As the four of them made their way to the nearest mess hall, a picture of what his near future held for him started forming in Sam’s head. Same thing day in and day out. With the only difference being whether he ate before or after working out.
No chance in hell he’ll make it.
Noticing his state of mind, he took a deep breath with the hope of calming himself and set his sights on analyzing the reasons behind his current anxious mood.
The first cause seemed obvious: the feeling of being up in the air was still nagging at him, making him wish that Dan could finish his weekly schedule that he’s been promising since two days ago. If only he had that outside influence telling him what to do and how to do it—like Web-Web was supposed to do when they promised to tell him if he ever strayed from the right path—Sam could let himself relax. Content in the knowledge that he was following another’s plan for him, a person much better suited than Sam himself for guiding Sam’s future. But as long as there wasn’t a training plan for Sam and it was left up to Sam’s discretion what to do with his time, he felt torn between two extremes.
The second cause for anxiety was even more obvious than the first one. Also, it was pretty much just another framing of the first one, but why worry about the one thing once when you can worry about it twice? His discomfort stemmed from the two-sided internal turmoil that was raging in his mind. The weaker side, both literally and figuratively, was content to accept Yvessa’s judgment of him (which was more like Sam’s critical view of himself, superimposed upon Yvessa’s offhand comments) as being accurate. He was weak-willed, quick to give up and even faster to want to take a break. An afternoon doing nothing after the hectic last couple of days was just what the doctor called for as far as this side of Sam was concerned. The other side of him, the one that rose to prominence and established control over his thoughts ever since his first conversation with Web-Web, was ill at ease with the prospect of taking it easy. It saw what the other students of the academy were doing and as long as Sam wasn’t trying hard as they did; it wasn’t willing to consider taking it easy.
Speaking of the other students, for the first time since coming here, Sam began actively looking around at the other people who will be his company for the upcoming years. There were a lot of them. Sam knew that much already. But seeing and knowing are two different things.
According to what Sarah told him, all permanent students at the academy were humans, Terrans, to be more politically correct, and that provided an ample explanation for the lack of pointy ears among the passing crowd. Evidently any elf he did see in passing, such as the one who had exercised next to them, were exchange students or faculty members—teachers and instructors that were sent to help the still young Terran magical education system.
Sam was happy to notice that there wasn’t much commonality between the different students that he saw, although, come to think of it, they were all walking on two legs, which was something that he should still not be taking for granted. Besides that, the students at the academy seemed to represent the microcosm of humanity pretty well. Of course, he didn’t know enough about the current New Terran demographic statistics to be certain that there wasn’t any racial or cultural discrimination going on, but at least gender wise there didn’t seem to be any.
Does make me wonder whether there is a pattern to stop the menstrual cycle, though. How come I didn’t think about that up till now? Just goes to show the flaws inherent in the system. If I was a girl, that would have probably been the first thing that I wanted to know about. He made a mental note to ask Sarah about that once there weren’t any people within earshot who might get think less of him for not asking that question all this time.
One thing he wasn’t happy to notice, however, were the looks the four of them were drawing from the other students. That was two days in a row that the people he was with were drawing a lot of attention to him. Hopefully, none of their fame would rub off on him.
“So you guys really are famous then?” he finally asked Felix and Yvessa when he couldn’t hold back his curiosity anymore.
“Not any more than Sarah. Why?” Felix asked.
“Well, people keep looking at us and they didn’t yesterday or two days ago when it was just me and Sarah, so something must be different.”
“Yeah, that’s just you, mate, they’re looking at you.” Felix clapped him on the back. “Me and Yvessa already had our fair share of gawkers and so did Sarah, although much more than us, according to her. Now it’s your turn, an hour in the limelight compared to our fifteen minutes.”
“Very funny.”
“He’s serious Sam,” Sarah said. “I guess news must have spread about you being both a Taken and a Thread-Weaver, because it’s all over campus already.” She held up her phone to show him one of the group chats she was on. “I just noticed it after we finished showering, but seeing as there are already pictures of you going around with yesterday’s clothes, people must have already figured it out then.”
“Figured it out?” Sam was panicking. “What do you mean, figure it out? How? Why? When? There were only like five people that knew about me, not counting these two.” He pointed at Felix and Yvessa.
“Except all the other people that knew about you. The school’s administration, the military, TerrSec, and so on. It’s not like it’s a secret or anything. Did you really think that you’ll be able to just stay under the radar?”
Sam opened his mouth to speak but for once in his life, not knowing what to say actually ended with him not saying anything. He ran his hand through his hair, trying to calm his nerves. He was suddenly feeling every stranger’s eye upon him like it was a searchlight from a sixties prison break movie. The other three were looking at him with worry, although Yvessa could afford to appear a little more sympathetic. Finally he said, “No, I guess I didn’t think that I’ll stay anonymous forever. Just didn’t realize that I’ll be famous enough for people to take pictures of me.”
“Why not?” Felix barked a laugh. “Can you imagine it?” He put a hand up to his ear to mimic a phone call. “‘Hey mom! Guess who I saw today, the one of a kind Thread-Weaver Taken. Best chances in to world to become a Ruler. Can you believe it? Oh, that’s great junior, did you take a picture? No. I didn’t think that it was that big a deal.’ Not famous enough, my ass.”
“You know,” Sam said, “that would have worked a lot better if you had the mom character actually have a different voice than her son. And while we’re on that subject, you could also afford to give the son his own voice and not just use your own.”
“Everyone’s a critic.”
“In all seriousness,” Sarah said, “are you OK, Sam?”
Sam took a deep breath and released it after a second. “Yeah, I guess so. Just wasn’t mentally prepared for it, that’s all.” He could still feel the lingering looks being thrown around at him, but now, instead of floodlights, they felt more like camera flashes. It would still take him a long time to fully adjust to his newly gained fame. Hopefully, people would get tired of him pretty soon, and he’ll never have to. But if not, he could always take comfort in the fact that he was already beginning to feel better than he did two minutes ago, when the shock of realization was ringing in his mind.
“If that’s what it takes to rattle you, then you are in serious trouble,” Yvessa told him with narrowed eyes. “How will you compose yourself once you’re close to realizing your potential and actually deserve the fame you’ve gained? There isn’t a Ruler in the Web that doesn’t have to walk in front of a crowd. And we Terrans have the biggest crowds.”
Sam gulped. Funnily enough, stage fright wasn’t one of his many symptoms of social anxiety. But there was a difference between getting up to do a presentation before a class of thirty people and the thought of hundreds and thousands of people knowing who he was and wanting to see him. He bit down on his inner lips to stop himself from going further down that road of worry. “I guess I’ll just handle it like I do everything else that I don’t like; make jokes about it until I run out of material or I get used to it.”
“Is making jokes all you can do?” Yvessa asked.
“No. I can also criticize the jokes of others. I’m multitalented like that.” Sam gave her a beaming smile. By then they had already reached the mess hall, where it seemed the other students were more interested in eating their fill than having their fill of gossip. Even better, the four of them managed to snag themselves a lone table.
“So what are your plans for the rest of the day?” Felix, who was sitting next to Yvessa, asked the two sitting opposite him.
“I was actually hoping you could help me with that,” Sarah said, gesturing to both Yvessa and Felix.
“How come?”
“I was hoping that I could leave Sam in your very capable hands until lunch. You only have elven history until then, right? That doesn’t have compulsory attendance, and like you said, Yvessa doesn’t really need to be there anyway.”
“Oh good.” Felix wiped his brow exaggeratedly. “So it’s Yvessa you want, not me.”
“I don’t mind,” said Yvessa. “But are you sure you can stomach leaving him for more than a couple of minutes?”
Sam laughed. “Now hold on just a moment. Don’t nobody just go foisting me on other people like I’m some kind of crack baby. I am perfectly capable of managing myself until it’s time for lunch with grandpa.” He pronounced the last word with his most baby like voice.
“Wouldn’t you rather make good use of that time by having Yvessa teach you about elven history?” Sarah asked. “If that’s alright with her, of course.”
“I can do that.” Yvessa nodded.
“Really?” Sam asked, pleasantly surprised.
“Of course. I am more than capable of teaching you the basics taught by the teachers here.”
Felix nudged her shoulder. “I don’t think that was the part that he was doubting, mate.” Yvessa gave him a puzzled look in response that Sam wasn’t quite sure if it was fake or not.
“So that’s it?” Sam wondered aloud. “I’m thrown from one teenage mother to the next?”
Sarah elbowed him in the ribs. “Quit the bellyaching. You’re the one who keeps complaining that I’m always around you.”
“And your solution is to hand me to the care of an even younger woman than you? Wait. That didn’t come out like I wanted. Nowhere as sexist enough, can I have a redo?”
“No,” Sarah said. “So you’ll do it?” she asked Yvessa, who nodded in affirmation.
“Ooh!” Felix exclaimed. “I’m coming as well. Wouldn’t want to miss it for the world.”
“You were not requested, nor are you necessary.” Yvessa waved him off.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“C’mon… You want me there, don’t you Sam?”
“Don’t involve me in your domestic squabble.” Sam refused to engage. “I’m still reeling from being abandoned by one mother. I’m not going to risk antagonizing my new one.”
“Not doing a very good job, then.” Felix pointed to Yvessa’s newly formed frown. “Which just goes to show how much you need me there for your protection.”
“What, you think I’m going to hurt him?” Yvessa asked.
“I don’t know… Who’s to say that the elves don’t employ corporal punishment in their teaching methods?”
“I do. They don’t. Besides, if there’s anyone in danger of receiving physical violence here, it’s you.”
“Ah ha! So you admit to wanting to hurt us. Now you see why I need to be there for Sam. He’s still too weak to protect himself.”
“From your stupidity, maybe.”
Sam leaned to whisper to Sarah. “They always like this?” he asked, hoping to god that the answer was positive.
“I think they’re trying extra hard today in order to impress you,” she whispered back to him with a smile.
“What are you two laughing about?” Felix noticed their hushed dialogue.
“You wouldn’t get it,” Sam told him. “It’s a twenty-first century joke. You had to be there. So.” He turned to Sarah. “Care to tell the group just what it is that you’re hoping to do in the next two hours that you’re abandoning me for?”
“Nothing special. Just combat practice. I’ve already missed a lot of it during the last couple of weeks.”
“Hmm…” Sam adopted a pensive squint. “Maybe you should consider focusing on just one or two weapons and not the gazillion that you’re training with.”
Sarah frowned at him. “So now I’m also going to get crap from you?”
“Is there anything I’ve given you that wasn’t crap?”
Sarah laughed. “Got me there. Then you two are OK with teaching him history for the next two hours?”
“Leave it to us.” Felix placed his hand on Yvessa’s shoulder. She shook it off.
“Great!” Sarah said while getting up, having made finishing her meal a higher priority than anyone else at the table. “So I’ll leave him in your care.” And she ran off. Presumably to escape Sam’s righteous, although not independently constructed, advice.
“So what do you have at lunch? Something with a grandpa?” Felix asked Sam once Sarah left.
“Lunch with Maurice. He wants to talk about some of the discrepancies between me and other Taken.”
“Like you not having a core at first?” Yvessa asked.
“Yeah. You know about that?”
She nodded. “Sarah told us that you keep making jokes about your head exploding because of that.”
“I want to be very clear on this point. The bit with missing core isn’t the reason for my, you say jokes, but I say very realistic fears. It’s Maurice wanting to check up on me after I awaken. How can I prove that? Simple. I knew about the core from my first day here. I knew about Maurice’s ‘protocol’ from the second. The joke only began its existence on that second day… Anyway, yeah, he wants to talk about all of that stuff. Things he didn’t get to ask me during our initial meeting. Also, to make sure that I’m ‘alright’ and what not, but I’m pretty sure that’s Sarah talking through him.”
“Cool,” Felix said. “Can we come as well?”
“Why are you asking for me?” Yvessa rebuked him.
“C’mon… don’t tell me that you don’t want to hear about Taken. That’s literately the stuff of legends. Plus, we’re already going to be with Sam before lunch, so why not eat it with him as well?”
“I get that. But why won’t you get that lumping us together like that just reinforces that stupid joke about us being twins?”
Sam laughed. “You know, if it wasn’t for all this rampant sexual attraction between the two of you, you’d make the perfect old barren married couple.”
“Sexual attraction?” Felix asked with a faked shudder.
“Rampant.”
“So you’re not coming to lunch with Sarah and Maurice?” Felix turned back to Yvessa.
“Of course I’m going. I would simply ask of you to refrain from automatically including me in your plans in the future.”
“So you’d have preferred it if I asked Sam if I can come and didn’t mention you?”
“Absolutely. I could have just as easily signaled my desire to attend the meeting after he had given you his assent. What if I had already made plans to eat lunch in the company of someone else?”
Felix laughed. “Like who? We don’t have any other friends besides Sam and Sarah.” Holy shit. I’ve made it to friendship status so fast! These guys are way too accepting of my bullshit.
Yvessa sighed. “Didn’t I just ask you not to speak of me and you as one single unit? Besides, I have other friends.”
“So do I. Just not here in the academy.”
“Well, maybe we both could get some new friends if people stopped treating us like ‘the twins…’”
“You mean I could get some new friends. I don’t see you being friendly with any one of our classmates.”
“I’m more than friendly with those that deserve it!”
“So that’s just me, I guess? Sarah’s not in our year, so she doesn’t count. Neither is Sam, technically. C’mon Yvessa, they’re not all assholes. Most of them aren’t, in fact. They just don’t like that you keep bringing up the elves this and the Royal Academy that. Makes them, hell, makes me as well, feel inferior. Now, I know that’s not what you mean—”
“Of course, that’s not what I mean! I only bring this up because I know that we can do better! I’m also a Terran, just like you guys. There’s a reason why I’m here and not back at the Royal Academy in Larsus. But just because I didn’t grow up in the republic, I have to walk like on eggshells in order not to make any xenophobic assholes feel bad?”
“Guys, Guys!” Sam burst in before Yvessa’s state of mind would further deteriorate and he would no longer be able to understand what she’s saying. “Now clearly you both have a lot of grievances against each other and against the academy and the elves and your classmates and everything else that kids your age want to rage about…” He took a deep breath, now that the focus of both of them was upon him. “But just remember, no matter how much you may be angry you may feel. I’m still five days old and I don’t like to see my parents fighting!” He further pushed the message by pumping both of his fists up and down. “Now, we can continue this discussion in a calm and friendly manner, in which the both of you can give and receive each other’s point of view. Or… and this would be my choice, we can take everything that was said and done here in the last couple of minutes, bottle it deep down inside of us, and go back to the original plan which was to focus solely on Sam and his education.”
With the thread of their argument cut short, but Felix and Yvessa were forced to take a step back and calm themselves down. As far as they were concerned, that was probably good enough; back to business. But not Sam. He found himself situated on the precipice of a bit, and he wasn’t going to let it go. “Good.” He rapped his fingers on the table. “So who wants to go first?”
Felix raised a brow. “Go first with what?”
“Why, with apologizing, of course. You gotta clear the air so we can all go back to being happy friends.”
Yvessa scoffed. “Really? An apology? Do we also have to kiss and make up? Promise to never argue again?”
“Yeah, that sounds pretty stupid,” Felix said. “Besides, it’s not like we were mad at each other. It wasn’t even an argument. And we wouldn’t even need to talk about this if Yvessa just did what I told her to do yest—”
“Maybe we also wouldn’t need to talk about this if you just dropped it like, I, told you do to yesterday.”
“Guys, guys!” Sam stopped them before things could flare up once again. “You got me all wrong. I don’t care about your feelings. It’s not each other who you should be apologizing to, but to yours truly. I mean, I am a guest! And yet you’ve embroiled me straight into your marital dispute as though I was the ill-wanted spawn of two teenaged parents. So let’s have at it, both together at the same time: ‘We’re sorry Sam. We shouldn’t have argued right before you. And no matter what happens in the future, we just want you to know that both of us love you. Even if we’re not part of the same family anymore, you will always be our baby.’ That’s the gist of it, at least. Feel free to put your on spin on things.”
“What?” Yvessa asked, her face contorted in confusion. Felix just held his face in his hand while chuckling.
“You heard me! An apology. Sarah left me in your care and barely a minute after she left, you totally forgot about my existence. Why… just wait until I tell her what happened. She’ll never let you babysit me ever again.”
“He’s joking, right?” Yvessa asked Felix, which prompted Sam to make his angry baby face; lips pushed outwards, eyebrows pulled down, and eyes rolled halfway up.
“I… I don’t know,” Felix glanced at Sam. “He must be on some level, but I don’t know just how much.”
“I don’t hear any apologies…” Sam said. “I’m this close to making a scene. And believe me. I’ve had twenty-one years of experience at making scenes to embarrass my parents. You don’t want to test me.”
“Fine!” Yvessa huffed. “I’m sorry OK?! I’m… We’re sorry for involving you in our fight.”
“Yeah,” Felix echoed her, “apologies. Didn’t mean to argue like that in front of you.”
Sam nodded. “Very good, apology accepted. Now, if you would just apologize to each other, we can put all of this behind us.”
Felix laughed. “We didn’t even argue with each other. I certainly don’t feel like Yvessa owes me an apology.”
“I wouldn’t mind an apology, but I don’t really need it,” Yvessa said. “And you just said that you didn’t care about our own feelings and whether or not we apologize to each other.”
“I lied.” Sam said. “Adults do that sometime, we lie. Get used to it kiddos.”
“What? How are you suddenly the adult in this scenario? You—”
“Whatever,” Felix said with a chuckle, holding Yvessa by the shoulder. “Yvessa, I’m sorry. Really really really sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you in any shape or form. You know that I love you and that you’re my favorite person in the whole world right?”
Yvessa turned to Sam with a shake of the head. “I’m not returning that apology.”
“C’mon,” Felix said, “you want Sam to act out again?”
“Fine… I’m sorry Felix. That’s all you’re getting from me.”
“Great.” Sam clapped his hands. “See how easy that was? And don’t you too feel a hell of a lot better after apologizing to each other, but more importantly, to me?” That earned him a frown from both of them. “Now, now. Don’t you go looking at me like that. You both did the right thing despite initial apprehension, and that’s what matters. I promise to not mention to Sarah you acting your own age.” He held his hand to his heart.
“Acting our own age?” Yvessa asked with a snort. “Shouldn’t you, of all people, feel embarrassed talking like that?”
“Drop it, Yvessa,” said Felix. “We were getting riled up, and he did manage to calm us down in the end, no?”
“Yeah, but still… I mean.” She gestured towards Sam. Sam looked behind him and after turning back, he pointed an asking finger at himself. “Never mind…”
“What you have to remember.” Sam twirled his index finger. “Is that up until now, at least in my interaction with you two, I have been in total control of my emotions, believe it or not. If I’m acting a certain way, it’s only because I’ve chosen to act like that. It doesn’t mean, of course, that you can’t criticize me for the way I behave, far from it. But just keep in mind that despite the way I may present myself, I am still significantly older and more mature than you. And although I’m sure you had a much more challenging and meaningful upbringing than I did, what with the threat of evil invasion ever looming. I still suffered through two major traumatic events in short order, which has allowed me to have such fine control of my behavior. My point is: you shouldn’t feel bad for acting your age. You’re still little babies, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Babies?” Yvessa huffed. “You’re only three years older than us.”
“A hundred and three years technically,” Felix said.
“At least.” Sam nodded. Yvessa rolled her eyes but didn’t try the push the point any further. “So are we all calm then? Back to being friends once again? Oh, I should ask you though, Yvessa, I already marked Felix down as publicly admitting to being my friend, but how about you? Should I put a cross on it? Or are we not there yet? Or at all? Never? Be honest with me, you actually really hate me, don’t you? But remember, be honest. But not too honest if the truth will hurt me.”
Yvessa’s sigh and following chuckle gave Sam mixed signals. “You can mark me down as being your friend as well. What sort of idiot would I be if I failed to ingratiate myself to someone who is very likely to become a Ruler in the future?”
“I don’t know…” Sam drawled. “Did you take into account the fact that I am incredibly annoying and factor that against the future benefits of being in my good graces? Because I’ll have you know, most people in my life still chose against my friendship despite its overwhelming future benefits.”
“Really?” Felix asked with half a smile. “You were in the same position you are now before being taken?”
“Are you asking whether I was seen as going to be someone incredibly important in the future or whether I was also friendless in the past, forced to search for the recluses and exiles in every social structure I found myself in?”
“I was just wondering about the first part before, but now you’ve intrigued me, so it’s both.”
“Well, it’s quite simple, really. Somewhere during my highschool years, perhaps even before, I got it into my head that one day in the future I’m going be the ruler of the entire world. And please, remind me sometime to give you the whole tangent on how much of a stupid name that title is. Anyway, you’d expect a rational risk-averse teenager to realize that however infinitesimal the chances of me being the person in charge of all mankind in the future might be, they’ll still choose to be my friends on the off chance that I do end up making it that high. But, the reality of my meager highschool friend group shows at that they must’ve found my personality too unbearable and thus the costs of being my friends in the then-present outweighed the benefits of being my friends in the then-future.”
“Why the hell did you think you were going to be the ruler of Earth?” Yvessa asked.
“Who said I thought that?”
“You did. You said that you got it into your head one day.”
“Oh… Fair enough. But what I meant is that one day I just started saying that as a joke because I thought it was funny. No way in hell did I mean it seriously. I mean, can you imagine? Being in charge of an entire world? That’s like really hard. Way more than a forty-hour work week, which in itself is already quite a lot, in my opinion.”
“Oh,” Felix said. “So the problem wasn’t you becoming the ruler of old Earth but you not wanting the job… Because obviously if you wanted it you were going to get it right?”
Sam threw up his hands in the air. “We’ll never know now, will we?”
“I guess not.” Felix laughed while Yvessa was rubbing her forehead in frustration.
“I’m really starting to regret agreeing to help Sarah,” she said in a low voice.