TWO HUNDRED FIFTY-FOUR: Scrape

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******

The cry that woke Stu was full of fear, and when he rolled off his cushioning spell and rushed across the cottage to check on his guest, he could tell that Alden had been struggling in his sleep. His pillows were out of position, and his hair was clinging to the sweat on his face.

The human boy let out another pained sound that made Stu gasp and say, “Alden, wake up!” before he could stop himself.

Flinching at his mistake, he took a step back from the bed. Fortunately, the sound of his voice hadn’t been enough to interrupt the nightmare.

There was an event in Alden’s dreams he wished was different. He wanted a cleaner death for the bokabv demon in one of the scenarios. Healer Yenu had told him it should be possible without her intervention, but that this might be the result.

Some aspects of the nightmares were set more deeply. They would serve as guideposts for Alden, and he should still find his way to safety with Kivb-ee…if Stu left him alone instead of foolishly calling out to him.

The human was just enduring more on the journey tonight because whatever he’d changed by his own desire wasn’t going as well without Yenu’s direct guidance. Wanting to help, knowing he couldn’t do much, Stu arranged all the cushions in the cottage along the side of the bed Alden was sleeping on. That way if he fell off he would have a softer landing.

Then he went outside.

A few times, Alden had indicated that the thought of being overheard crying or screaming in his sleep bothered him. Stu suspected he would have felt the same if he was the dreamer. As the listener, it was obvious to him that embarrassment wasn’t merely a useless emotion in this situation but one that was the opposite of what Alden should feel.

Stu was sorry that his pursuit of courage and compassion made him suffer tonight. The only emotion stronger than that sorrow was admiration.

He walked to the stream so that he could look down at the zansees and up at the stars.

Alden understood about the patient creatures.

Stu had wanted to ask him which type of beauty he wanted for himself. If they followed the simple metaphor and spoke of there being two kinds…but it was an unfair question. Especially right now.

Alden wanted to live a worthwhile life. And he had already done more than he should have had to do. He liked that his skill could be used to protect others, and he feared that he could be ordered to protect others by careless wizards, and he resented things about his abilities that he had not understood before he accepted them.

Because he was human.

The Triplanets had been generous enough to give him a way to do magic, not generous enough to give him the many options and access to the vast expertise Stu had received. His family didn’t want him to be a knight, but some privileges were impossible to withhold from a declared. And for a while, they had seen the process of him selecting what type of skill he wanted as another long period during which he might come to his senses.

Right now, if he had a question about The Maker of Narrow Ways, he could call on a magical theorist or the Contract itself for advice. The requests he could make for information and modifications weren’t limitless, but they were only limited by the nature of the skill and his peoples’ understanding of magic.

And by the pushback he’d get from everyone if he wanted something utterly impractical.

Most humans picked talent names from a list, with only the advice and experience of other Avowed guiding them. And it seemed like the Earth Contract sought to manage what they chose by providing less information on some talents than others.

Perhaps it was leveraging some aspect of human psychology. Granting a large number of options might improve their impression of it, but by making many of those options unknowns, it could still ensure that most Avowed would select from a smaller set of well-understood and more thoroughly defined abilities.

Or maybe wizards had created this problem by designing more abilities for humans than their Contract thought was helpful. It was easier to translate magic into talents for them than for most species. Spell impressions should be particularly simple. And then there were the special situations to consider. Groups that had a need for Avowed with specific abilities. Powerful individuals who spent a decade creating an eccentric skill and then used their political influence to make sure it was listed even though nobody else thought it should be.

The reasons don’t really matter.

It still meant some people would choose their bindings almost blindly, no doubt hoping for a great result from the random outcome.

The thought made Stu feel like he’d swallowed an oontsy and it was trying to find its way back out of his stomach.

And even when humans did know what they were choosing, what they were choosing from was so imperfect.

If Alden had a year and the knowledge he needed to choose the best skill on the Earth Ryeh-b’t list, it would still be so much less than he should have. It’s not fair.

There were reasons not to give all Avowed the kind of powers and resources knights had. Stu knew those reasons. But tonight, thinking of Alden, they seemed so weak.

And so shitty.

******

Am I awake, or is this a twist in the nightmare?

Alden had just made it to Chayklo with Kibby, then his eyes had snapped open in his bed in the dark cottage to the sight and sound of a bipedal shadow monster scurrying around the room. He lay there in his hot tangle of covers, breath held as he tried to figure out what was going on.

“Are you some kind of demon?” he asked. “Or are you Stuart running around in the middle of the night with a bunch of cushions?”

The shadow monster froze in the act of bending down to collect more cushions from right beside the bed, and Alden reached to turn on the lamp above him.

“You’re Stuart,” he said, blinking at the Artonan crouching there with two cushions held against his chest. “What are you doing?”

Stuart glanced left, then right, before finally meeting Alden’s eyes. “I was trying to move these back to where they belong before you woke up.”

“Why?”

“So that you wouldn’t know I had put them under the bed.”

“Were you sleeping down there? Was your senva seed spell not comfortable?”

“No,” Stuart said. “I wasn’t sleeping on them.”

Maybe I’m not awake enough to understand.

“You were having a nightmare,” Stuart said finally. “I was worried that you’d fall out of bed and the impact would wake you before the dream cycle finished, diminishing its value and making your trial for the night fruitless.”

Dammit. Alden felt himself flush. “I woke you up. Sorry.”

“I didn’t mind.”

“Was I screaming or something?” That was so embarrassing. “Maybe you should start sleeping in your room when I’m visiting.”

“I left the cottage as soon as I’d placed the cushions. When I returned from my walk a moment ago, you were quiet. I thought if I moved the cushions back, you wouldn’t feel awkward.”

“I feel so awkward.”

“That’s because you just woke up and caught me doing something unusual,” said Stuart. “Go back to sleep. When you wake again and everything is as normal, you’ll see that nothing embarrassing has happened. Olorn Mom says sun chases away the fog of night.”

He dropped the cushions back onto the floor beside the bed before he stood.

Alden’s groggy brain pieced together the story while Stuart got settled on his senva mattress across the cottage. “Thanks.”

“You would help me in the same way, wouldn’t you? Sleep well.”

It took him some time to drift off again. Eventually the quiet sound of the door sliding caught his attention, and he saw Stuart’s shadow standing there for a moment, then leaving the cottage.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

He wasn’t sure if the Artonan had really gone, or if it was the beginning of a normal dream.

******

Alden was dressed in his school uniform before sunrise, which wasn’t that impressive considering the time difference between here and Anesidora right now. There, it was around noon on the first day of finals week.

Stuart was still out of it, wrapped up like a burrito on the floor by the table, where one of yesterday’s husenot towers stood.

This was the last day of Welcome End. Alden wasn’t going to be here for most of it. The big event, for Stuart, was a phone call from his Father. After addressing the people who were about to become knights, the Primary was going to talk to his family.

On Thegund, Alis-art’h was right next door, as far as outer space went, making time-delayed messages a simple option unless someone needed their conversation with her to be instantaneous. But Jeneth-art’h was so far away that talking to him directly using magic was the best means of communication. Stuart was looking forward to it.

It’s still awkward that I had such a rough nightmare I woke you up, Alden thought, looking down at him. Flailing around and yelling about bokabvs in front of someone else isn’t ever going to make me feel like I’m cool.

Stuart hadn’t been entirely wrong, though. Alden’s embarrassment was much milder than he would have imagined it being if someone had told him yesterday that it was going to happen.

When we first started talking, I would have bet you’d be terrible at making someone feel better after something like this. Stuart sharing Artonan opinions about planetary takeovers and whether or not Anesidora was trying to breed stronger Avowed during that first phone call was hard to forget. I was wrong about you there.

He decided to go take a look in the kitchen at the main house, to see if getting their breakfast would be easy enough for him to manage on his own. It should be doable, and it would keep Stuart from running into family members who’d give him a hard time.

A couple of minutes later, he was approaching the back of the house.

I’ll grab the human-safe food basket, he thought. That’s obviously set aside for me, so nobody’s going to be mad it’s missing. And Stuart can eat it, too.