Ciaran’s father had arrived home and left his burdens at the door before giving his coat to the servants and sitting in his favourite chair, it was by the fire in the main hall. the main hall was spacious enough to be a ballroom if need be and was adorned lavishly. Ciaran’s father got to savor five minutes of peace before being blasted by reality as he heard his son bounce down the halls in joy. Ciaran’s father had arrived later than usual, but it didn’t disturb the boy as he bounced past the table and up to his father where he then prattled off about all he had learned in the hours prior. Ciaran’s mother even came in to watch her husband’s suffering. Ciaran recited most of the lesson until he reached the new dawn where he praised the church, hearing this Ciaran’s father looked to his wife.

Noticing this Ciaran’s mother came closer and whispered in his ear.

"He will learn in time, let him be a child for a while."

seeing this Ciaran stopped his prattling for a brief moment and questioned his mother.

"Mummy what did you tell daddy?"

The sweet voice of Ciaran’s mother was brought to his ears as her hand ruffled his hair.

"Nothing a child should know sweety."

Ciaran retorted in a cute half annoyed voice.

"I'm not just a child!"

"of course, you aren’t”.

saying this Ciaran's mother kissed him on the forehead and then did the same to Ciaran's father before heading off.

Ciaran even more flustered decided to ramble on about all the new friends that he made. After Ciaran ran out of words to say he retreated to his attic and decided to organise the place.

When Ciaran left, his mother came back into the room with two glasses of a pale white drink. she witnessed her deflated husband, sprawled out on his chair.

“He had a great day huh?”

“Why does he never share these things with you?”

“You know he looks up to you”.

“At the rate that sprout grows I will be looking up to him in no time”.

Aerecura laughed a little nearly spilling the drinks before, giving them to her husband and got a seat for herself then resumed the conversation.

“So, what brought you home so late”.

“There was a landslide in the west mountains, it revealed an ore deposit. The ore we found there is very flammable, most likely a medium level Aether deposit. Cleaning up the landslide was the easy part; I swear they add more paperwork every day.

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“If it’s got that much Aether, will we be able to keep it?"

“Hopefully, we played it down as much as possible and the few that remain with power in the regional court wont mess with us when we are under your father”.

“that’s good don’t tell Ciaran though, if he learned that rocks could burn, the whole house would go down in flames”.

“it’s amazing what that kid gets up to when he thinks we're not watching.”

“His brothers starting to take after him”.

“They are young, they can be curious unlike us”.

“Are you calling me old”.

“No, my dear”

The two slowly drifted away from the topic of Ciaran and decided to relax with their drinks looking forward to the what the future may bring.

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In the attic Ciaran stood there admiring his work, there were two long benches that went along his section of the attic and he had filled a vast majority of the with the piles of junk that used to adorn the floor, there were still two more piles but he would be done soon.

resuming his work Ciaran found a funny looking piece of metal. The piece of metal was rectangular with two damaged protrusions on either side, the protrusions looked like they had been chewed and made Ciaran think that it was once part of a larger object or construction. The now curious Ciaran looked at the piece of metal with his monocle, it had blue Aether much unlike the subtle brown that normally surrounded ores of the earth.

Intrigued Ciaran decided to go searching for similar objects with Aether that was ‘abnormal’ Ciaran searched the remaining area of his workspace before venturing downstairs, he searched the servants quarters below his section of the attic in the east wing and even went around the garden and ended up in the west wing that held the guests quarters. Luckily for Ciaran the servants were used to his shenanigans and did not question the presence of the young boy that was very conspicuously searching for something.

by the time Ciaran had made a full loop of the mansion with no results he gave up and headed back to his attic hideaway and thought of where he could find more of such things, if it were common he wouldn’t have missed it when he was looking for Aether. Ciaran decided that it would be best to keep his eyes peeled on his way to the academy tomorrow and with that problem solved for now he moved onto his next problem. Ciaran’s mind had been poked and to quench his thirst for accomplishment and knowledge he decided to try and make something to commemorate his first day at the academy.

Ciaran pulled out a few bits of scrap wood he had “acquired” and then dug a small wooden box out from one of the two benches and opened it, inside were the few sharp tools he had hidden away, his parents worried too much and now that he knew his mother could come up to the attic he wouldn’t leave them anywhere she could see them.

Ciaran decided to try making a carving, he pulled out a small broken knife and grabbed another sturdy piece of wood to hit the knife with. Ciaran’s first result was admittedly a mangled piece of wood, but his second piece was worse better. On Ciaran’s third attempt he managed to aim properly and control the pressure he hit the knife with, and the result was a blocky figure he deluded himself to look like his father. Afraid that his fourth attempt would be worse Ciaran made the excuse to himself that the broken knife was too blunt. After packing up his tools and cleaning his mess Ciaran noticed that the attic seemed utterly dull, realising that the sun would soon go to sleep he hurried downstairs to be in time for dinner.

when Ciaran reached the ground he found the kitchen bustling, this was not Ciaran’s first time, he passed through the many cooks nimbly and reached the main hall where he saw that a table had been set and his brother was playing with a few wooden blocks on the floor. When Ciaran took this all in, he felt a strange warmth in his heart, even if everything else changed one day this moment together each night would never change.