Preparing for a child might have seemed like it should be trivially easy for cultivators who had done it before, and indeed anything they needed was easily acquired. The real issue Timothy and Catarina faced was not overdoing… everything. It would be so easy for them to plan out the first twenty years or even century of their child’s life. Plans that would ultimately be pointless because they wanted their child to have freedom of choice.

As quickly as the first six months had gone, the final three went faster. Chidi barely managed to come to grips that he would actually be getting a younger sibling, and then there he was. The process of birth was not difficult for a cultivator of any decent training, as controlling energy within their own body was as easy as it came. Not that anything would have been an issue even without energy at all, given the facilities the Scarlet Alliance had available.

When the time came, Catarina and Timothy carefully guided their son into the world. It happened so quickly that some of those who were rushing over for the birth didn’t even make it- and these were cultivators who could travel around a planet in a very short time indeed.

Those who arrived a bit later did get to see the shining face of the new baby, Yuval. Chidi’s name had come from Chikere who gave up her opportunity to regrow her arm for the sake of a child. It would have been kind of awkward to then name their second son after the pair of them, so Yuval was named independently. It was simply a name the two parents found pleasant.

Chidi could feel his little brother, and he didn’t know how to react. He’d seen children before, obviously. He’d interacted with more wolf pups than human babies, but it wasn’t like such things were a mystery to him. But there was something about his own little brother that was different.

He felt his little brother, finding him healthy and as happy as babies ever tended to be. And unlike himself, Yuval was whole. The chances of him also missing eyes was marginal, but having some other issue was entirely possible. Chidi knew people had been nervous about that. He had too, though mostly he had been thinking of how to prepare. All the various potential accommodations went out the window when everything was fine, though.

Little Yuval was introduced to many people. Humans, obviously, as well as Echoing Cry and Half Oink. At first Catarina and Timothy had been hesitant to allow too many people around, just because it could be overwhelming. However, they found Yuval seemed to like meeting new people with different cultivations.

The exact details were unclear, but he could definitely feel their energy, and wasn’t intimidated like one would naturally expect. Then again, before he was born he had literally constantly been exposed to his mother’s energy as an Augmentation cultivator. He seemed to like fire cultivators most, like members of the One Hundred Stars, Hoyt, and Fuzz. He even briefly interacted with Jyotsana, though the old woman appeared to be even less knowledgeable about what to do with a child than Chidi.

-----

“... So when can we introduce him to swords?” Chidi asked.

Timothy shook his head. “When he’s old enough to be responsible about it. He needs understanding and… muscle control. Though we don’t want to bias his choice of weapon. Or perhaps he won’t even want to fight at all.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Chidi shrugged. He didn’t get that feeling though.

Then again maybe it was just Chidi that was the type to stick his hand in a wolf’s mouth at an early age. Not that he knew it was dangerous. Or theoretically dangerous, since Spikes wouldn’t hurt anyone she didn’t have reason to. Technically being around her, even next to very sharp fangs, was safer than many other places.

-----

Seeing his little brother begin ‘standard’ education, Chidi realized how many differences he’d had. He’d been taught, of course, but reading and writing wasn’t really on the list for obvious reasons. At his current level he could read and write, but only because he could sense the ink in pages with his energy. That was actually better than a lot of display screens, though those could read things to him.

Early years passed quickly, and while Yuval didn’t start cultivation or weapons training he did get to handle weapons when supervised during his early life. He thought weapons were ‘cool’, but didn’t seem to favor anything in particular. Even when Chidi demonstrated what he could do, there wasn’t any particular affinity in his younger brother for the sword.

Disappointing, but there was nothing he could do about it. There wasn’t any point forcing it, because if he didn’t naturally like the sword then he wouldn’t get the same sort of results as Chidi did. He wanted his younger brother to be happy, not just for him to be like Chidi. Though… maybe he did want a little of that. Just like their parents probably wanted Yuval to grow up to be a defender or formation master.

-----

Yuval was smart, soaking up information rapidly. Chidi wasn’t sure what rate normal kids learned at, but he assumed this was faster because it made him feel better. Chidi didn’t actually interact with his younger brother at school and such, though he was intentionally remaining around home more to spend time with him. Most of his training was fine to do on Xankeshan, and Aconite was spending time in isolation to break through to Augmentation.

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Yuval was never unsupervised, but like Chidi he rapidly learned to sense energy watching him. Which meant unless someone was actually in the room with him, it was better to watch everything around him just to make him act more natural. Probably. It worked for Chidi, and Catarina agreed it made sense.

The slight difference in how Chidi was paying attention resulted in him being very surprised when there was suddenly a fire in Yuval’s room. It took him exactly one second to dash down the hall and through the door. He snatched up Yuval, and only then did he realize that the fire was caused by energy. He slashed the flames as he negated the surrounding energy, a simple task. The fire suppression systems didn’t even activate.

“Aww, it’s gone,” Yuval said. His little brother was poking his head out from under Chidi’s arm. “Did you see? I made fire!”

Ah. So that was what happened. And with energy, no less? The kid was barely six years old. It wasn’t impossible, of course, but it was a concern.

Chidi sat his brother down, while he used one hand to send a message to his parents. “You sure did, Yuval. But that’s dangerous to do if you can’t properly control it, okay?” He held up a book that Yuval had scorched. “Look, you burned one of your books. That could have easily spread, and you could have gotten hurt.”

With the fire suppression system he probably wouldn’t have, but still. It was dangerous.

Yuval, who had not at all been concerned about the fire or being randomly yanked away, looked up at Chidi with tears beading in his eyes. “Did I do something bad? Are you mad at me?”

Chidi pat him on the head. “We don’t want anyone to be hurt, okay? So you can’t do things like that without someone watching you to keep you safe.”

“But you were here. So it’s fine, right?”

Chidi shook his head. “Using energy like that is more dangerous than other things, so we need to know that specifically, okay? And it probably has to happen in the right place.”

“Okay,” Yuval agreed. He was a good kid. Yelling at him wouldn’t have helped.

Chidi explained everything to Catarina and Timothy when they arrived- just a few minutes later, dropping whatever they had been doing.

Since Chidi wasn’t the actual parent, they went over things with Yuval properly. If he wanted to use energy, he had to do it in designated places.

“Of course,” Catarina said to the other two, off to the side, “We should probably think about updating our formations. I don’t know if we should prevent his energy flow or not…”

Timothy shook his head. “He needs to learn to listen in that regard. And it would be confusing if sometimes it didn’t work, without knowing why.”

-----

Rather than trying to have Yuval develop his power, control was the most important thing. While there was enough information about body tempering to know that it was possible to do without harming a developing body, it was better to not risk it. And while Yuval was eager to use power when he could, introducing him to lower energy was quite a boon.

It made things harder for him, but rather than making him give up it just meant he had to use more effort to get a little bit of power. Chidi had gone through a similar training regiment, though not quite so young and not from the very beginning.

While Yuval had certainly made a mistake, he wasn’t a reckless child. He saw all around him many adults who were like fire and safe, so he hadn’t really thought it was something dangerous. Now he knew better, and they taught him very carefully. There had been plans to introduce him to cultivation at the age of ten or so, but him figuring out even the very basics before then was still quite a surprise. Not an impossibility, but still rare.

After his early start, he began to grow smoothly as the years passed. Ultimately, there was no question he was interested in cultivation. Not just for personal advancement, but with the ultimate idea of engaging in combat eventually. With everyone around him, it only seemed natural after all.

-----

Jyotsana returned to Prospero Vandale. “I think I’m ready.”

“The formation has been prepared,” Prospero said. “So as long as you are certain…”

“Certain? Hah!” She shook her head. “Not at all. But I know myself well enough. I could linger on for a time, trying to get stronger… but at this rate, I’ll only wither away. This is my best opportunity. If I screw it up…” she shrugged. “Guess that’s it for me.”

Prospero nodded. Of course, unless she completely screwed up, the formations would keep her soul local. So she would be well taken care of, regardless of what portion of her memories she kept. Reminding her of that seemed unnecessary at the moment.

He watched, as she entered the chamber set aside for her. He wondered what it would feel like, as he watched. It didn’t seem painful, but perhaps that was because she felt some sort of peace as the flames picked up and her body faded away.

A technique like that might have saved him large amounts of trouble. Or… he might have shone too brightly in a realm that wouldn’t have been ready to accept him. He didn’t actually have any regrets about how things turned out. He was lacking many memories from the lower realms, but he’d made more here in the upper realms. His strength was more than he would have ever imagined possible when he first began cultivating.

Though Prospero had not trained the technique himself, he could tell Jyotsana had been at least somewhat successful. He might have wished her good luck in her next life, but she didn’t really need it.

-----

Crossed Antennae twitched. She wasn’t anticipating any messages. When she looked at it, she was surprised. It was too early, wasn’t it? No, perhaps not. While the first colony had been established on the border fifty or so years before the invasion, that had been during the short cycle. Here, something like two hundred years wasn’t that surprising.

It did suddenly cut off many of her plans. She couldn’t keep hopping back and forth between planets. Though she did have plans to travel secretly, under her own power. She needed to make sure the colonies were alright. She also needed to keep everyone apprised of what was going on, so they could complete their ultimate duty when the time was right. If they began taking out invaders too soon, they’d waste a fantastic opportunity.

They just had to go another century or so longer than expected without being caught. Everything would be fine. She told herself that over and over, and eventually she decided to believe it. At least for a little while.