Living in the Present

After meeting Biarn, I soon after met his father and mother as well, and both were as polite and welcoming as everyone else I’d met so far. We shared dinner, passing between us a few stories, before Biarn mentioned that Loali had asked him to lead me to her workshop the following moon. Vernae was quick to volunteer to join us, noting that he intended to speak with Itelber about something anyway, to which I definitely caught a pout from Biarn.

Biarn fit the archetype of a protective older brother to a tee, complete with rants about how his hunting accomplishments could translate to his ability to protect myself and Creyna from monsters. As he and his father escorted me through the tunnels to the workshop, which was at the farthest edge of the tunnels for safety’s sake, eventually Vernae pinched one of the feathers on the back of Biarn’s neck and pulled without plucking it, which made Biarn flinch.

“What was that for, dad?!”

“For exaggerating,” he said matter-of-factly, “your job is foraging, not hunting. Or have you been endangering the hunting parties by trying to fight monsters?”

“No...”

“Good, letting monsters get close to you means you’re not properly doing your job.”

“I know...” he pouted, “but I can fight them.”

“Biarn...” Vernae sighed, before he turned his attention to me. “He is strong enough around the village, even if he isn’t suited to hunting. Feel free to call for him again whenever you need to go somewhere, Danny.”

“I will.” I replied simply, since I didn’t want to get in the middle of the scolding. Alas, I was involved anyway.

“You know, Danny, there might be a favor you could do for me...” Vernae began, his voice barely audible to me at first, glancing between myself and Biarn as we walked behind him. Biarn definitely listened to every word, even if he feigned disinterest. “I got the impression when you were speaking before that you’re the thoughtful type. Sensible. While I admire my son’s courage and kindness, he’s got a tendency to act before he thinks. What would you say to the idea of attaching Biarn to you as a sort of guard for the next few moons or so? I’d give you full authority to order him around, and if he tried to peel off from you or do something dangerous you’d have my permission to give him an earful. Maybe you could get in his head and help him see his own recklessness. I’ll give him a separate earful myself if he does anything against your advice. How about it?”

I was immediately not fond of the idea. Spending a bit of time with Biarn was one thing, since for all the differences between them he still did provide me with a comforting presence that reminded me of my own older brother, but the thought of ordering him around felt mortifying. Even the idea that Biarn would be stuck with me against his will under his father’s orders left me feeling uncomfortable, without the “ordering him around” aspect to it.

“Dad, I’d be fine sticking with Danny when I’m not working, but that-”

“I don’t want to order him around,” I interrupted before Vernae could, stating my opinion plainly. Vernae let out a long breath.

“I understand, even if it's disappointing to hear. Regardless, feel free to scold Biarn if you catch him getting up to something, alright? Whether or not I order it, Biarn’s going to be sticking with you quite a bit for now, at least until your hearing improves or you improve your own defenses.”

“Is that alright with you?” I asked Biarn himself, and he nodded with a smile to his eyes.

“Like I said before, just holler if you need me. I’ve still got my job to do, but any other time you need to go somewhere let me know. I can drop you off before I leave and pick you up if you need me to.”

“I’ll count on you, then,” I responded, aware that that was exactly what Biarn wanted to hear, before I sent us off on a tangent. I didn’t want to let Vernae continue to steer the conversation, as hearing him scold Biarn was a familiar, awkward, and somewhat hollowing experience for me. Listening to Vernae try and redirect his son with the best of intentions keenly reminded me of the interactions between my own parents and brother, how they wanted him to focus on school and take less risks, and how this eventually caused plenty of arguments between them.

I even miss that...

“So, uh... do either of you use magic?”

“I’m not that great at using it, myself.” Vernae admitted, “My magic is reliant, so it's only useful in certain circumstances.”

“‘Reliant?’ I think I heard Loali use that word before.”

“It essentially means that I can’t generate magic without using outside conduits for it. A lot of people are like that, relying on magic devices or pure conduits to create magic. In my case I can use magic devices, but I have a hard time using conduits, so I generally don’t.”

“I’m reliant too, but so long as I’ve got something like this,” Biarn began as he gestured to the complicated weapon strung around his hip with leather, “I can attack with electricity.”

“Electricity? Isn’t that supposed to be rare?”

“Yeah,” Biarn replied, and suddenly I caught a distant look in his eyes. “Before you start asking, though, I don’t have the kinda control necessary to charge a device, alright?” I got the sense Loali had hounded him to do so in the past, and perhaps even tried to teach him magic device creation, so I let the subject drop there. We were nearing the workshop anyway, so our long walk was coming to an end.

As I started to wave Biarn goodbye, since Vernae was also coming in, Biarn briefly leaned over towards my ear.

“Let me know if Loali gets to be a bit too much, alright? I’ll do what I can to talk her down. I’ve experienced firsthand what it's like when she gets too interested in something.”

I didn’t respond, and as he gave me a pat on the shoulder and walked away I, again, felt uncomfortable, but this time for a harder to define reason. Something about what Biarn said drew me back to my life before this place, but to a part of it I had no desire to reclaim.

I knew Biarn hadn’t meant anything bad by what he said, that he only intended to offer me an avenue should I find it difficult to refuse Loali’s requests like he had, but his suggestion felt somehow wrong to me. Sticky. Unpleasant.

“...too interested...”

“She’s just so smart, isn’t she? She’ll talk your ear off about all kinds of things.”

“Why does she keep talking about that stuff? I wish she’d just talk about something else.”

“Why’re you so weird?”

“Wow, that’s fascinating... so what do you need at the grocery store tomorrow?”

“Can’t you just be quiet?”

“Isn’t she so quiet now? She’s really matured, hasn’t she?”

I quietly walked in with Vernae, only to be instantly greeted with two faces I recognized and one I didn’t, and forced a small smile on my face.

“Danny! I’m glad you’re here.” Loali’s excited voice brought me out of my own head a bit, and my smile grew. “This is Fridle, by the way,” she introduced the seraphid woman, Itelber’s wife, briskly as she took hold of my hand. “C’mon, I’ve got all kinds of things to show you. You’ve never seen a device that could freeze food in a second before, have you? Or did you have something like that too?”

“We had flash freezers that could do that with a bit more time. You really have a device that can do it in a second?” I responded, my mind briefly wandering around what I was familiar with as she dragged me along.

“Sure do. How do the ‘flash freezers’ work?”

“I think they use liquid nitrogen, which even in liquid form is way colder than regular ice and quickly freezes things it comes into contact with. There are a few more ways too, but I don’t know much about them.” I admitted, and she nodded.

“Well, I’ll just have to show you how this one works. Maybe you’ve got an ice affinity? Sometimes you can have affinities that only let you use elements in certain states, and since ice magic can be used to preserve things it's possible the bones didn’t visibly degrade because of your magic’s nature. I was thinking about that a lot last night,” she explained, “I noticed that the bones were filled a bit with magic, I just couldn’t clearly identify the affinity, so you do have magic. I mean, if you specifically had an ice affinity then the results would make sense, and there are always rare affinities I don’t know much about out there that could also explain the results.”

I like talking to her... even if she is a bit intimidating sometimes, I can't really see myself asking for someone to help me get away from her.

With that realization, I suppressed a chuckle.

“Maybe. So how do we test it?”

“We can’t do it easily, especially if you’re reliant since we don’t have the materials necessary to test every possibility, but I’ll figure it out.”