TWO HUNDRED FIFTY-THREE: Two Kinds of Beauty

253

******

A sudden breeze, a thump, scratching sounds. Alden opened his eyes the next morning and sat up to see a red ryeh-b’t at the foot of the bed, clinging to the comforter while her owner tried to pry her off. The room was bright with sunlight.

“Hi, you two.”

“I’m sorry!” Stuart said. “I was letting her play in front of the cottage, but I must have left the door slightly open. She slid it aside. I’ve got her. Sorry!”

Before Alden could say another word, Stuart rushed outside with his pet flapping in his arms. About thirty seconds later, the sound of a determined animal trying to pry open the front door again made Alden grin.

Not a bad alarm clock. Guess it’s time to get up.

He made the bed, used the bathroom, and exchanged his pajamas for a pair of jeans and a plain t-shirt—clothes that he didn’t mind wearing around an exuberant ryeh-b’t. Then he headed over to the wevvi cart they’d borrowed from the main house late in the night.

It was so fancy, and Stuart had prepared the wevvi so properly, with every bit of the same delight for the ceremony that Alden remembered from the first time he’d served it.

But then they’d dunked pieces of a rich, salty bread in it.

The combination was reminiscent of bread pudding. And since they were sinning against the wevvi anyway, Stuart had agreed that they could pour the leftovers into cups and let them sit overnight to see how it turned out. After checking to make sure nobody who might scold them was in sight, Alden took two of those cups outside with him. He had a seat in one of the chairs and watched Stuart, who was halfway to the stream, directing his ryeh-b’t to come down from the flight he’d just sent her on.

Definitely bread pudding, Alden thought as he bit into it.

Stuart headed back as soon as he realized Alden was outside. “Is it good?” he asked. He had on the sweater he’d once worn to feed the bokabv.

“Yes.” Alden held the second cup out to him.

Stuart took it and sat. Other Alden had followed him. She was sniffing the ground nearby like she suspected treats had been buried there. They praised her when she found a beetle Stuart had hidden, then all of them ate in companionable silence.

“I had fun last night,” Stuart said eventually.

“Me too.”

“We shouldn’t have taken the wevvi cart. People must be trying to figure out where it is this morning.”

“We can return it whenever you want.”

“Not yet.”

Alden smiled.

Stuart turned to look at him. “I think I didn’t explain something well last night. I said I didn’t want you to think of Aunt Alis and Father as destroyers. It’s true I’d be upset if you thought of them as mainly destroyers. But I do want you to know that they are powerful and dangerous. I want you to understand that they have made themselves into beings capable of immense destruction…and…I want you to like that about them.”

They stared at each other.

“You want me to like that they’re capable of destruction?”

“It’s part of who they are. And I intend to become dangerous, too,” Stuart said slowly. “I want you to like that about me, so…”

“Right. I see.”

“I still don’t feel like I’m explaining well. I’ll keep trying until I get it right if you don’t mind.”

Alden let himself blink. “Of course I don’t mind. And I do think I more or less understand what you mean.”

“After first meal, let’s go for a walk. I want to show you something from the world where I was born.”

******

They walked for longer than Alden had expected, leaving the last buildings of the siblinghold behind and following the stream. It burbled along to their right, the only sound other than their voices and the stuttering song of a brown and white bird they found perched on a limb over the water.

“If you told me that animal was from Earth, I’d believe you.”

“It’s a panpi’i. I’m glad I left Other Alden at the house. She’d chase it and fail to catch it, and then she’d spend the rest of the day looking around for it.”

Alden stopped to watch the panpi’i sing again. Its whole chest was quivering with the effort. “Why aren’t there more animals here?”

“We’re in the center of an area that was devastated by a massive corruption event a very long time ago.” Stuart walked over to the trunk of the nearest tree and placed his hand on the dark bark. “The life that survived was truly unyielding, so it became the starting point for this land’s recovery. As far back as memory reaches, Father’s ancestors were wizards here, and they performed rituals to nourish this type of tree. They buried their dead under them, believing that souls could travel along the roots back to the Mother’s heart.”

He looked over his shoulder at Alden. “Some of them impaled their enemies on the branches as living sacrifices, too, but those aren’t our favorite ancestors to remember.”

“Understandable. I did an ancestry project for school once. I didn’t have to go many generations into the past to find people I’d rather not be related to.”

Stuart patted the tree before letting his hand fall. “This species was the most noteworthy survivor of that event, so it’s now a key part of the magic that makes Rapport I safe. Here at the center, though, the <<current—referring to the flow of a work of magic toward its purpose>> is very strong, so the trees are nourished and Artonan life is protected in a way that makes the environment peculiar. The panpi’i belongs in this region, but we rarely see them at the siblinghold. There’s not much food for them, and they like to lay their eggs in low bushes. The farther you go from here, the more the land changes to what’s natural. Around the school and in Root, you can find some panpi’i nests if you know where to look.”

A moment later, the bird stopped singing and fluttered off.

“It’s taking your advice and going to look for those nests.”

“The school is the other way.”

For a while after that, Alden paid extra close attention to the trees, wondering how he fit into the current of their magic. Getting his leaf and some attention from the roots made him feel like he must be in their good graces. Even if he wasn’t currently nourishing them or being an Artonan.

“What about Other Alden?” he asked after he reached the end of that train of thought. “Is it a problem that she’s not from here? The forest doesn’t dislike her, does it?”

“She’s fine. The magic knows we welcome her, so she’s welcome. But I even talked to the land about her when I brought home her egg, to make sure. I talked to it about you the first time you spent the night here, too.”

“You did?”

“You don’t mind, do you?”

Alden recalled the unusual way Stuart had planted grass for the bokabv by talking to the seed and the ground. It had involved his authority, but it had sounded more conversational than most spells. Maybe something like that. “I don’t mind. I’m honored.”

“It’s supposed to be an honor, but at the time, I worried about how it might sound to you. So I waited until you went to sleep to do it.”

Don’t nourish yourself with the body of this human, Trees. He’s not from around here, but that doesn’t mean he’s food or an enemy to be impaled…yeah, I can see how that might freak some guests out.

“Don’t worry about doing things like that in front of me. I’m sure I would have been interested, not offended.”

“I know. I know you better now.” He shifted to walk a little closer to Alden. “You like hearing details about magic more than I assumed you would. Even my homework. Even sending the keda bean. I hoped the end result of that spell would make it worth the time you had to wait to see it, but you didn’t seem to mind watching the process either.”

Alden’s anxiety stirred, but he talked it down in the same way he had a couple of times since he’d revealed excessively detailed knowledge of Olget-ovekondo’s auriad positioning. If his interest in something he wasn’t supposed to be able to do was uncommon, at least it was an uncommon trait he’d had prior to knowing himself and feeling his authority.

His understanding of Ro-den’s explanations about how wizards did magic seemed a bit pitiful now, but even back then, in his ignorance, he had been into hearing about the subject. The professor’s willingness to entertain that curiosity was one of the reasons Alden had begun to trust him.

I even asked him if I could ever learn spells like a wizard.

Back then he hadn’t worried it was suspicious behavior. That meant it most likely wasn’t.

Magic is cool. Lots of humans think so. It’s probably just the degree of my attention to spell casting that comes across as odd.

“Magic is fascinating,” he said. “I do like to hear details about it.”

“People often invite others to watch them cast their final spell before they become a knight. I think I’ll do the same. Will you come if I do?”

“Of course.”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“Some of the other declared…they might invite me to watch their last spells later this weekend. If they do, I’ll go.”

“I’ll be fine on my own if you need to leave me. I’m comfortable in the cottage. Just don’t leave me alone with the wevvi cart. I don’t want to take the blame for it all by myself.”

“I wouldn’t let you,” Stuart said. “They might forget to invite me, anyway. It’s such a busy time for them, and their thoughts must be full. This morning, they should be getting ready for a picnic that’s being held in Rapport III.”

To Alden, it sounded like he was making an excuse for them so that it would hurt his feelings less if that invitation didn’t come.

If they get so busy they don’t remember you’re over here being a declared, too, they’re shitheads. If they do remember, and they decide not to invite you to see their spells, they’re mega shitheads.

He didn’t share that opinion aloud because on some level he knew he didn’t completely get the pressures Stuart’s old friends and classmates were under. They no doubt had their own troubles, and the opinions of their own families, weighing on them.

But he was sure his face said it for him. If Stuart hadn’t been looking toward the sky, he’d have seen it.

“I think Emban will have to go to the picnic. Young knights are hosting it for the declared, and Ryada will probably make their whole squad attend in her stead because she helped plan social events for Welcome End this year. She was proud of the <<waterslide>>.”

An image of Emban sliding down the kind of colorful inflatable slide people rented for kids’ parties popped into Alden’s head.

That can’t be right.

“Ryada said that finding a suitable mountain slope for its creation was tricky.”

That’s more right.