17 – Influence

At the crack of dawn, Mia knocked on my door. For how late she went to sleep yesterday, she was very punctual. Especially since I’d heard her get up and prepare half an hour ago.

After I called for her to enter, magical lamp already turned to a human-visible level, the door opened.

“Good morning, Lor– eek!”

Somehow, Mia managed to jump almost a full meter straight backwards without falling over. Her hands were pressed to her mouth, stopping the surprised yelp from turning into a full-on scream. It was still quite loud on all the sensitive ears in my room.

Luckily, no one was anywhere nearby in the manor.

Nearly two dozen pairs of eyes were locked on her slightly shaking form, framed by the doorway.

“Good morning to you too, Mia.” I looked up from scratching two different younger rats lounging on my lap.

It took Mia a minute to regain her composure.

“Lo-Lord Steelheart, r-r-rats!” she stammered.

I looked around at the room full of them. “Indeed, rats. I did tell you I was going to try my hand at catching some. As you can see, I succeeded. Say hi, everyone.” What followed, invisibly, was a difficult effort to coordinate what I wanted with the twenty-two rats I’d bonded.

Visibly, all the rats – except the two spoiled ones in my lap – lifted one of their front paws towards Mia. I smiled.

Needless to say, I hadn’t found the limit of how many bonds I could maintain at once yet. I’d also, thankfully, quickly learned how to block out the passive emotion transfer from my bonds. Otherwise, I’d be going insane right about now.

Mia was still standing far away from the door, heart racing. She was pale. I could almost swear the girl was slowly turning green.

“Are you okay?” I hadn’t really considered Mia when assembling my entourage. In my mind, she was already privy to most of my important secrets, so this shouldn’t be a big issue. Especially since my little friends were so well behaved.

“R-rats. I’m afraid of them.” Mia’s voice was barely a squeak. If it wasn’t for my enhanced hearing, I wouldn’t have understood her at all.

“Oh. Um.” I coughed into my fist. “Sorry about that. Hey everyone, can you leave for now?”

Within a minute, the room was clear. All the rats had neatly filed out through a gap in the window, though I’d kept the curtains drawn. For obvious, dawn-related reasons.

When she was sure they weren’t coming back, Mia stepped into the room. Once the door was closed, she leaned back against it.

“I hate you right now,” she whispered, barely putting any breath into it.

“Look, I really am sorry. I didn’t know, nor think about it. I can let them know to stay away from you if you want. Do you want to talk about it?”

Mia let out a long sigh, sliding down the door into a sitting position.

“I believe that you didn’t do it on purpose. That doesn’t change just how much I hated that just now. I… I’ve been scared of rats since I was a child.” She paused. I waited patiently.

“I don’t remember it, but my parents told me I almost got eaten by rats when I was a toddler. It was a bitter winter, so they became more bold in searching for food. I’d crawled away from my parents’ sight for a moment and they rushed over when they heard me crying…

“I still have some scars from where I was bitten. My mother says it’s a wonder I survived at all. So yeah, I really don’t like rats.”

By now, she’d balled herself up, chin on her knees. I was left stunned for a long while, unsure what to say.

“Now I’m doubly sorry, wow. Uh, next time something like this comes up, please, please tell me beforehand? I can’t read your mind, not that I would without permission even if I could. So you’ll have to let me know, okay?”

Mia gave me a tired nod in return. “I’m also sorry for disrupting your plans this morning. You wanted to go see the prisoners?”

I waved her concerns away. “Bah. Don’t worry about it, we’re all scared of what we’re scared of. Just for clarity’s sake, if I walked into your room and your window was open letting sunlight in, I would probably react very similar. And before we go, there are some things I feel I need to test on a human who can give me feedback first.”

She looked up at that. “Like what? It’s nothing dangerous, is it?”

“Well, one is basically harmless, but the other is potentially dangerous. Not directly though. More by implication. Neither of these things will hurt your body, if that’s your worry.”

“Alright, explain what you want to do.” Mia’s gaze was a little suspicious.

“First is the blood bond. You know how I told you about that first chicken, that I fed it some of my blood? By doing that I can create a connection between me and another being. In a case like the chicken, it allowed me to fully control its mind, but as I learned with the rats, it depends on mental strength. So you don’t need to be worried about me puppeting you around or anything. I can also break the bond at any time, so you don’t even need to keep it if you don’t want. I just need you to tell me what it feels like on your end.”

“I– hmm.” Mia pondered it for a minute or two, face locked into a frown.

“Swear you won’t use this to harm me and that you will remove it immediately after the test is done. Then I’ll allow it.”

“I swear to abide by your conditions.”

“Good. So I have to drink your blood now?”

“Err, yes. This might be a bit awkward. Here.” I cut a small incision on the ball of my hand and held it out to her. “You don’t need to drink it directly, but it has to be fresh. So feel free to wipe a drop off with your finger or whatever.”

The freshness requirement was something I figured out with the help of my abundant lab-rats. It was a little inconsistent in what ‘fresh’ meant, but ‘before the blood dries’ was an easy option.

Mia gingerly did just what I recommended, gathering the blood on the tip of her finger. Then she stared at it anxiously for a bit.

Just when I was about to say something, she brought the droplet to her lips and licked it. She pulled a face for a second, then turned to me with a questioning gaze.

“Is something happening?”

“Yes, do you feel anything?” I could tell the bond was forming. It wasn’t to the point of transferring emotions yet, but I already got the direction.

“No…” Mia looked thoughtful. The bond was fully formed by now, hair-thin though it was.

“The bond allows me to feel the other’s mind, receiving emotions and possibly even thoughts. I’ve blocked this for now. I’m sure you could also learn to actively block it if you wanted. For now, do you still not feel anything?”

With concern over my previous statement clearly written all over her face, Mia shook her head.

“Hmm.” ‘What about now?’ Mia jumped a little at my mental message. It also wasn’t in words, exactly, but much closer than my correspondence with the rats.

“Yeah, there is… something there. I didn’t notice it until just now. Was that you?”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Indeed, the bond allows for mental communication. Only at very close range, but still potentially useful, I’m sure you would agree. Try actively sending something back, now that you know it’s there.”

Her face scrunched up in concentration, it was several minutes until I received a jumbled mess of nonsensical thought-tangle from Mia. Immediately following it came a sense of realization, though she quickly cut it off.

Another minute later I received a close approximation of ‘I think I got it now.’

“Good job. I have a bit more practice with this than you, so don’t worry that it took a moment. Also, it is much easier from my end, from what I gathered.”

“Yes, it’s hard to make the thing do what I want. Even now, when I know it’s there, it can be hard to – I don’t know how to describe it – find it? If you didn’t tell me about it, I would’ve had no idea.”

“You don’t receive any bleed-over of emotions from me?” As far as I was aware, I wasn’t blocking anything outgoing, only incoming from Mia.

“Nothing of the sort. When you’re not actively sending anything, the connection is basically invisible. Well, it’s always invisible, you know what I mean.”

“Good to know.” I scratched my chin. “If it’s okay with you, can I stop blocking your end for a bit? I want to know what it feels like with a human. Well, an awake human anyway. At the same time, we can try to have you block it from your end.”

Hesitation was writ large all over Mia’s posture and face. Still, she relented with a sigh. I released my block.