Harlan wasn’t entirely sure how long he was in there, her talking in minute hours and second minutes confused everything, and she knew it, but adding annoyance was part of training she said.

“How are you even doing this? Can I force emotions on people?”

“You can learn to dampen or agitate emotions already in play, but that isn’t why I gave them empathic powers.”

“Why did you?”

“Someday I might tell you. But for your original question, I am not doing anything but putting myself in a mood, my mind is so far beyond yours that you are putting yourself in a mood to match it.”

“Can i get a hin-”

“Back to work.”

He was back in that timeless feeling, bombarded by other feelings.

He thought days had to have passed, that he missed his chance at the academy and ruined everything. But he wasn’t sad, he was upset at her just forcing learning on him without explaining anything.

He wished she would just stop, that all of it would just stop, give him some time to put his mind in order.

For a time she stopped, but he wasn’t getting a break, she wasn’t talking, she just seemed to give him that time he wanted to think about how he would close off that connection.

“Well done my child.”

“Oh? I did it?”

“Are you upset?”

“Not really, I’m feeling pretty normal.”

“Then it worked.”

“How did I do it then?”

“You did it once already, you’ll figure it out. Oh, and tell your ring we should speak.”

“Wait, wha-”

He was forced out of her world.

He was annoyed, but knowing that it was him being annoyed by himself made him a little happy.

Harlan got an odd feeling, Balor was nearing the door, he couldn’t see him but he could tell that there was someone there. He opened the door before Balor could.

“You are awake. It is just past noon. Dare I ask what horrible truths you learned?”

“It wasn’t that bad. I learned something a little bit odd. Can you back up a little bit?”

“Alright?”

Balor took a few steps away from the door and that feeling Harlan got became fuzzy, a few more steps and it was gone.

“Alright, come back again.”

It returned as soon as he neared the door.

“I want to test this more.”

Harlan checked all around the bunker, he wanted to know what the range was exactly, he wanted to know if the wards effected it, how much etc.

He could feel him as a fuzzy blob in a general direction at 15 feet, he could identify him at 5. But at least it was effected by nothing but distance, no matter if they were on different floors or behind wards or pillars, it was just distance.

“Thanks. At least I know that much. Now if she just taught me how any of this worked instead of throwing me out because I did it once. I wish it was as easy as looking at my soul for some bit to poke.”

“What did you learn?”

“She said I was feeding off emotions from other people. That I had some mind magic.”

“Do you believe her?”

“It makes sense. At the party, once Blackstone grabbed me I didn’t feel as strongly about it anymore, maybe because she thought Jet had enough already? I think Jet was mad at me, and I was mad at him, I was feeding into myself by antagonizing him.”

“Then that other feeling? That made you leave that night, what was that?”

Harlan furled his brows, thought back to what she said to him. He was feeding on the joy of one, Isha, but also on the rage of another? Was it instinct? Was it his own?

“I don’t like any answer I can think of. I doubt if I tried to talk to her I would get anything anyway.”

“I… don’t think there is anything to do, from what I have seen of her, she is treating these things as a joke. I don’t understand her.”

“Oh, she wanted you to talk to her. But I won’t tell you if you should or not.”

“Perhaps I will, perhaps I won’t. But in the meantime you should eat. Your seeds have been delivered and you are likely going to spend quite a large amount of mana making your farm.”

“That reminds me. How are you going to eat while I’m away?”

“I will feed on animals.”

“Oh. I guess that makes sense. Does it kill them?”

“I could drain them dry, but that is unnecessary.”

Harlan thought about asking about how he could learn to do that as well but, he left the conversation as is. He had Days? Weeks? Months? With The Mother to accept that Balor was just being himself, that he was alright with it.

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He stepped out of the bunker to find the others at the table waiting for him, that fuzzy feeling telling him that people were nearby was bothering him, but getting closer solved it.

“You should’ve just eaten.”

“Seems we hardly get to talk unless you're eating.” Aida said.

“Sorry.” He didn’t bother with being annoyed or offended, she was right.

“So, what were you working on?” Amber asked, trying to move the topic to something lighter than whatever Aida was going to ask him.

“I was reading those books I got”

Harlan explained what he had explained what he learned but left out his meeting with The Dark Mother.

“I heard I got those seeds I wanted.”

“They dropped them off earlier. I read over that book they gave too. Your mother and I wanted to have a family dinner tomorrow. A party without… all that other mess. You can talk to Kass also, see if he wants to work for you.” Harlow explained.

“That sounds nice. Should I bring anything?”

“You don’t need to do anything. This is just a little get together. The man who would handle your trees also needs to meet you eventually. Though I suppose he could talk with Balor.”

“No. I need to do it, I don’t want anyone working here without speaking to me if I still can.”

Harlan felt a pang of annoyance at the idea of not hiring someone personally, he thought that was a little odd.

“Sorry. Mom, Dad, do you want to go to town with me? I’ve got a few things I need to do, and we can talk on the way.”

“Yes. That sounds nice.”

The rest of the meal passed without any big topics. Amber said she would teach him the basics of telekinesis since he complained about how his books didn’t say how.

It helped that he mentioned the idea of bleeding himself to find out how to do it.

Harlan had to ignore that he could feel the minds of a dozen other people who invisibly hid all around his land when he went to the stable to get his carriage out. He went back inside to get his parents and saw that Balor was talking about farming with his father, and a map was set out marking where things would be.

Nearly as soon as they exited out the gate his mother started.

“Honey. Are you ok?”

“Depends.”

“DON’T. Sorry, don’t answer me like that. Just tell me.”

“I think I’m getting better. I will be alright soon.”

“Where were you really the night that you didn’t come home?”

“Honey, you don’t need to push him.”

“I’ll show you. But I’ll save that for the end. Are you alright? You seemed ok at our talk yesterday?”

“Sorry, I just don’t know if it really sank in yesterday, I didn’t sleep well last night.”

She didn’t ask any more questions.

He first went to the couriers.

It was a mundane affair, he just needed to send a letter saying he needed a new signet ring.

Though with the people watching him he was pretty sure the crown already knew.

He was bothered a lot by that fuzzy feeling of people just outside of the range of his new ability so he focused as hard as he could, trying to remember the feeling from before, trying to get rid of that feeling..

Then he went to the blacksmith, hoping it was going to be Brig there.

As he stepped into the shop Brig raised his voice.

“YA THINK I NEED CHARITY FROM YA? I’LL OUTLIVE YOU!”

“I’m glad you are doing well Brig. but it wasn’t charity, the other blacksmith just doesn’t have your skill, I had to actually take some little dents and dings out of a simple kettle he made. I can leave without knowing that my people are going to get only the best parts from you.”

“Ya better not forget it. Ya got work for me?”

“Nope. Just wanted to see how you were doing and tell you I’ll be at the academy. For a long time, I hope you’ll be here when I get back.”

He just waved Harlan away and grumbled something about him being soft hearted.

But Harlan could feel the old man was happy to see him.

Lastly Harlan went to the adventurers guild.

“Why are we here? This place is full of… Well, adventurers.”

“You wanted to know where I was.”

She was unhappy with the answer.

He walked to the front desk, that fuzzy feeling was bothering him again, the stronger emotions of the adventurers setting off some kind of warning if he could understand his mostly untrained ability right. So he tried turning it down again.

“Sir Fomoria. How can I be of service?”

“These are my parents. Could you give, from your point of view, a description of what happened last time I was here. And is Gilly here? I was wondering if I could talk to her.”

“Firstly, Gilly is away right now. Secondly, would you rather I tell her in a private room?”

“I think that would be best.”

Aida went through very few emotions, worry and fear mostly, Harlow went through most of the same.

“Why would you do such a thing?”

“I wanted to hurt someone. I wanted them to want to fight back, I had a feeling eating away at me, demanding blood. So this was the legal way I could do it. The last guy I fought got paid. I got knocked out and I felt better when I woke up.”

“Do you think that is normal?”

“I just don’t really know for sure. Now, I am going to ask her something, and I think you aren’t going to want to hear the answer, do you want to step out?”

“Of course not. I can handle whatever it is.”

“Fine. I’m sorry I never got your name.”

“Sherry. My sister is Cherry.”

“Odd. But to my question, Sherry, how bad was I hurt when Gilly punched me?”

She hesitated, went through ideas in her head on how to avoid answering or hiding how bad it was.

Harlan couldn’t tell exactly what she was other than nervous.

“Don’t worry. I’m just curious. I could just ask someone else who saw it happen. Wouldn’t you rather just tell me?”

“Well… I suppose if you put it like that. Her strike hit your jaw, removing it, your skull suffered severe fracturing on the left side due to the force. Your face was… Let’s just say disconnected on the side she hit, and I am glad you were not awake for it.”

“Thank you.”

Aida didn’t say anything on the way back to the carriage.

“How are you ok with that? You…”

Harlan didn’t know how else to comfort her so he just hugged her.

“I lived, I don’t know if I was even close to dying. I caused a problem, things got out of my control and I was punished for it.”

“You… Your ok with that? How? You nearly died.”

“Hone-”

Harlow had been trying to jump in but couldn’t seem to get in, he decided that maybe Aida needed to just work out her worries with Harlan.

“Maybe.”

“NO! NOT MAYBE, YOU DON’T EVEN SEEM TO CARE ABOUT IT.”

“I don’t.”

Harlan realized how odd it even sounded to him, he nearly died again but he was just apathetic?

He thought about trying to turn up his emotions, but then he gave it more thought, what if he freaked out right now?

His mother would be horrified, hearing that something bad had happened to him and him suddenly entering a state of heightened fear would upset her even more.

“I’m sorry. I know it sounds bad, but I just don’t mind what happened. I know this is upsetting you, but I’m just not the same. I am not normal. I might just be a mons-”

Aida covered his mouth.

“You aren’t normal. But it doesn’t matter, you are still my little boy. And I will not hear you call yourself a monster.”

He hated feeling nothing at her words, against his seemingly better judgment, he started focusing on increasing his emotional sensitivity until he felt normal, slowly but surely he became guilty over her words and until he teared up, once he was crying he figured that he was having a normal reaction and stopped focusing on controlling his new power.

He embraced her and she had no problem being a shoulder to cry on.