SEVENTY-ONE: Where’s the Really Sharp Knife?

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Another two weeks blurred past. Neha’s schedule filled half of Alden’s days, and his own side projects more than filled the rest of his time.

He had his first of three interviews at CNH. It was in-person but just ten minutes long. Only B-ranks had to attend the first interview, and Alden had the strong impression that the whole point of it was to discourage them from applying. The questions had all walked a razor’s edge between professionalism and insult.

“Do you think your disadvantages will prevent you from being a valuable part of a hero team?”

“How will you keep up with coursework designed for people more super-abled than you?”

“What will you do if you spend the next several years of your life pursuing this only to be unemployable as a superhero?”

Joke’s on you, thought Alden while his mouth spouted a pre-prepared statement about how he would never give up on his dreams. I’m just here for the best government-funded Avowed education on the island. Unemployment is so far down on my worries list these days that you can’t scare me with it.

The questions weren’t personalized. He knew because they didn’t ask anything about the commendation or his time on the Triplanets. No way that was getting left out of the real interviews that were coming up next month.

Alden’s entrance timing was going to be a little awkward. He was too late for the quarter-schedule classes starting in October, but waiting until January to start the new quarter was a waste of time. So once he jumped through all the hoops and, hopefully, became a student, he’d be polishing off the second half of classes he was confident in and taking their final exams for credit. And he’d be auditing some others so that he’d be better prepared for them when they started back up.

It would work out. For obvious reasons, Avowed schools were set up to slot in new kids year-round.

Alden was getting the usual package of Avowed-life orientation classes out of the way at least. They were all offered in some form at the dorm.

He’d already done the three on basic Artonan etiquette. He was concerned about how basic it was, for his fellow students’ sakes. But he guessed it was different for most of them. If you were only getting summoned half a dozen times in your life, did you really need to do a deep dive into an alien culture that was fairly good about accommodating other species on its own end of things?

Yes.

The others didn’t agree with him, though. It was mostly the Rabbits and the other people with specific subclasses known to be popular with the Artonans who took the extra etiquette classes. Them and the alien fans.

Alden skipped out on those since they weren’t required, and he’d covered way more with his friend Klee-pak.

But he still had to attend five sex-ed lessons with Gustavo and a Wright counselor named Gretchen, in a large auditorium full of teenagers in various states of hilarity, mortification, and horror.

Once you got over the subject matter, you could appreciate the necessity of the things. Even the first two classes—which were the Earth-focused ones—were kind of important. A lot of people came from cultures where sex education wasn’t standard. And nobody came from a culture where the superhuman version of it was standard.

The slides—because of course there had to be a slideshow—said petrifying things like, “That spell impression doesn’t work there.” And, “Stat differences matter more than you think they do.”

By the time they reached the interspecies lessons, Alden felt like he’d gained an amazing new power.

I’m no longer capable of feeling embarrassment, he thought, staring at a slide that was just a picture of a griveck with the word NO! written on it in twelve major languages. I hit some lifetime maximum a while back, and now blushing is a thing of the past for me.

Apparently it wasn’t the same for his fellow victims.

<<I don’t want to be here,>> Paolo hissed. <<What kind of crazy person needs to know this much? Why do I have to be here?>>

Several of the other Rabbits Alden had been sitting with during this wonderful bonding experience were nodding in agreement.

“It’s because the pH level of your partner is almost as important as their clear and undeniable consent,” said Alden, pointing at a slide that said exactly that.

Everyone stared at him.

He marveled at how much he did not care.

“I’m made of steel,” he told Boe on one of his daily phone calls.

He was on another rental bike, on his way to meet with a parkour club Bobby had introduced him to. They were mostly low-rank Brutes, but not all. The group was welcoming and really eager to share the discipline with newcomers. Alden wasn’t amazing, especially without his trait active, and nobody minded. It was fun.

“I have been forged by Gretchen and Gustavo into something beyond a mortal, and now I am untouchable. Also, Jeremy and I are finally going to get to hang out together soon. You’re the worst for not joining us.”

After parkour, he sat on a bench along an oceanside walkway and ate his lunch.

Natalie Choir was officially his personal chef. His fridge was full of meals and snacks in individual containers. She’d bought a label maker, and she used it to stick motivational quotes to each one along with the nutrition content. As part of their agreement, she got a massive shopping budget so that she could master new ingredients. He was eating a lot of things he’d never heard of before.

So good, he thought, holding back a moan as he dug into an insulated container full of hot lentil bolognese and pasta. How can it be this good and still be healthy?

There was a small container full of herbed oil to go on top of it. And a ginger matcha protein drink. And a side salad with the fruits and vegetables chopped into perfect rainbow-colored cubes.

Alden was bleeding money for this sort of treatment, and he did not mind.

 

[Video call from Twenty-seven Hundred and Sixty-third General Evul-art’h, Artona I. Connection fee waived.]

 

Must be the weekend on the Triplanets.

“Answer,” he said after swallowing a mouthful of food.

He wondered if Stuart’s sister would be crushing him underneath pillows again, but she must not have been in as much of a tormenting mood today. They were outside, and she only held the tablet out of his reach while she observed Alden.

“You’re not sweaty.”

“Not at the moment,” he agreed. It was fifty degrees and windy. After parkour club had broken up for the day, he’d thrown on the cable-knit sweater Dragon Rabbit had gotten for him.

“My brother wants to talk to you again.”

“I want to talk to him, too.”

She tilted her head. “I know who you are now. You’re the dead human he named his pet after.”

Alden paused in the act of digging his fork into the pasta. “Did you not realize that when you saw my name last time?”

“I noticed. But I thought you were dead. So I assumed a lot of humans had the same name.”

That’s what Rel-art’h assumed, too. The art’hs must not hang out with many of us.

“My name’s not particularly common.”

“Evul,” said Stuart, peering at Alden from around his sister’s arm, “just give me the tablet. Please?”

“Okay,” she said, shrugging as she passed it over. “The human doesn’t seem to mind your <<strangeness>>. I guess it works.”

Stuart glared at her, but he took the tablet without comment and hurried off into the trees to get some distance from her.

“I have messages for you from Kivb-ee. Eleven of them.”

Eleven messages from Kibby. Alden couldn’t think of a single thing that would have made him happier.

Stuart blinked. “Your smile is very wide.”

“I was worried people would change their minds about letting the human talk to her.”

Stuart’s face went still. Alden realized he’d been too honest. And then—wonder of wonders—Stu-art’h navigated the two of them around a point of social awkwardness all by himself.

“I figured out why you enjoy the word hyektch so much. You’ve been watching a lot of children’s shows. Do you actually like the goodchild <<genre>>? I always found those stressful when I was young.”

“How can you tell?”

“I didn’t view your messages from the girl. But she gave each one a very long title so that you could sort them by subject. She wants to talk to you about those shows, demons, the videos of the ocean you sent her, recipes for something she calls stripey birthday goo, and your evil kyat?”

“Cat,” said Alden, grinning broadly. Kibby pronounced it a little funny. “My evil cat.”

“Oh.” He stared off into the distance for a second, and then he said, “A common small pet on Earth.”

Stuart always looked like he was staring off into space when he accessed information through the eye rings. Alden had seen him do it several times during their previous, very long conversation. Most often to look up the English swear words Alden had been using to enforce casualness.

It’s unusual that he doesn’t do the split-eye thing much.

In fact, now that he was thinking about it, Alden couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen Stuart do it. He was fairly sure the other boy could split his focus like other Artonans, since he’d been able to carry on a conversation while hand-casting on his metal block for the spell ring. Maybe he didn’t like double visuals?

“How was your week?” Alden asked.

“Busy. Not in an enjoyable way. I had too much work that seems irrelevant to my future.”

“How was Ro-den?”

Stuart hopped up on a giant tree root and took a seat. “You were only partially right with your guess. He didn’t swear at us as much as usual. He did it more. It scared one of my assistants so badly that I gave her permission to leave, but that made her scared that I was upset with her. So I gave her permission to stay. And then she said she was worried she’d pressured me with her emotions, and now I don’t even know what to do to reassure her.”

Alden took another bite of his pasta. “I’ve never had an assistant, so I can’t help you there.”

Stuart sighed. “I’ve never had personal ones either. And I grew up around the people who work for us at home. A couple of them are even distant relatives. It was never so strange. Multiple assistants are necessary for school, though. Labs and a few other classes require more than one set of hands.”

“My week…it’s been two human weeks actually, and they were busy, too. But it’s mostly been the enjoyable kind of busy for me.” Alden smacked his lips.

“You really like whatever you’re eating, don’t you?”

“You’ll just have to forgive me.” Alden pointed his fork at his bowl. “This was made by an S-rank Ryeh-b’t with Cook of the Moment. I’m not going to put it away and let it get cold while we talk.”

“I don’t know which human skill names correspond to which skills.”

“You guys read skills as a kind of spell code?”

Stuart raised an eyebrow. “We can…there are so many. And they’re much more complicated than most spells. And they’re usually re-designed and affixed slightly differently for each species. If you don’t already know what they do, and you don’t want to trust that they’ll do what the Contracts tell you they will for some reason, then you have to actually take a look at how they’re built. It’s <<a pain>>, from what I understand. I haven’t taken classes in that subject area yet. I just meant I wasn’t sure if it was one of the Ryeh-b’t cooking skills I’ve experienced at special meals before or not.”

“I only know it tastes like someone made this just for me. I’ve never eaten it before, but it feels like comfort food. Like something I have fond memories of eating in the past, even though I don’t. And it smells like…like happiness.”

“Oh,” said Stuart, giving him a small smile. “I do know that one. Do you want to be alone with it?”

Alden shook his head. “I’m fine. I eat three meals and two snacks like this every day now. For first meal I had an almond muffin so good that, for a second, my vision blurred.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“…you’re having someone cook for you with that skill five times a day?”

Alden opened his rainbow cube salad and dug his fork in eagerly.

Stuart stared at him. “There is a boy in my student house whose family has their long-term ewtwee Ryeh-b’t teleported to campus every night to <<tuck him in>>. She preps the room for ideal slumber and maintains a soothing environment for him until he falls asleep. Until now, I thought that was the most excessively luxurious use of magical resources I would ever see from someone my own age.”

“No way,” said Alden. “I met those LeafSong kids. They can do so much worse. And sleep is very important. I should find a soothing environment maintainer for myself.”

“You’re going to warp the pleasure centers in your brain.”

“There are probably healers for that. You’re just jealous because this salad dressing tastes like angel tears. I bet you can sense it from Artona I.”

While Stuart tried to figure out the phrase “angel tears,” Alden finished off his lunch.

“Now I have to go suffer for a couple of hours,” he said. “At the gym. With my trainer. You can hang out in my head if you want to, but it’ll probably be boring.”

Stuart looked fascinated by the idea of watching someone else work out. Because despite improvements, he was still weird as heck. “Why are you training?”

“For fitness. Humans do that. Also, for not looking like I’m lazy at school.”

“Is that a risk?”

“I’m going to school with people more powerful than me. Soon. Everyone seems to think it’s going to be difficult for me to fit in. They’re probably right.”

“Why do it then?”

“Because…”

Alden had been concealing his true thoughts a lot lately. Sometimes out of necessity, sometimes because it was just easier not to give everyone else an opening to pry at painful things. But occasionally, some expression would cross Stuart’s face that reminded him of what the boy had looked like that day. When he was younger. When he watched his father and his sister in the snow.

“I was really scared for a long time,” Alden said eventually. “I think I still am. I need to get over it. Throwing myself at something challenging that will make me stronger might not be a perfect answer, but it seems like an answer. So I’m chasing it.”

Stuart sat there quietly, leaning back against the trunk of the tree for ages. Finally, just when Alden thought the other boy must have decided that the best answer was none at all, he said, “I wish you were my classmate at LeafSong.”

“I think that one would be too much of a challenge for me.”

“I still wish it,” said Stuart, staring up into the branches. “You never say anything that makes me hate you.”