Adina hoped to play with the twins more, Autumn was a little taken aback at how excited she was to just hold them, though things became clear as she explained her reasons.
The longer everyone was around her the more clear it became why Harlan showed such an attachment to her.
He might not know exactly what she had been through, but they shared too much in common, they suffered for what instead of who they were, they were locked away from others because of this, while Harlan had reacted with violence, Adina reacted by just shutting down.
Before she had met him she had spent years in a waking death as she waited for her father to marry her off for some political power or just live alone until she finally died, she didn’t smile, she didn’t cry, she just moved through her days until she was ordered to go to the academy without any explanation.
“Ximena, do you want to hold them?”
“Ah, hmm, I don’t think so, I’ve never been good with children.”
Harlan asked as a formality, as soon as she was done talking she ended up with Alana.
Unlike Adina she really was just bad with children, she didn’t know how to hold her and then when she started to cry Harlan took his niece back.
“Sorry, I just had to see if you were really just too shy to ask.”
“I think that unlike Adina I am fairly clear with my words. No offense intended to her.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Paternal instinct had taken over and Adina didn’t care about anything but letting Jarrik grab at the toys she held in front of him, Harlan didn’t feel quite the same way, despite loving his niece and nephew, the idea of children still scared him, they were something he could care for and play with, but not something he should have.
“Well, I think it is about time that we head back home. Adina, it was very nice to meet you. I hope you can take care of Harlan when he is being stubborn and thinks he doesn’t have a problem.”
“Thank you. I hope I can hold them again, maybe someday I can have my own little ones.”
She didn’t get red or stutter, she knew exactly what she was saying.
“I’m sure you’ll make a great mother, just wait until the two of you are out of the academy. Hopefully the war doesn’t restart before then, I’d hate for you two to separate over something like that.”
“I would just renounce Reino and try to come here, there wouldn’t be much use in living if I couldn’t see my friends again.”
Then the last piece fell into place, the most terrifying things Autumn believed Harlan could have as a friend, another martyr, both would be crushed if the other died and both would never forgive themselves if the other gave their life for them.
She knelt down to eye level with the girl.
“Whatever happens, don’t put Harlan through that, just wait, maybe a chance will come to leave.
Harlan, if something like that happens, don’t rush into a death trap, I know you are already going through wargames in your mind just in case.”
“Actually, I’ve already been putting in work to give Adina the option of leaving Reino behind and being a citizen of Ragne.”
Despite her earlier words, she couldn’t leave without talking to Harlan about how.
Unfortunately he couldn’t say much, but the way he unconsciously avoided eye contact with everyone as he talked about it was enough to confirm that he was cutting away another part of Harlan the child.
It left a sour taste on the otherwise nice day, but nobody voiced it.
After everyone cleaned up and said their goodbyes they made their way to Harlan’s home, he would be spending the nights there catching Balor up on his research and trading notes mostly.
When Harlan had sent his letter saying he would be coming he requested that Balor expand the house for extra guests, the new rooms were built onto the back side of the house and a second floor would be added later just for the sake of the new addition matching the height of the rest of the house.
When they stepped inside Harlan felt a familiar presence.
“Dahlia, why have you come here?”
At first she panicked, then she realized that she couldn’t get him out of her head and replied.
“I am just here for extra security. Your little friend is a powder keg and we cannot allow her to come to harm while she is here.”
“Who would be most likely to harm her? Are there nobles trying to start the war back up?”
“We are mostly worried about her father.”
Murderous rage came over the connection clear as day.
“What are the chances that he will remain a thorn in my side for the days to come?”
“If we find proof of such plans we will send that information to Fragile Peace, she has been stamping out warmongers among her people just as the king has been removing them on our side.”
“Good, I will be staying near her until she leaves then.”
“I think it woul-”
He broke off the connection, he knew exactly what she wanted, but he didn’t care.
They put a target on his back by making his family nobles, so he would be using that to his advantage, no reason to split up forces between the two of them when he could act as a bodyguard.
“Isha, tomorrow morning could you make spiced cookies?“
“Of course.”
Harlan walked everyone through the unique features of his home and then they all split up, Zella and Amber stayed up to play cards with Isha and Sara, eventually Adina was dragged into the game, unfortunately for them she had sight beyond her eyes and started remembering what each card was based on creases and other marks on them.
Tau and Bojana played checkers off to the side, he had understood quickly that the others never had a chance against her, just like he fared quite poorly at checkers against Bojana, though this switched when they went to chess.
After their camping trips both of them felt that they should understand one another better, Tau had been forced into violence to save the life of another student while Bojana nearly hurt another student with her recklessness.
The first year was random, just meant to get students together and see if they could work together when things got tough, from the 2nd year onwards however they students ended up in specially picked locations and with specially picked targets to hopefully allow them to grow as people.
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Down in the bunker Harlan was explaining everything he had done to learn how to connect and trying to get Balor and Lugh to help him design his theoretical connection amulet.
“So they forced more blood on your hands.”
Balor slammed his hand so hard that the metal work bench neatly folded into itself, it was now useless with the large dent pulling both sides together.
“No, I chose this, I should’ve never given Dearil the time of day, I did something stupid and now I am just paying the price. Free will means I get to make my own mistakes, there is only so much I can blame on other people.”
“You would’ve never given him anything if they didn’t send you back here ready to go off after they used you for years. We both know this is bullshit.”
Balor had rarely been mad, after his first few weeks he became calm and collected as the anger used to make him became less than the good memories he made.
“Let’s be honest, this is for the best. I’ve been given materials that I could’ve never gotten, support from an archmage, favor with the king. It is bullshit, I hate it, but think about how much good will come of it. It doesn’t make what happened before alright, it doesn’t make what I am going to do in the future alright, but now it just is. This is my path, no one else is walking it for me. I don’t have to accept it, and you don’t either, but right now, I met good friends, I am happy, I am actually sure for once that what I am making isn’t going to just kill millions, it could save millions. Not just people who are hurt with wounds on the outside, but people like me who are hurt inside, who just need a friendly voice to keep them going a day longer.”
“There is a time for feel good platitudes, this is not one of them.”
“I can’t change your mind, I just want us to work together.”
Balor and Harlan were two peas in a pod, both of them knew one another in ways nobody else ever really could, they were stubborn and cantankerous, they knew that they could argue until dawn and then to dusk and both sides wouldn’t budge an inch because they didn’t believe it was an argument about opinions, they were simply right and the other side needed to know that.
“I feel foolish, I have chastised you for your outbursts and now I am the one unable to accept something so the first thing I do is lash out. I do not accept what has happened, but I know it is pointless to do anything but move past it.”
They started their work, dozens of mana gems were broken as they received the messages.
Harlan moved to some of the larger ones he had to see if the issue was them being structured in a certain way or if the power of sending messages was just insanely high despite being basically free to the person sending them.
After another 20 gems they instead moved to working on making a buffer that would disperse the energy, though since it wasn’t mana and nobody but Harlan could see it it was a task that took well until dawn.
Isha came down to tell him that breakfast was ready when he didn’t come up.
After another 10 minutes of obsessive work he finally got the spell into a state the short messages didn’t overload the gem.
He came upstairs to find a full dining room, Bojana and Tau had already finished their meal and returned to playing chess.
Sara still had that same look she had before he left, he decided he wouldn’t be a coward anymore, if it was a pitfall question, he was glad to be a good healer.
Later though, it was probably private.
Dahlia jolted as she felt Harlan connect to her, she thought she left that feeling behind last time she met Relly.
“I had Isha make cookies, I heard you like spiced ones. Either show yourself or just take them while under your cloak.”
She revealed herself briefly and thanked Isha for the cookies.
Dahlia was suspicious, there were very few people who knew her on any personal level, and she didn’t think that any of them would tell him that she specifically liked these kinds of cookies.
“I hope you like them, also, take this. Send it back to the crown and let that other one try to reverse engineer it, I’ll work on a better one when I get back. Read the instructions clearly or it is going to break.”
Ximena was shocked to see the woman appear and disappear yet everyone barely even reacted.
She decided that it was probably just normal for him, most things he did were just odd.
Bojana finally convinced Tau that they had done enough board games and it was time for her to get a good fight, though Tau said they needed to fight privately.
He always kept a defensive stance and not a single blow landed on him.
“Come on, give me a real fight.”
She mixed in heavy strikes and gravity magic knowing he wouldn’t counter.
“If you cannot break my defense you cannot hurt me. A stone cannot divert a river, it will only be eroded until it is small enough to move aside.”
“I didn’t come here to listen to more advice.”
“I know, but it is what you need to hear.”
Her blows became more savage, she hammered him with her fists, yet Tau simply moved her hands out of the way.
“What would it take for you to finally learn some defense? I heard what happened on your trip. I can feel your guilt in each strike.”
“How about you beat me before you lecture me on being able to keep others safe.”
She staggered back, the air had left her lungs, she was sure he broke her ribs at some point during the strikes she didn’t even see, five hits? Six?
“Bullshit…”
She wheezed out before Tau approached and healed her.
It had been easy for Tau to decide to kill another person to save an innocent, he hated it, but he understood there would be blood on his hands either way and he simply had to choose whose blood it would be.
For Bojana her failure was a lack of control, slipping into a berserker rage inherent to beastkin, it was never easy for them to move past it and more so since she needed to be taken down by the people she was supposed to be the shield for.
“I apologize that I’ve needed to hurt you, can you stand?”
She threw an uppercut at Tau and they went back and forth for another 30 minutes with Tau working her up to the limit of her anger and then striking her.
His mind went to what he knew of the rage which cursed their people, no god had ever answered why they gave it to them, but one let him understand its mechanics.
The longer it was left unfed the more hungry it would get until it finally reached a breaking point.
He saw how it shaped the way their culture had grown, children were expected to be involved in contact sports, hunting, recreational warfare between groups, fighting tournaments, all to keep at bay a feeling that they were simply born with, he questioned if every people who deviated from the base human form had a drawback such as this, he wondered if this was the source of Harlan’s rage.
Eventually she was burned out and both of them went back inside to eat.
Meanwhile Ava tried to show Adina how to fight.
Zella, and Ximena sat at the sidelines and made sure Ava didn’t actually try to harm her.
Harlan was trying to understand the limits of his control over animals, some birds seemed to have little problem coming down to sit on his arm but others were scared away when they got close, no matter how much he could dull their fear he couldn’t make them stop being afraid at all.
When a loud sound happened their fear peaked they flew away in a dash, rabbits were even worse, they wouldn’t get anywhere near the group.
His mindsense had grown exponentially since he had gained the connection, the sky might as well have been full of fireflies as the lights flittered back and forth, no longer were people blobby approximations, now they were like people made of light.
But there was something else, something unseen, but not The Unseen.
He warned his protectors what was coming and they stepped in its path.
Two died instantly as the man accurately moved his blades past their guard and into their heads, fighting while invisible was never a fun time for either side, it was risky and foolish, but if you didn’t mind that risk it was worth an injury when your job isn’t entirely to win.
Yet the attacker knew exactly where they were, where their weapons were, it wasn’t supposed to work like this.
“RUN.”
Harlan directed his friends to split up, though he knew who the real target would be.
He was sure the Unseen would be upset at him, but he moved into the path of the attacker, he just needed to get him for a moment.
Screaming nothing over the connection wasn’t the same as a direct white noise attack, so instead of paralyzing the man he could only get a small opening.
Yet it was enough, he took the stab to his hand and used that to force the blade to the windpipe, instead of the brain.
He believed that he could survive it since it wasn’t a wide blade and he steered it away from his major arteries.
He couldn’t really see the blade since it lacked a mind for him to sense, but a little bit of telekinesis was enough to sense where it was as it moved against his will.
His fingers dug deep into the man's eye sockets, between the physical blindness, the blinding pain, and the full strength white noise attack, the man was disabled but alive.
It took everything Harlan had to not drive the blade deeper into himself so he could grab the man’s head and crush it until he felt the stickiness of brain matter on his hands.
He felt a warmth fill his lungs as he bled out, he had to trust that he would be fine.
His last thoughts were not of death or fear, he used his last conscious moments to warn the Unseen that the attacker was disabled but alive and he should be captured.