A little while later, our game is finally brought to an end when one of the servants comes and says that Eryk is here. Really? I didn't hear anything by the front door. And then I remember that I don't have any water mana now, it all got eaten by the swirling fire I'm still spinning inside of myself. I've gotten so used to having some water all the time, it suddenly feels like my hearing is useless. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise, when I've gotten used to hearing people talking through doors and on the other side of houses.
In any case, we both get up and head back to the front. Waiting there, we find Eryk and John. I check the time, we're about halfway to the eleventh bell. "So, how was it?" Eryk asks.
"Quite nice, Aria is a sweet child, and very well behaved," Kathy comments.
"Oh, high praise," Eryk chuckles, which just earns him a small glare. Then he turns to me.
I smile and respond, "It was nice. I had fun." That's it. Nice, and simple and fun. Exactly what I need right now. Well, with the exception of the swirling fire I have to keep half my attention on, but I can deal with that much, it's just a little bump along the way.
"Good to hear. So, about dinner plans..." He directs his next question to Kathy.
"Dinner should be finished soon, you're welcome to eat too, if you would like," she offers.
"That sounds good." We all head into Kathy's dining room, where she has a couple large tables with chairs all around them. She could seat almost as many people as the orphanage here... John stands off to the side while the three of us sit at one end of a huge table.
The chairs here are low enough that I can get up by myself, and I don't even need pillows to boost me up to reach the table. I wonder if she got these with Thelia in mind? As soon as we sit down, a couple servants appear, seemingly out of nowhere, and set the table for us.
I look down in front of me. A plate, spoon, knife, and... another utensil I don't recognize, with little points on it, probably for stabbing food to pick it up?
I ask about it and Eryk calls it a fork, with an amused grin of course. He also adds that they're collectively called silverware, not that they're made of actual silver. I look over the silverware, they're all made of metal rather than wood. Thus the name. They must be expensive... I pick up the fork and look at it briefly. It's shiny and silver. Based on the coloring, this isn't iron, and it doesn't feel like mollite. Durite is silver like this, but I don't see any signs of the purple colored rust that durite picks up pretty fast.
It's hard to tell based on such a light weight, but I doubt they're titanium. That's supposed to be insanely expensive, making spoons and forks out of it... I wouldn't even know what to think if someone had that much money to throw around.
Definitely not chromium, that's way too hard to shape this well. Of course he already said it's not silver. I'm thinking nickel, most likely.
I want to test it, but I don't have any free mana to use. So I take a few moments to hone my focus, using a small part of my attention to continue cycling the fire, and dip into my mana well, skimming some out. It rushes out everywhere, bouncing around just like before, but I'm prepared, and just grab a little bit of it, redirecting it around while the rest inevitably ends up flying into the fire at some point. Using the bit I've pulled away, I stealthily use the mollite in my wrist, poking it with a small mana field and get some absolute mana. Definitely nickel.
Wait, how did I get that much mana with mollite? I blink at the fork in my hand a few times. "Aria, are forks really that surprising?" Eryk asks with a chuckle since I've been staring at it for a while now. It took some time since I had to fight with my mana to test it.
"Ahh, umm..." I mumble, glancing over toward him. "I just, uhh..." It's hard to pull my thoughts together, thinking about what I just noticed, controlling the fire as it gets knocked around by my mana, spotting Kathy looking at me strangely, and attempting to hold a conversation at the same time.
I close my eyes, taking a few moments to control myself, I open them again and answer clearly. "It is pretty interesting, since I've never seen one before."
"Ahh," Eryk nods, I think even that was enough to tell him I discovered something.
I set the fork back down, looking at the plate made of... I don't know. Stone maybe? Or bone? It's white, very smooth and a little shiny. I touch it and it even feels smooth to the touch, nothing like stone. Is it polished? Can you polish stone? Maybe, the floor in the church is kind of like that, and I think it's made of stone.
I'm still staring when I hear someone, just as she enters the room behind me. I need more water mana...
I turn to look and find Thelia. Oddly, she's wearing new clothes, like she changed after her nap. Now she's in a green dress with an interesting red pattern running up and down the sides. I don't know enough about fancy clothes to say whether it seems more or less expensive than the blue dress from earlier. She sits at the table next to me, her eyes and face looking a bit dull. I think she's still sleepy, so she probably just woke up for dinner. I smile at her and she smiles sleepily back.
Apart from that, I sit quietly while Eryk strikes up a conversation with Kathy. "So, how have things been? How is Bradford?"
"Not around much," she says with a pained smile. "He's always busy with the guild."
"Guild work, huh... He must be swamped with the fallout from Southport, right?"
"Hah, if only." Kathy shakes her head. "It sounds like some noble is building another mansion in the capital. They've been buying up all of the sand passing through Kokenno for the last month, so the guild's been scrambling to find new sources before the price gets out of control. To make matters worse, I've heard rumors that they've been having trouble even getting the shipments to Kokenno. Half of them end up disappearing en-route."
"Oh, that is pretty bad," Eryk comments, rubbing his chin worriedly.
"What about you?" Kathy shoots back. "I haven't seen metal prices dropping, you should be swimming in raw materials by now. It's already been three weeks since..." she trails off, her eyes passing over Thelia and me. "...you know."
"Hah," he makes a similar sound to what she did just before. "The shipments that we've gotten have been... let's just say poor. Either Bromunst managed to strip everything of value in the last few years, or..." He shrugs. "Well, I have no idea what. But at the rate things are going, prices are going to go down anyway now that the army has moved out. Demand has already started dropping off, and we probably won't see it recover for another few years."
Listening to their conversation bouncing back and forth is strange. It sounds like they're talking about some pretty interesting things, but I don't know the names of any places involved, so it's kind of hard to picture it. I do understand the last bit at least. Eryk's been having trouble with the metal ore he's supposed to get from the mines?
And then there's the last part about the army. I remember how John told me that they left a few months ago when it was time for the rail units to fight. If they're anything like the guards, they must need weapons and armor, so that would explain not needing as much metal, since the ones who would need lots of new equipment to fight are all gone...
As I'm wondering about all of this, a couple servants begin bringing in food. Eryk and Kathy pause their conversation while we're served. One man sets down drinks in front of each of us. On the upside, it's not ceeat. On the downside, I have no idea what it is.
The other servant holds a long, rectangular tray in one hand, using a spatula to carefully put the food on each of our plates. I look down at... something. What kind of food is this?
It has some sort of white thing spread over top of a chunky red sauce. The white and red cover whatever is underneath. With one more scoop, he places a small pile of little green, round vegetables. I look up, just in time to see Kathy press her hands to her chest in a respectful gesture. Even Eryk and Thelia follow suit, so I immediately move to do it too.
"We thank Hurena for the bounty on our table." Kathy's prayer is short, but she's actually praying. Do the upper classes pray more?
As soon as she finishes, everyone begins eating. I'm not even sure how to eat this, so I watch for a bit to figure it out. Across the table, Eryk picks up his fork. A glance to Kathy on my left shows she's doing the same. Just to my right, Thelia is too.
Following, I pick up my fork. Then they all take their forks and knives, cut a piece of the food off, then stab it with their forks to eat. I wait to see if there's anything else, but they just chew slowly and swallow. Using a fork and knife is new to me, but this doesn't look too difficult.
Then without warning, Kathy picks up the previous conversation like they never stopped talking. "You haven't gone out to check what the problem in the mines might be?" She tilts her head at Eryk, obviously confused. "You've had weeks, it should only take a couple days, right?"
Eryk immediately scratches his head guiltily. When he finishes his bite, he responds. "Yeah, I haven't had a chance. I'm working on an important project, so I haven't been able to get away for a few days."
Ok, maybe eating like this will be a bit difficult. Half of my attention is still on the fire, so I have to split my remaining concentration between listening to Eryk and attempting to eat with utensils I've never used before.
"Hmm?" Kathy's smile suddenly turns teasing. "An important project? It wouldn't happen to be the one you hired a seven-year-old child for, would it?" All he can do is awkwardly eat take another bite to avoid responding. She totally has him. "You do know how suspicious such a thing is, don't you?" she asks, directing a finger toward him sternly. "My own brother, exploiting a young child!" she says exaggeratedly, pressing the back of her free hand to her forehead. Watching them, I can't help but giggle a little.
Of course they both catch it, and start laughing themselves. While they recover, I focus on my food, taking the fork and... how am I supposed to cut it? I have my fork in my right hand like always, but the knife is also on the right... I glance up and see that Eryk is holding his fork in his left hand so he can hold the knife in his right. So I switch hands and pick up the knife in my right. As I wrap my hand around the handle, I realize the only other time I've held a knife was when I was fighting those kidnappers. Not a pleasant memory...
"But seriously though," Kathy gets right back to it after she stops laughing. "Why did you hire her? It's just too weird."
"Aria has some particular skills that are exactly what I need for this project."
"She said the same thing," Kathy sighs at the evasion, then takes an annoyed bite of her own food. While they're still talking, I carefully stab with the fork, then slice through the food in front of me. This is... surprisingly easy. I realize I'm getting distracted and kick myself to keep enough of my focus on the fire.
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"Come on, you know I can't talk about it," Eryk chides her. "Just keep an eye out. If everything goes well, you should see some big changes coming within the next few months." I look up at that comment.
"Big changes?" She goes kind of still. "For you to say that... what are you up to?" She looks back at me as she speaks, eyeing me much more carefully this time. Then her eyes sweep across my food, and Thelia's next to me.
"You'll just have to wait and see. I guarantee you'll be impressed." Eryk grins widely, but Kathy's attention stays on Thelia.
"Thelia, you have to eat your peas," she instructs.
Thelia pouts and grumbles, "I don't like peas."
"Thelia..." Kathy replies, her tone alone silencing the young girl's protest. Then she looks at me and I shrink down a little. She scolded Thelia for not eating her peas, but I haven't eaten anything yet. "Aria, is there anything wrong with the food?"
"Ahh, no, umm," I cringe a little when the surprise makes my attention slip, before I get it under control again. "I'm just not used to this..." I try to make an excuse, then quickly eat the piece of food I cut off.
As soon as it's in my mouth, I taste all the different flavors and feel all the different textures. Some parts are savory, or a little biting on my tongue. It has saltiness and bits of other flavors spread through the sauce, but there's also a firm layer of some sort of vegetable, and what definitely feels like a piece of bread, but lighter and fluffier than any I've eaten before. Even the piece of white stuff spread over top has this thick and gooey feel to it as it spreads through my mouth and kind of sticks to my teeth.
My eyes go wide after a moment of tasting this strange but wonderful food. I've never had anything like it before, not even the food Eryk's been giving me. This is just... wow. The taste, the texture. Everything about it is really good. Kathy looks amused for a moment, but then purses her lips slightly, looking a little displeased.
"I understand that you haven't used a fork and knife before, but it is disrespectful to use your left hand to eat."
As soon as she says that, I hastily split my attention between control, looking up to realize I did in fact eat with my other hand, trying to chew and swallow, and coming up with an apology. Of course, this nearly leads me to choking on my food, but I manage to recover. Once I've gotten the food down, I apologize. "I'm sorry, this is my first time. I didn't realize that was wrong." I watch Eryk a little more carefully for a moment, noting how after he cuts with his fork in his left hand, he sets down his knife and smoothly passes the fork over into his right hand to eat. I've been so distracted, I missed that part earlier.
"It's fine, you didn't know," she says easily, then turns back to Eryk, apparently intent on continuing their conversation. Again, as if there wasn't even an interruption. "So, you're working on something impressive... What could it possibly be, that it's going to take months to finish?" She taps her fork idly to her lips a few times as she thinks. I quietly begin eating my food, since everyone else is already halfway finished.
"You'll just have to see, but I guarantee it will be a big deal," Eryk has a big grin on his face. Kathy chuckles, then glances over at me and Thelia again to check how we're eating. Apparently finished with their discussion, the room quiets to just the sounds of metal clinking quietly as we all eat.
I quickly realize that it's surprisingly annoying having to eat like this. Switch my fork hand, pick up my knife, cut, put down my knife, switch my fork, and eat. For every single bite. Why is eating with your left hand rude? Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just keep both of them in your hands and just... eat?
Or maybe that's the point? The extra steps are there to show that you're putting in effort to be polite? What about using the knife in the left hand? I have to stop to refocus for a moment, but then I continue to wonder about that. Should I ask? Kathy seems willing to teach me, so it wouldn't hurt to ask.
I go to take a drink and clear my throat, but I hesitate. Sure it's not ceeat, but I have no idea what's in this drink either. With a lot of effort, I contain the fire while pulling some mana from my well. I can barely manage both at once because the fire feels like it doesn't want to respond as easily as before with my attention split so badly. I manage to pull some of the shaking colorless mana over, checking for any effects as I take a sip of the drink. I'm so preoccupied holding my mana together, I'm not even sure how it tastes. But I don't think I feel anything, so I swallow. At least this drink is safe.
The rest of the colorless I pulled is quickly eaten up as I turn my attention back to Kathy. I take another sip, clearing out the last sticky bits of the strange meal so I can speak clearly. "Excuse me?" I ask quietly.
"Yes?"
"I was wondering, if it's rude to eat with my left hand, can I use my knife with my left hand instead of constantly moving my fork?"
Kathy sits briefly, thinking about it. "I don't know," she finally responds. "I've never heard anyone specify about cutting food with a knife in your left hand. It mean, it certainly does not follow common manners, but I don't believe there is any rule specifically against it." Is that... a yes or no? She said a whole lot, but I'm not sure if she gave a real answer. Eryk is just grinning like crazy through her whole answer though.
Then, he gives it a try, cutting his food with the knife in his left. His brow furrows as it goes poorly, he doesn't look very steady using the knife in his left and has difficulty actually controlling it well enough to slice cleanly through the layers of vegetable and bread. "Hmm, it seems the most difficult part would be actually cutting left handed," he notes while setting his knife down again.
If he did it, I guess that means I have permission? At least using a knife in my left hand is no problem. Even if I'm broken, with all our training, what kind of rail unit wouldn't be able to wield a weapon well enough to cut some food? So I take it in my left, cut my food, and eat. I smile a little. No need to constantly swap hands over and over. When I look up at Kathy, she's surprised, but still conflicted.
Finally, she shrugs lightly. "It may be unorthodox, but it isn't overtly disrespectful, so I'll allow it." I nod happily, eating the food much more easily now. I also make sure to eat the peas so she doesn't scold me about that like Thelia. They're... fine. Not really good or bad.
Eating is much easier now and leaves a lot more of my attention for dealing with the fire that is getting increasingly unwieldy and hard to maintain. I thought I had this under control... As I take another bite and my control slips just a little more, I finally realize what's happening. There's something in this food too?! What's with rich people food?
I stop eating, looking down at the remaining food on my plate. Now that I'm properly paying attention, I realize what's happening. It was just a little with each bite, but every time, my mana became just a tiny bit less responsive to my will. It was small enough that it took me this long to notice the change. I need most of my focus just to keep everything working and stop the fire from getting away from me.
"Aria, is there something wrong?" Eryk asks. I can only divert a little of my attention to his words. I'm still staring at the food. I take a few long moments to work through what he said before looking up.
"I can't eat anymore," I say stiffly. I may have a little more leeway before I lose control completely, but I wouldn't be able to do anything if I went much further. I would have to devote every bit of my attention entirely to controlling the fire mana from going out of control. Even now, I don't dare pull any focus away for the conversation, just using what little attention span I have left.
"Mm..." he mutters, looking at my plate.
"Excuse me, you're not finishing?" Kathy asks, obviously offended this time.
I sit for a bit, working up a response. "I'm sorry... I... can't finish..." I'm speaking too slowly, it's hard to think too far ahead of what I'm saying. I'm starting to sweat from the exertion, but I keep a straight face. The food is really good, if I could finish without losing control, I would. I am not burning Kathy's house down.
"Aria..." Eryk sounds like he doesn't know if he should take me seriously or scold me here. He has to be able to guess that something is wrong.
"I'm sorry... I can't..." I think a little of the strain is leaking into my tone. I try meeting Eryk's gaze to tell him that I'm serious.
Kathy scoffs angrily though. "It is important for children to eat their food," she scolds me from the side. But I just keep looking at Eryk, silently asking for help. "Hey Kathy, I'm sorry," he apologizes. "Aria has some... let's just say, food issues," he explains. "Is this a problem like that?" he asks me.
"...Yes..." I eventually reply after a long delay.
Kathy still doesn't look happy. "It's really rude to leave her plate half-finished," she complains. "She may never have another chance to eat shidar and cheese in one meal you know," she adds pointedly.
Eryk raises his hands in defeat. "I'm sure she ate what she could, right?"
I slowly open my mouth, and reply. "Yes... it was... good." I have to stop myself from focusing on the conversation more when I notice again how choppy my speech is. "I just... can't..." I bow, but even the motion takes a little too much, and I grit my teeth, barely grabbing some of the fire as it attempts to slip away.
"Mm, she does seem a bit... off, I guess," Kathy notes. "She hardly drank any of the ceeat I served earlier."
"Ceeat?" Eryk asks. He looks over at me, eyes asking if that was a problem too. I nod stiffly. "Ahh, it looks like Aria's been having a bit of a rough time," he tries excusing me. "It seems like she's been pushing through anyway. I'll work out what foods she has trouble with later, could you have your servant send over the recipe?" he asks smoothly.
"Fine, fine," Kathy sighs, backing down. Since they're already further along, they quickly finish off their own plates. I keep staring ahead, keeping myself composed even as I focus hard. I have to be careful of expensive food.
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We finish dinner a short time later. Standing at the door, I can't even offer a proper farewell. The best I can do is stumble through something that hardly resembles a curtsy, gritting my teeth and failing to suppress my trembling effort in the process when I nearly lose the fire again.
Thankfully, Kathy can clearly see something is wrong at this point and gives us a warm send off. Even Thelia waves goodbye, and I give it everything I have to wave back without losing control.
I don't care about the problems at the end, I had a great time today.
"So?" Eryk asks as John carries me toward home.
"Not... Not burning... her house down..." I practically grunt out with effort.
"Umm?" He doesn't even know how to take the explanation. I'm in no state to try explaining.
"Tomorrow."
"Alright." He nods his understanding.
Thankfully, the rest of the night goes fine. John drops me at home. All I have to say to Emily is "Food problems," and she leaves it for later.
Then I sit like before, mindlessly practicing my writing, going on and on until the effects of the ceeat and that strange upper class meal fade. I can finally focus on something other than desperately controlling my mana.
I have no idea what time it is, I couldn't even spare a little attention to track it. Looking out the dining room window from where I'm sitting, it faces south and the view is totally covered by the building next to the orphanage. Not helpful.
Moving over to the front of the house, I can see better. The large moon hangs pretty high in the eastern sky above the buildings across the street. It's mostly full, shrinking by the day. Judging by its height, it's already pretty late, those effects really lasted a while.
I have things I still want to do. Questions to ask Reena, and I want to practice focusing on myself and my mana more. As much as I just spent a ton of time fighting with that fire, it's hard to say if that really helped much. Well, maybe I could say my control got a little better after fighting with it like that for so long. But still, for two new things to come up that both mess with my mana in one day? Is it something about upper class food? Do they have more stuff like that?
But that doesn't make sense, they can't feel mana. They don't even know about it. So why would they have food with effects on it? For two in the same day, it can't possibly be coincidence, can it? Until now, I've only come across one thing that had any effect out of dozens of different plants. I'll ask Eryk tomorrow. Maybe there's something about the food they eat that makes it more likely for them to use mana-affecting ingredients... even though they know nothing about it.
As for talking to Reena... should I do that now or wait? I consider it for a bit. It's already pretty late and I have class and work tomorrow. I want to test whether lightning works for combining metals tomorrow.
"Haa..." I sigh sadly. Sleep beats out Reena for now. The same goes for my practice. I head upstairs. Now that my mana has calmed down, I pull the earth I left in the manastone, then begin to take more from my well, but stop briefly when I look at Emily. I couldn't take the lightning earlier, but she only looks a little uncomfortable as she sleeps. Has she already started getting over her nightmares from the monster attack? That thing still appears in mine once in a while. I shake my head with a smile. Emily's so strong, I wish I could be a little more like her. I'll ask her about the lightning mana tomorrow morning. For now, I finish getting my earth mana, reducing it a little to see if I can manage. I stuff some cloth in my mouth in case it's not enough. I can always make more later if I wake up during the night.
Then I lie down, nestling together with Emily. Her troubled sleeping expression eases and I smile a little before closing my eyes and going to sleep myself.