask someone who wasn’t there. That’d leave the apothecary or the ritual master. Thoughts?”
“They’ll scoff at the idea. Especially the apothecary master.”
The apothecary master did his best to stay out of these conundrums, and if they went to the ritual master, he’d just point them toward the elders.
“Right, I guess that settles it. We’ll just handle the tasks we’ve been given. Let’s get moving.”
“Yeah, sounds like a plan. Then later…should we get the elders to teach us basic manners?”
Everyone winced.
They’d spent ages insisting those were a waste of effort. But the next time outside talent arrived expecting a formal greeting, they’d need to change if they didn’t want to be treated like children.
Still, bowing to the elders sucked.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, all sighed.
“Also, we were supposed to throw a banquet once Fior and his nephew arrived, but what’s up with that? I’m sure that involves a ton of etiquette stuff. And we’d just disgrace ourselves.”
“The feast itself is one thing, but we can’t have him thinking the whole village is just rude children. We’d better let the elders run the banquet prep.”
“Good idea. Knowing them…much as I hate to admit it, they know their way around that sort of thing.”