Once, there was a boy.
From the moment of his birth, he was treated as the sweet, innocent child he was. His family, who were very influential in their community, doted upon him. Not a single expense was spared for their child.
The boy was gifted all the finest tutors. They taught him math and languages. They taught him all the now lost histories and stories. They taught him of the ever-changing world, of the wars that constantly plagued their borders. They taught him of the country so far to the east that it touched the other side of the sea, and of their ever-evolving technology and the terrifying things they inflicted upon their bodies.
His nannies—for although they loved him, his parents were too busy to care for him themselves—came from throughout the Free Colonies, although they were not yet known by that name. They were an ever shifting force, with the men and women rarely lasting more than six months. His parents believed their precious child should be exposed to as much of the world as possible.
Yet, their child lived a very small life. While he may have known of the world outside the high walls of his family’s estate, he had never seen it through more than photos and sketches, gifted to him by each of his nannies.
Once, he tried to climb the outer walls of his family’s estate, after escaping the ever watchful eyes of his caretakers. While they called for him, he tucked himself behind the trees that hid a small portion of the walls. His delicate fingers dug into the stone of the wall. He pulled himself up, but no matter how hard he tried, the wall was simply not meant for climbing, and all he managed was to drag scraps over his palms and knees, blood dripping down his fingers and toes.
As the boy grew, he was slowly taught the art of using his core, as all children of their community were. He learned to reach and read the world with it. At first, his teachers simply assumed he was a quick learner. The world the boy could see with barely half a year of practice was far larger and far more detailed than someone who had been practising for all their childhood and teenage years.
The boy had always been smart, however, and everyone—his teachers, his nannies, his parents—decided not to worry. Eventually, his perception of the world would find the limit of the human mind. Where most children found that limit in their 20s, he would simply find his sooner.
Except, he never did.
Instead, his perception of the world grew and grew. Most surprising, his mind did not break under the pressure of what he saw when he extended his power. Just as all children, he was taught of the dangers of seeing too much, of the way mortal brains are not designed to see the aether in such fine detail, on such a grand scale.
“To see too much, is to risk the wrath of the universe, and the universe is not a friend to those who offend it,” one nanny told him.
“The aether is a private creature. Let her keep her secrets,” said another.
“Only children of the aether are allowed to see within their mother, and you are no child of the aether,” another laughed.
Children of the aether, people who could see the intricate lines and curves and secrets of the aethernet existed, but they existed within themselves and the aether alone. To the world outside, they were closed, empty beings. Their minds had filled with too much of the aether, and it had consumed them.
It was here that Emilia interrupted, telling Conrad that she knew an ECC dyad—which, presumably, were who the story was referring to. She insisted that her friend, while unique and definitely overwhelmed by the world most of the time, was perfectly nice and definitely didn’t just exist within himself.
Conrad asked if her friend sometimes existed wholly within himself, and Emilia had been forced to agree: her friend could leave the world behind in his focus, at times.
⸂There’s nothing wrong with that focus,⸃ Emilia insisted, crossing her arms as Conrad continued carrying her wherever they were going—to wherever he had stashed the kids, she presumed. ⸂I wouldn’t change my friend for anything!⸃
Conrad didn’t say anything other than that her friend was lucky to have her, something in his voice pained, before he continued on with his story, her meandering thoughts quieting as she listened and lightly dozed in his arms.
However, correct the boy’s nanny was, he experienced none of this overwhelm, for he was no child of the aether. To the people who did not know how wide and perfect his power was, he was simply another little boy. To the teachers who watched him grow, he was a monster.
For years, the boy begged his parents to let him see the outside world. He wanted to escape, even if just for a few hours. They always brushed his request aside. The boy was too young, too inexperienced with the world and the ways of people, too busy with his schooling.
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As the boy grew—as he learned—he devised a plan to convince his parents to take him beyond the walls of his unintentional prison. “One day,” he argued, “I will inherit your business and title, father. I should meet the people of our community, if I am to know how best to serve them. For all that I learn about the world from you and my teachers, it does not feel as though it is enough. Perhaps, if I were to see the world outside our household, I would find what I am missing, or would finally be able to accept what I learn in the classroom as enough.”
To the boy’s parents, it was an acceptable argument, and they agreed to let him attend an upcoming festival in the nearby village. To his teachers, who had been hiding the true terror of the boy’s skills from his parents, it was an unacceptable turn of events.
They might have spent years tutoring the boy, teaching him to control himself and his power, but they were still human, and humans are often afraid of that which they do not know. To them, the boy was both a sweet, kindhearted child and a being capable of surrounding the entire community with his power. When he did so, he could see all. He could snuff out any life he desired. He was capable of becoming their realm’s god if only he so wished.
As such, they could not allow him to leave the estate. Terrible as the boy’s power was, he had no current desire to use it for cruelty or evil. Were he to leave the safe, controlled sphere of the world his teachers and nannies and parents had created for him, there was no saying what he would learn and what he would do with his newfound knowledge of the harsh realities of the world.
The teachers went to the boy’s parents, imploring them to change their minds and refuse to allow the child to leave the safety of his home. Yet, the boy’s parents’ minds would not be changed. Even when the teachers confessed the true extent of the boy’s powers and their concerns, his parents refused to change their plans.
To them, their child was the sweet, innocent boy he had always been.
So what if he was more powerful than a mortal should be? Every generation had more power than the last. Their son must simply be the next step in that unending evolution of humanity.
And thus, the parents took their happy, smiling boy to the festival, and the world he saw was a remarkable place, filled with love and laughter, with more smells and scents than his little mind had ever experienced, and more children than he had ever realized existed.
Of course, the little boy knew other children existed, but he had never seen one. All through the festival, the boy tried to approach other children and become their friend. He had never had a friend before, but he had read of them, and he had seen his adult caretakers form bonds over the years, even when many of them came and went so fast.
The boy, however, was strange, and none of the children at the festival would talk to him for more than a few minutes.
Having only even spoken to adults, he spoke to the children like they were adults.
The children did not like this.
Having been schooled in every subject under the stars, he spoke to the children of the complicated laws of the universe and their community.
The children not the like this.
Having so much power at his disposal, he spoke to the children of how much he could see if only he tried.
The children did not like this, and the boy returned home without having earned himself a single friend. His nanny, who had come to retrieve him as his parents had more people to visit during the long night of the festival, gently helped him ready for bed, just as she had done for nearly five months. She would leave soon, and another nanny would take her place.
The boy had liked this particular nanny more than many others. She always had good advice, and now he asked her, “How will I make a friend, if I never leave this place and none of the village children will speak to me for more than a speck of time?”
Settling the boy into bed, the woman told him a story from her homeland. She had spoken before of people listening to the aether, but the boy’s teachers always brushed her stories aside as ridiculous. To them, the aether was fact and reality and the present, while the woman’s stories spoke of the aether knowing the past, present, and future.
“The aether cannot know the future to guide you,” they would insist, but as the boy listened to the woman’s advice—to listen to the aether and let it guide him to a friend—he saw no reason not to try.
And so, for months, the boy tried to do as his once-nanny suggested. He reached his core out, searching for a friend.
At first, he searched only the village, weaving his way through each house, looking for a little heart who would become his first friend. Yet, the aether always seemed to tell him no, this is not a friend for you.
Then, he searched further and further. More and more of the world was revealed to him as he searched, and yet, he could never find someone to be his first friend. Other children may have given up, but to the boy, it felt as though the aether wanted him to keep going. It was not yet time to give in and accept that there was no one in this world willing to be his friend.
Time marched on, and years passed like this. The boy became more powerful, his perception reaching far outside the bounds of his community’s borders, and the things he could learn from what he saw grew and grew, until one day, he found a tear.
It was a tiny tear, in the fabric of the aether. The boy had heard tales of such tears before, the result of power, from humans and the aether itself. While these tears could carve the most beautiful features into the landscape, they were also dangerous, and the boy had been told not to touch such tears.
As the boy turned his attention away from the tear, however, the aether called to him.
“Here,” it said. “Here is where you will find your first friend. You have only to give it life.”
The boy knew he should be afraid.
The boy knew he should not touch.
Yet, the boy had been looking for so long, and he could not give up this chance.
Through the lines of the universe, the boy reached his energy towards the tear, placing his hopes and dreams, his interests and fears and love into that shard of universal energy.
As his energy disappeared into the void of aethernet, he sent a tiny prayer along with it: “Please, in exchange for my power, send me my first friend.”