Chapter 36: Sorting
It was a beautiful day in D’Claire estate, flowers were blooming, birds chirped somewhere in the distance, but Lucien could hardly hear them over the thundering of his own pulse in his ears.
He lay flat on the grass like a fallen soldier, arms sprawled out, chest heaving, completely spent.
Every fiber of his being screamed in protest, every muscle trembling like overdrawn strings on a lyre.
A shadow passed over him, blocking the sun.
“Well,” came a familiar voice, dry and lightly amused, “have you passed on to the afterlife already, or are you just doing your best impression of a dead fish?”
Lucien cracked one eye open, peering up through the sweat dripping down his forehead.
“Coming from you, that’s rich,” he rasped, voice hoarse.
“After what you made me do last time in the name of training, I’m surprised I’m even still in this life.”
Vaelira folded her arms and cocked an eyebrow, her lips twitching with the effort not to smile.
“Yes, I did make you run,” she replied, “but I don’t recall ever suggesting you charge around the estate like a mad bull trying to break its own legs. What is this? A one-man death march?”
Lucien let out a breath that was almost a laugh, or perhaps a sob in disguise.
“Well, seeing as how you never taught me anything beyond ‘Run, Lucien, or I’ll feed you to the dogs,’ I had to get creative.”
Vaelira rolled her eyes but chuckled softly as she extended a hand. “Hopeless.”
She hauled him up with more effort than she’d admit, Lucien was deceptively heavy when drenched in sweat and shame, and half-dragged him toward a nearby bench beneath a flowering cherry tree.
The branches swayed gently in the wind above them as she set him down like a broken sack of potatoes.
A passing maid, no doubt used to Lucien’s early morning disasters by now, quietly placed a chilled silver goblet into his trembling hands.
He downed it in one gulp like it was the elixir of life.
Vaelira, standing beside him with her arms crossed and a thoughtful expression on her face, cleared her throat.
“I’m not going to ask why you’re acting like you’ve got to fight a war all by yourself,” she said finally, “but I’m also not going to stand by and watch you work yourself into the grave.”
Lucien blinked at her, still too tired to come up with a clever retort. She continued.
“You’re driven. I’ll give you that. And you’ve got that stupid stubbornness that all tragic heroes seem to carry like a badge of honor.”
She exhaled.
“So I’ll help you.”
He looked at her now, fully.
Surprised, maybe even a little grateful, but wary, as always.
Vaelira smiled, but there was no softness in it, only honesty.
“But let’s not pretend you’re some sword prodigy,” she said bluntly, “because you’re not.”
Lucien let out a sound that was part snort, part wheeze.
“Ouch.”
“I’m serious,” she said, unwavering.
“You’re slow on your feet, you telegraph your swings, and you flinch every time someone so much as swings a stick at you.”
“Please,” Lucien coughed.
“My pride can only take so much.”
“But,” Vaelira went on, ignoring him, “you can become competent. Functional. The kind of fighter who lasts long enough to either escape or throw a surprise spell in someone’s face.”
Lucien looked at her with a weak grin.
“So basically, the guy who lives long enough to cheat.”
“Exactly,” she said, smiling now.
She stepped closer, placing her hand on the back of the bench, and nodded toward him with a touch more gravity.
“You’ve got something else. Something rarer. Your magic, whatever the hell it is, doesn’t follow the rules. And I think that’s your real weapon. That, and your silver tongue.”
Lucien blinked.
“My tongue?” he asked, mildly scandalized.
“Your ability to talk your way out of things, Lucien,” she sighed.
“Let’s not make this weird.”
He laughed, despite himself, a raw little chuckle that came out more like a bark.
“Right. Well, that’s high praise coming from you.”
Vaelira arched a brow.
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
Lucien leaned back against the bench, eyes closing as a breeze passed over them, cooling the heat of exertion still radiating from his skin.
“It’s enough,” he said after a pause.
“If you can teach me just enough to survive a duel until I can come up with a plan, or, if the stars align, cast something explosive enough to turn the tables… that’s enough.”
Vaelira chuckled again and reached over to pat his shoulder.
“Very well, strategist. We’ll make a passable swordsman out of you. And maybe- just maybe- teach you how not to die in the first three seconds.”
Lucien raised his goblet in mock salute.
“To unreasonable goals and stubborn teachers.”
She grinned. “To hopeless students and mysterious magic.”
The wind rustled the cherry blossoms, scattering a few pale pink petals between them.
And though the pain lingered in Lucien’s limbs, and the fire still smoldered behind his eyes, in that moment, beneath the tree and the banter, he felt a flicker of calm.
The kind of calm that comes when the path, however unclear, begins to feel like yours.
And just as the calm was settling.
“Lady Vaelira, Master Lucien, if you would, please.”
Sir RIchardson manifested behind them.
***
The heavy double doors to the manor’s main hall creaked open, sunlight streaming through the tall windows to illuminate the polished floors.
Lucien and Vaelira stepped in, their footsteps echoing in the cavernous room that only days ago had been filled with tension, gold-gilded contracts, and the smell of strong tea during the negotiations.
Now, however, the scent was entirely different.
Fruity.
Sweet.
Pungent, even.
Both of them slowed to a stop as their eyes adjusted to the sight before them, dozens of wooden crates, stacked and organized with military precision, each filled to the brim with glistening red, green, and golden apples.
It was absurd.
It was surreal.
It was a harvest festival’s worth of apples stuffed into a negotiation chamber.
“Are those....?”
Lucien began, blinking.
“Yes,” Vaelira said flatly beside him.
“They are.”
Standing off to the side, just near the crates, was Terrin, face slick with sweat, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a proud grin plastered across his face as he dabbed himself with a handkerchief like a general victorious after a long campaign.
Richardson took his place beside him with his usual soldier’s posture, arms clasped behind his back.
He cleared his throat with practiced authority.
“These,” he said, sweeping his arm out like a royal presenting the crown jewels, “are the fruits of the first harvest.”
Lucien glanced at Vaelira, then back at the crates.
Literal fruits.
A whole damned orchard’s worth.
“Well,” Lucien said after a pause, “congratulations are in order. That’s quite the-”
“Don’t congratulate us just yet,” Richardson interrupted, stepping forward.
With swift, almost theatrical ease, he placed one broad, calloused hand on each of their shoulders.
The weight was light, but the intent was heavy.
“Because now it’s your turn to work.”
Lucien’s mouth opened slightly.
Vaelira raised an eyebrow.
“I… I beg your pardon?”
Lucien asked, already sensing doom approaching on horseback.
“The apples,” Richardson said calmly, “have been harvested. Which means now begins the real labor.”
He turned them both gently by the shoulders to face the wall of crates directly.
“Sorting.”
Vaelira blinked.
“Sorting?”
Richardson gave a curt nod.
“Tiering. Grading. Separating by quality, by appearance, by size, and maybe perhaps by magical resonance for the infused batch. As you two were the ones who proposed this categorization scheme, brilliant, by the way, I’ll admit, it falls to you to set the first standards.”
Lucien stared at the crates like they were the gates to hell.
“There are…”
He whispered, almost to himself, “there are so many.”
“Eight thousand, three hundred and twenty-two, last I counted,” Terrin chimed in proudly, wiping his brow.
“And we picked those in just under three days. Ain’t nature grand?”
Lucien turned his head slowly.
“Is it too late to redact the proposal and pretend we never suggested it?”
Vaelira sighed beside him, her arms already crossing defensively.
“Surely the estate staff can help-”
“Not today,” Richardson said, tone final.
“This first batch must be examined personally. By the originators of the method. We need to set the visual criteria that future staff will use to sort the apples moving forward. If the bar isn’t consistent, we may end up devaluing the whole process.”
“So,” Lucien said, half-laughing in disbelief, “we’re basically quality control for thousands of apples.”
“Yes,” Richardson said with a nod.
“Manual quality control.”
“Correct.”
“And we can’t, perhaps, use magic to expedite the process?”
Vaelira added, voice tight with fading patience.
Richardson sighed.
“If either of you know a spell that can instantly assess ripeness, magical conductivity, external sheen, structural firmness, and aesthetic appeal simultaneously, please, be my guest.”
Vaelira gritted her teeth.
Lucien looked at the crates again.
His knees felt weak.
The aches from his earlier training came rushing back tenfold.
The scent of apples began to grow oppressive.
Almost mocking.
And in that moment, all other thoughts left him.
Revenge, power, survival, destiny, they all faded into a single, horrifying vision:
An apple-flavored grave.
“I always knew fruit would be the death of me,” Lucien muttered grimly.
Vaelira, suppressing a laugh, elbowed him.
“Get used to it,” she said.
“At this rate, they might name a tier after you.”
“‘Lucien Grade’: bruised and emotionally unstable.”
Terrin laughed heartily from the side.
Richardson simply turned toward the crates.
“You have until evening. You’ll find gloves, knives, and inspection boards ready by the sorting tables. Let me know when you’ve finalized the tiers.”
And with that, the old knight strode out like a man who had just passed down a divine punishment.
Vaelira and Lucien remained frozen.
The apples gleamed in the light.
Silently, solemnly, Lucien reached into one of the crates and pulled out a pristine crimson apple.
He stared at it like it owed him money.
“I’m going to dream of these tonight,” he muttered.
“And not in a good way.”
Vaelira sighed.
“Well. Let’s get to work before I start magically immolating these things out of spite.”
And so began the legendary battle of Lucien, Vaelira, and the 8000 Apples.
A war waged not with swords or spells, but with bruised fingers, bitter sighs, and the quiet resignation of two young nobles realizing that brilliance always came at a cost.
***
Midnight, Somewhere Between Sanity and Apple-Scented Madness.
The grand hall, once a beacon of political maneuvering and highborn elegance, had transformed into a battlefield of wooden crates, apple peels, sweat-stained handkerchiefs, and fraying tempers.
Candles flickered low in sconces along the wall, barely illuminating the mountain of sorted and unsorted apples that loomed like red-and-gold sentinels.
Lucien, hunched over a splintered sorting table, held up an apple in one trembling hand, its surface gleaming with a sheen he could no longer determine was wax, juice, or tears.
“This is evil,” he muttered hoarsely, “an evil fruit born of an evil tree raised by an evil soil under an evil sun.”
“You were the one who said tiering the apples would give us brand identity,” Vaelira groaned from the other side of the table, her once-perfect posture now reduced to a slouch worthy of an exhausted librarian.
“You said it would give us narrative flavor!”
“I was being poetic, not signing a death sentence!”
A crate rattled as Vaelira tossed an apple inside with the energy of a woman flinging her hopes and dreams into the abyss.
“I hate these apples,” Lucien said, voice flat and eyes glassy.
“I hate you,” Vaelira replied just as deadpan.
“I hate me. I hate this plan.”
“I hate Terrin.”
“I really hate Terrin.”
“I hate Richardson.”
“I hate the trees. Every single one of them. Burn them all.”
“I hate the word ‘crates’ now,” Lucien whispered.
“I’ll never look at wood the same way again.”
“I hate economics. I hate business models. I hate ambition.”
They stared blankly at each other for a long, silent moment.
Then, together, as if rehearsed:
“I hate this.”
Their muttering curses became the soundtrack to the night, the rustle of apple skins, the clink of wooden crates, the occasional deranged giggle.
Their fingers were sticky, their spines were bent, their souls spiritually bruised.
At some point, perhaps three, maybe four in the morning, they were too tired to keep bickering and too delirious to stop.
They labored like ghosts, stumbling from crate to crate, whispering nonsensical criteria to each other.
“Shinier than Vaelira’s forehead after training? Tier A.”
“Less round than my hopes? Tier C.”
“Looks like it has trauma? Tier B.”
“Same.”
The Next Afternoon – A Whole Day Later.
Sunlight streamed through the windows as it had when their torment first began, but now it felt cruel.
Mocking.
Lucien and Vaelira sat slumped over the final crate, the last apple gently placed inside like a funeral offering.
The hall was immaculate, every apple sorted into neat, labeled stacks, each crate now bearing hand-scrawled markers in Lucien’s increasingly illegible handwriting.
The room smelled like cider, sweat, and despair.
Richardson entered with a slow, approving clap.
“Well,” he said, voice warm with genuine praise, “I must admit, I wasn’t sure you two would survive this. But you did. Fine work. The standards you’ve set will carry this operation for years.”
Lucien didn’t move. His eyes were glassy, his face pale, his body limp on the edge of the table.
A single tear rolled down his cheek, cutting a line through the thin layer of grime and apple pulp on his face.
Vaelira turned to him and gave him a tired but warm smile, genuine, affectionate, and proud.
“It’s over,” she whispered.
“We did it. We actually did it.”
Lucien turned to her slowly, like a man recovering from a coma.
His lips quivered.
“I just realized something…”
Vaelira tilted her head.
“Hmm?”
He blinked.
Twice.
Then, in the softest, most broken voice imaginable, said:
“We could have just sorted one apple per tier and left the rest for the staff to follow as examples.”
Silence.
Utter, crushing, bone-deep silence.
Vaelira’s smile froze.
Her left eye twitched.
Once.
Twice.
Then she sat down, very slowly, very deliberately, on the cold stone floor.
She said nothing.
She made no sound.
She just… stared into the middle distance, like she had glimpsed the Abyss, and the Abyss had been holding an apple.
Richardson sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“I was wondering when that would occur to one of you.”
Lucien sniffled.
“You… you knew?”
“I hoped you’d figure it out before sorting crate number seventy-two,” Richardson said, folding his arms.
“But I also suspected that sheer youthful pride would keep you too stubborn to question the process.”
Vaelira still hadn’t moved.
Lucien was now gently weeping, his face a masterpiece of snot, grime, and existential regret.
Outside the hall, somewhere in the orchard, a breeze passed through the trees, rustling the leaves and making the apples sway gently, mockingly, in their branches.
Fate, it seemed, had a cruel sense of humor.
And it tasted like apples.
***
