Sam was in the middle of the first stage, guiding the magical energy down to his heel, when Sarah’s call finally came, as signified by the sound of the still default ringtone. Sam quickly lost the magic but, nonetheless, let out a long breath of relaxation. He was finally done with gathering for now. The process lost its allure of mystique once he was on his third successful run and was growing bored with figuratively grinding Sisyphus’ boulder into dust. “Hello?” he answered the phone, trying to ignore Farris over-emoting his dismay that their time was over.

“Sam?” Sarah said. “Why are you out of breath?”

“Oh, was I? Must have been holding it without noticing, but I’m fine, really. I was just in the middle of practicing gathering, actually.”

“Really?” the excitement in Sarah’s voice immediately replaced the worry that was previously tinting it. “That’s great! We’re just finished at the gym, so let’s meet where we ate yesterday and then you could tell me all about it, OK? Are you with Dan?”

“No, I’m actually with—”

“Great! See you there, bye!” Farris lunged over the table, managing to grab the phone out of Sam’s hand and end the call before Sam even realized what had happened.

“What the fuck, man? Never heard of the famous Terran concept of personal space and private property?” Sam took his phone back from Farris’s hands, the elf making no effort to prevent him the reclamation.

“I was just making sure you weren’t going to blow the surprise.” Farris, unabashedly, gave him a thumbs up.

“What bloody surprise?”

“Who your new mentor is, of course.”

“And how did screaming wildly into the phone not ruin it?”

“She doesn’t know what I sound like, could have been anyone. Could even have been you, if she wasn’t paying attention.”

“That’s some level of inattention you’re requiring of her. But alas, something tells me she figured out it wasn’t me,” Sam said as he returned his phone to his pocket. Having had to message Sarah back—reassuring her that he was fine—following her barrage of frantic messages.

Farris waved him off. “It’s fine. As long as she wasn’t on speaker and Yvessa wasn’t nearby, she isn’t very likely to recognize who I am off of my voice.”

Sam shook his head and began making his way towards the mess hall, not surprised in the slightest to have Farris continue to follow him. “So you’re still coming to breakfast?”

“An elf’s got to eat. And a general has got to meet the two other people who comprise half of the Terran Republic’s most promising prospects.”

“Two other? Oh, because you know Yvessa from her time in Maynil?”

“Indeed, although more through Erianna than official state functions. I don’t much go to those. Not that I know her all that well, though. I don’t believe she ever had the pleasure of talking one on one with me.”

“Really? She didn’t mention that she was incredibly fucking lucky. Wonder if she’s got any tips for how to keep you at bay.”

“None that would work for you, I’m afraid. And besides, now that she’s out of her best friend’s shadow, and walking on her own path to greatness. She’s headed straight for a head on collision with yours truly. All your friends are. And don’t think that just because Sarah Khan was a kid when she was taken that I’m not interested in her as well.”

“Wow. You’ve almost managed not to sound like a total creep. Better luck next time… So just so I’m all clear, Yvessa’s best friend is your niece, right?”

“Of course.”

“You know what this reminds me of? The question of the equivocal nature of relationships and how much anxiety it used to give me. Like, in this example, is Erianna also Yvessa’s best friend or does the best-friendship only extend one way?”

Farris drew a breath. “Now that’s a hard question you’ve put before me. I’m afraid that I’m not so well versed in their relationship as to give you a definite answer.”

“Well, that’s just not true. Cause obviously it was your niece who informed you of her relation to Yvessa, seeing as you’ve never spoken with Yvessa privately. That must mean that it is her who is best friend to Yvessa.”

“By god you are right! Are you saying that Yvessa might not feel her relationship with Erianna is as close as Erianna believes it to be? That is most grave. You’ll have to ask her about it.”

Sam laughed. “Sure yeah, cause that’s a thing you ask a person. ‘Hey Yv, you know that friend you have back home, who also happens to be the niece of this very crude, powerful general, do you think of her as your best friend like she does? Or is she more of just a good friend to you? Keep in mind that anything you say will most definitely come back to the… princess? Yes, princess in question.’ This is just one of those things that you ask someone you’ve just met yesterday. It goes: ‘Where did you grow up? Both cats and dogs or are you an asshole?’ And right after it’s: ‘Is the status of one of your most important relationships seen the same way by both of you, or is one of you stiffing the other?’ And once you’ve got that question down, it’s smooth sailing all the way to Friendsgiving.”

“I think that you had a point somewhere there, but it got lost beneath all the sarcasm.”

“That’s a good one. Did you think of that yourself, or did your genius niece write it down for you?”

“Jokes on you because she’s never written me anything.” Farris theatrically wiped his eyes and sniffed. “Not even on my birthday.”

“We’ll I’m sure that if you manage to ruin her relationship with her best friend, by asking said friend a stupid question, she’ll write you something.”

“That’s why I wanted you to ask her that. You don’t care what Erianna thinks of you.”

“I have social anxiety. I care what people who I’ve never met and are going to die in two days are going to think of me. Not to mention what my anxiety thinks of making people who don’t deserve it feel unhappy.”

“What about people who do deserve it?”

“It can get quite extreme. Let’s just say that if we’re speaking about a certain kind of people, I wouldn’t trust me with a Death Note and facial recognition software.”

“And Yvessa isn’t one of those people, right?”

“We won’t know until we see what happens when she’s in a not empty bus and gets a call from a friend.”

“That’s very specific.”

“Not for anyone who’s ever had to commute by public transport. Honestly, I’m surprised you’re not asking me what a Death Note is.”

“I was just thinking of that! I think that I managed to infer the meaning, but I’m still wondering—”

“Too late. We’re here.” Sam pointed to the building in front of them and quickly went inside. Only to have his new mentor completely on his coattails.

“I’m going to find out what that is,” Sam’s shadow spoke from his left shoulder. “So you might as well just tell me now.”

“Or, you could just google it while you have some free time. Say in the middle of a meeting with the top brass of the military, maybe?” Farris didn’t answer, but he did whip out his phone, which immediately made Sam immediately feel uncomfortable. Elves weren’t supposed to use phones.

“So I looked it up, and it’s pretty much what I thought it was, minus the bit about needing a name, which I guess explains why you wanted facial recognition.” He pointed to Sam’s filled tray. “You going to get something else, or should we go find a sit? I think people are starting to recognize me.”

Sam looked around. “No one’s looking at you. And most people aren’t even looking at me anymore, thank god. Let me just check my phone. They should have already found a table. Yep, they’re at the back.”

“Well I could have told you that.”

“How exactly?”

“Same way I know people won’t be able to recognize me.” He smiled. “Magic.”

“You’re an ass, you know that? You’re the one who said that I shouldn’t be learning anything about threads and you won’t be teaching me. And yet you keep dropping hints to it.”

“I wasn’t teaching. That was only alluding. Hinting ain’t a crime. Not my fault you can’t open your Threadsight without starting to lose your sense of self. Besides, I could have been talking about any other aspect of magic, nothing to do with threads necessarily.”

Sam clicked his tongue. “Except you just confirmed it so… And also, you’ve done it again. I learned something new. That I wasn’t supposed to know that yet, so that’s also on you.” Farris opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by someone calling Sam’s name. Sam made his way to the waving Sarah. She pointed to the empty sit next to her while looking quizzically at Farris next to him. Opposite her were sat Felix and Yvessa. Neither bothered to turn their heads at that point, which proved to be a mistake in the following second.

Before Sam could close the distance to the table, Farris rushed ahead of him, dropping his tray at his left side where it followed behind him on empty air, and put his hands on each shoulder of the promising young Terrans with their backs to him. “Hello all!” the Ruler called with what Sam couldn’t see but assumed was a wide smile. “Quick question: how would you rate your educational journey in this fine institution so far?”

Felix jerked in surprise and cried, “What?” once his shoulder was touched. But he was completely outdone by Yvessa, jumping in her sit and turning around with a wide frown. Which only deepened once she recognized the person still holding her shoulder. “Fucking hell!” she yelled, drawing attention to their table. And then in a lower volume, but still as irritated: “What the fuck Farris?! Couldn’t say hello like a normal person?”

“Farris?” Felix asked, his eyes widening in surprise. Sam, meanwhile, gave Sarah an apologetic nod while taking his sit next to her. She was somehow still able to keep her focus more on him. “You’re Farris?” Felix continued, “Farris Ninae? The general?”

“Yes,” answered three people simultaneously. “Unfortunately,” added Yvessa. She jerked in her sit once again. “Will you please get your hand of off me?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Farris insincerely apologized with a laugh. “I was just so excited to meet you guys! Sarah and Felix! And you, Yvessa, as well! It’s been so long since we last saw each other; you’ve gotten so big!” He sat down on the side of the table, next to Sarah and Yvessa, his tray calmly floating to the spot in front of him.

“It’s only been half a year,” Yvessa said.

“Yes, exactly! And isn’t half a year like half a lifetime for you young folks?”

“No. What are you doing here? And why are you with Sam, of all people?”

“What do you mean ‘of all people?’”

“I allow it.” Sam shrugged.

“I didn’t know that you knew Farris Ninae,” Felix told Yvessa.

“Why wouldn’t I know him? He’s my best friend’s uncle.” Sam and Farris exchanged meaningful looks. “Not to mention that we were bound to meet in the few official events that he deigned to go to. I even met her grandmother a couple of times.”

Now was Sarah’s turn to show surprise as she gasped. “The Chosen?”

“Obviously. I don’t get it. Why are you guys so surprised by this? I’ve told you about Erianna plenty of times already.”

“Not all of us,” Sam said, which earned him a roll of the eyes.

“Still,” Farris said, “there is a difference between you being my niece’s best friend—and her being your best friend, of course.”

“Of course,” Sam echoed him.

“To you having had the pleasure of meeting, and not just meeting, but knowing esteemed figures such as myself and my mother.”

Yvessa rolled her eyes. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Which was? I’ve been getting so many today.”

“Ass.” Sam coughed into his hand.

“What are you doing here?” Yvessa asked. “And why were you with Sam? Did you do something to him?”

“Yes, he did!” Sam cried out, trying to make his voice sound choked. “And if you give me a doll, I could show you all just where!”

“What?!” Sarah slapped the table, alternating looks between Sam and the accused elf.

“It’s just a joke,” Sam said.

“It’s not funny. Don’t joke about stuff like that.” Sam was saved from having to tell her that it was funny, and that no joke was off the table when it was at his expense, by Sarah turning on Farris. Not showcasing in the slightest that she cared that he was the child of the Chosen whose mention had caused her great surprise just a moment ago. “So what were you doing, really? And no jokes this time, from either of you.”

“Ehm…” Felix raised his hand. “Could I make a joke?” Sam gave him a thumbs up, nicely done Felix. However, his gesture was overshadowed by the scathing looks that the two women gave him. “Never mind, I’ll save it for later.”

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“Well?” Sarah asked Farris as all turned eyes turned on the elf.

“Sam, how about you answer?” Farris said while taking a painfully small bite of his food.

“No I think I’ll leave that job to you. After all, it’s only right… teach.”

Farris and Sam exchanged narrowed looks while Sarah gave an exasperated grunt between them. “What is that supposed to mean, ‘teach?’ Oh! Was he teaching you about threads because he’s a Ruler?”

“Ooh, she’s sharp,” Farris said.

“What?” Sam asked. “That’s not what you were doing. We just talked about it. How short is your memory?”

Farris threw up his hands with a confused face. “It was the first thing I taught you today. Literally the reason for our first interaction.”

“Oh, you mean the one where you came out of nowhere without introducing yourself and made stupid annoying jokes while I was blind?”

“What?” Sarah asked. “You were blind?”

“Only for a little bit.”

“Because of the Thread-Weaver thing, right?” Yvessa asked, and Sam nodded in response. “Makes sense. Erianna told me the same thing happened to her. So the both of you had to take a look at Farris in all his glory before you could turn it off? Sucks.”

“Turn what off?” Sarah demanded.

“It’s the Threadsight,” Sam said and went on explaning to her the intricacies behind his morning bout of blindness.

“OK… so you’re alright now then?”

“Yep. As fucked up as I ever was. What? C’mon… That was way too easy.”

“Still, you could have told him what you were doing beforehand,” Felix told Farris. “It sounded like you figuratively sucker punched him when you had him open his eyes with no warning.”

“Sure, but that would have been way less fun,” Farris said.

“And why is your enjoyment the main thing you’re concerned about when you help someone?” Yvessa asked.

“Hang on,” Sam said, “but I gotta side with Farris on this one.”

“Of course you do.” Sarah sighed.

“Not on the not explaining beforehand bit, that’s bullshit, and he’s an asshole cause of that. But fun is definitely a factor one can consider before they set out to help someone. Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t swim out to save a drowning kid cause you don’t like swimming. But, if say a friend ask you to help them move out, then there’s the expectation that you’re also going to have fun and make jokes during that time. If they’re just going to be silent and moody all the way through, then that might be a good reason not to offer him help.”

“Sure,” Felix said, “but that also depends on how good a friend they are. Like if you’re really close, then you should be going to help them even if it’s not fun. But if you barely talked in the last five years, and they only asked you because you have a truck, then yeah, fun is a factor.”

“Good point.” Sam wagged his finger in agreement.

“Are you done?” Yvessa asked in a tone that assured Sam and Felix that they were, in fact, done. “Because I still haven’t gotten an answer to my first question. Farris, you didn’t have to come all the way here just to help Sam. You could have sent another Ruler in your stead or just have one of ours help him. Not to mention now knowing when Sam will have his Awakening. So why are you really here?”

“I was going to be on New Terra today anyway,” Farris lied. “Don’t worry about it.”

“That’s funny. Because I was just talking to both my mom and Erianna yesterday, and neither of them mentioned anything about you planning to visit.”

“You talked to them? Just yesterday? Curious… very curious indeed. I know! It must have something to do with my meeting with the military today being top secret. So that’s why your mother doesn’t know about it yet.”

“And Erianna?”

“We…” Farris choked up, wiping actual (fake) tears from his eyes. “We don’t really talk anymore. You know how it is with teenagers: one minute they love you and want to be just like you when they grew up. The next minute, they hate you, and, together with their best friend, decide to focus only on fighting with a sword.”

Yvessa’s face was blank. “Yeah, I’m calling bullshit on that. Sam?”

“Mhm?”

“Why is he really here?”

“Well, it’s a little complex. But the short of it is that he really wanted to meet me, for a plethora of reasons, some stupid and some even more stupid. And he also had some stuff that he wanted to talk about with our, the republic’s that is, general staff, so he decided immediately to call for an a summit with them in order for him to have an excuse to be here on New Terra.”

“Summit about what?” Felix asked, his elbows only narrowly missing his plate.

“What reasons?” Sarah asked at the same time.

“Military stuff. Logistics, I don’t know. The only thing I know for certain is that Dan had to compile a report about the success rate of the military academies or something. Ask him.”

“After you answer my question.” Sarah put her arm in front of Farris’s face just as the Ruler was about to speak.

“OK...” Sam was hoping to avoid this line of questioning. He didn’t want more people to get the idea that he was something special into their head. “So he’s crazy about Terran culture from our time, a real fanboy. That’s reason one, which he termed as private or something. The second reason… I don’t remember what it was, public maybe?”

“Duty,” Farris said.

“Sure. Was that he thinks I’m real special, and he has great hopes for me in the future. Some of his reasoning makes sense. Most of it doesn’t.”

“What do you mean, special?” Felix asked.

“He thinks I’m like a Chosen One type character.”

“I never said Chosen One, just that there are a lot of things that are unique about you, which must mean something. And also, may I remind you that I said that my plans for you only went as far as being second in command to Erianna? She’ll be chosen one and you’ll be chosen two.”

“Jesus Christ.” Yvessa groaned while rubbing her eyes.

“Now that’s a real Chosen One character if I’ve ever heard one.”

“Anyway,” Sam said, pointedly ignoring Farris’ joke and wishing that he thought of it first, “after Maurice was finished with his protocols, that was before Uncle here made his presence known. He taught me how to trace and whatnot. The most annoying thing about it was that you guys were totally right. It was instinctive.”

“Where’d you place your core?” Felix asked.

“My right heel.”

Farris laughed. “What? You should have told me. You literally had the longest path for gathering following the advice I gave you. I would have told you to try gathering from the tip of your toes.”

“What makes you think that I didn’t realize that myself and switched after the first time?”

“Did you?”

“Of course not!”

“Why’d you even put the core all the way down there?” Felix asked. “Most people just put it in their chest area, heart or lungs, you know?”

“I don’t know! There was a lot going through my mind at that point. It was something about Achilles and how he was an idiot for wearing sandals, and also making sure that I remember to appreciate my legs. Why, where did you guys put it?”

“Heart,” Felix said.

“Lungs,” from Sarah.

“My brain,” by Yvessa.

All turned expectantly towards the Ruler. “My middle finger,” he said with a bashful smile.

“Does that somehow mean the same thing in elven culture as it does for us?” Sam asked Sarah.

“Yes. But if I’m not wrong, they didn’t have it originally. They got it from the deshars, I think.”

“Correct,” Farris said. “But that’s only because we were too hostile with the Imperials at the time to adopt it from them. The dwarves also claim to have had the middle finger gesture before their exodus, so that’s something to think about…”

“And another thing to think about,” Sam said. “Is your childish behavior in picking your core.”

“I was a child, Achilles.”

“Fair enough. Back to me then. After I was once more among the seeing, the four of us had to walk all the way to Maurice’s office cause he left the translator artifact there. This one.” He pointed at Farris with his thumb. “Kept trying to prod me about all kinds of weird stuff, like if my name has any meaning and a bunch of other Terran history and culture bullshit.”

“Sound about right.” Yvessa glared at Farris, who returned her a smile.

“So we get to Maurice’s, he slaps the translator in my forehead, I manage to trace through it no problem and we know it works fine because Yvessa didn’t have to speak English today.”

“Thank god for small mercies,” said the Sarechi raised Terran.

“Then Dan and Maurice had to get back to work: finishing the report that ChuckleUncle thrust upon them out of nowhere. So Farris graciously took it upon himself to keep me company until you guys were finished. Long story short, he decided that he was going to be my mentor and was in the middle of teaching me gathering when you called me.”

“Not you too.” Yvessa sighed. “What is it with you and being a mentor?” she asked Farris.

“Maximizing my impact on the war effort. Since my ability to get stronger is somewhat roadblocked at the moment, the best way for me to use my talents is to help promising young folks develop theirs.”

“Young folks? Plural? Even if we’re taking Sam into account, that’s still only two people you’ve been a mentor to. Compare yourself with someone like Dan who is constantly taking students under his wings for how to have an actual effect on the state of the war.”

“With all due respect to Mr. Ritter, I have much more stringent standards for who qualify to be mentored by me. Mind you, the only person to actually stand up to me requirement is my beautiful and talented niece. Sam here is still under a probation period, to see whether he can truly match up to his senior.”

Yvessa scoffed. “Good luck with that.”

“I just want the record to show that he pretty much begged me to take him as a mentor,” Sam said. “He was the one that kept bringing it up. And he was the one who wanted to teach me gathering. I was content to just go back to my room and read about history.”

“So how did your training go?” Sarah asked up before Farris had the chance to lie in defense of his honor.

“Shit? I don’t know. It’s not like I have a benchmark to see how good or bad I was, especially since most people learn this stuff at twelve-years-old.”

“Most elves and humans,” Yvessa said.

“Yeah, like I said, most people.”

“Racism isn’t funny, Sam,” Sarah chided him.

“I bed to differ. Have you seen Blazing Saddles?”

“No,” Farris said, “but I will now.”

“Don’t encourage him.” Sarah redirected her ire at the newest negative influence in Sam’s life. “How would you rate his gathering then, Farris? You are his mentor, after all.”

“Pretty average. Which is the best you could hope to at this point. You can’t be good at gathering on your first day doing it. Maybe if you’re something really special, you’ll start improving by the end of your first month. But most people’s results only begin to diverge in the second and third months. Of course, Sam isn’t most people since he does posses a fully adult brain—”

“Nah-huh, the human brain only stops developing at twenty-six. I still have four more years to become more smarter.”

“But you reckon Sam did fine?” Sarah asked Farris. “How many cycles did he complete? Remember that you have to take into account that the first step was much harder for him because of your incorrect introductions.”

Sam couldn’t help but laugh after hearing Sarah’s scathing, for her at least, review of Farris’s first day as mentor. Felix joined him in laughter as well, and even Yvessa smiled lightly. Amazingly, Farris managed to remain completely professional and give Sarah a measured response. “The difficulty of Sam’s first step doesn’t mean that my instructions for him were incorrect. My purpose wasn’t for him to gather as efficiently as possible, but rather to train him how to gather. In that respect, having a harder first step is actually a boon rather than a curse, but that doesn’t really matter to me. The important thing is, he managed to complete at least three independent cycles, which was what I had hoped for. His rate of improvement from now on rests solely on his shoulders… And of his full-time teachers.”

“So should I wait for one of those full-time teachers in order to ask them if there is a non-independent cycle?” Sam asked.

“Yes, that would be rather nice, actually.” Farris faked a yawn. “I’ve worked myself pretty much to the bone, and the day had only just begun.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Sarah assured Sam. “A non-independent cycle just means that someone, or something, completed the first stage for you. But it’s a gargantuan waste of time and hurts you in the long run, so you can pretty much just forget about it.”

“Indeed. Unless you mange to run into a monster, of course. But good luck finding any.”

Sam sighed. “OK, what the fuck are monsters?”

“It’s a name for creatures, that if you kill them you get energy from them, practically skipping the first stage of gathering,” Felix explained. “Don’t ask how, don’t ask why, don’t even ask where, because we don’t know.”

“Are these creatures intelligent? Sapient, I mean?”

“No,” answered three voices simultaneously.

“They can be,” all four heads turned towards Farris. “What? They can. If a monster makes it to Ruler, they become what we recognize as sapient. That’s the prevailing theory at least. Otherwise, we can’t explain why killing some Epirak Rulers gives you energy and why killing others doesn’t.”

“The Epiraks don’t use monsters,” Yvessa objected.

“Evidently they do, just not as cannon fodder. Stop looking at me like that. It’s not like I’m making this up.”

“It wouldn’t be very out of character for you.”

“Hey! I take my schooling seriously. I’ll never teach something that I know is wrong. Unless it makes for a really, really, funny joke. And even then, I’ll immediately admit my misdirection. Which, if you’d care to notice, I’ve yet to do.” The three objectors seemed mollified by Farris’s answer and each returned to their plate in contemplation. For a short time, silence ruled the table.

A very short while because, soon after, Sam couldn’t help himself and gave a self-pitying sigh. “You know… I don’t know whether to feel good or bad that I’m learning stuff that you guys that don’t as well. I think I’m going to pick bad. I’m more familiar with it.”

“It’s hardly necessary information for us to know about,” Felix said. “Or even commonplace. Monsters are extinct everywhere in the Web and it’s not like we’re going to be fighting Epirak Rulers anytime soon.”

“Besides,” Sarah said, “it should make you feel good, if anything. It just goes to show that there’s plenty of stuff that even we don’t know, so that means you’re not as far behind us as you think you are.”

“Or, counterpoint.” Sam marshalled for a verbal attack that was sure to bring the other three pupils down to his level. “I’m even further behind than previously anticipated. Because you guys, and by extension, pretty much everyone else probably, aren’t as far along as you believed yourself to be.”

“Nah, they’re alright.” Farris rejected his theory. “Don’t be such a downer. Monsters are a very esoteric topic. Knowing or not knowing about them pretty much doesn’t matter to most people.”

Sam narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, ‘most people?’”

“Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“Probably talking about people who aren’t Rulers,” Felix suggested.

“Yes. Exactly what I meant. Thank you, Felix.”

“Not it isn’t,” argued Sam. “It’s obvious he’s hiding something.”

“Look! Just forget about. A slip of the tongue is all. Don’t go fishing when you still haven’t learned how to walk.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It’s an elven proverb,” Yvessa explained. “It’s just what it sounds like. Pretty much another way of saying not to bite off more than you can chew.”

“It’s pretty stupid.”

“All proverbs are stupid!” Farris argued. “It’s not like yours are any better. Oh, ‘not everything that glitters is gold.’ Well of course it isn’t. You don’t need to be a genius to figure that out.”

“Careful now. You’re pretty close to criticizing Lord of the Rings. And that is something that will make me drop you as a mentor. Now, back up to what you were saying about monsters.”

“Never mind that. Will you drop the subject already? Monsters aren’t going to have any effect on you until you become strong enough to kill enemy Rulers. And you’re probably going to be a Ruler yourself at that point, and I’m not going to have a discussion with you on how energy and cultivating work at that stage. Like Felix said, the bit with Rulers is what I meant, honest.”

Sam clicked his tongue. “I don’t believe you. But fine, I’ll drop it, whatever. That just means I’m going to have to ask other people, who aren’t my mentor, about monsters.”

“That’s always a good idea: questioning what people tell you. It never hurts to have multiple sources confirm what you’ve been taught.”

“Wouldn’t that make everything you’ve taught me so far worthless?”

“No. Because you should also be taking everything I tell you as the clear truth. That’s the mentor-mentee pledge: I promise to teach you everything I know, and you promise to never doubt what I tell you.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve already broken your part of the bargain. So I’m not going to feel bad for not keeping up mine.”

Sarah laughed, which came as a surprise to Sam because this was one of this rare time where didn’t think what he said was funny. “You’re really taking this whole monster business to heart, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Not you too? You honestly telling me that you don’t think that he’s hiding something?”

She shrugged. “Not really. And even if he is, what does it matter? It’s probably something to do with Rulers that he can’t tell us. You only think monsters sound important because we grew up with a different concept of what they are. But for everyone else, monsters are pretty much just extinct species.”

“What about the part where they can become intelligent beings?”

“That, I didn’t know, but it’s not going to have much effect on me anytime soon now is it?”

“Sure, as long as monsters really are extinct everywhere else.”

“They are,” Farris said. “You’re not going to find any monsters in any part of the Web that’s controlled by us. So the only monsters you’re going to meet, because you’re not suicidal, are those on the front lines, which means Rulers. Which means, again, because you’re not suicidal, that you can put the question of monsters to bed for a very long time. I promise you.”

“Very well,” Sam acquiesced. “I’ll drop this for the time being. Meanwhile, I’ll just add it to the ever-growing list of exposition information that didn’t go anywhere. One short step away from the exposition that never even matters and that I would have been completely fine not knowing about it.”

Sarah squeezed his shoulder in an attempt at comforting. “I know what you’re going through, Sam. But it’s still hasn’t been a week since you’ve returned. You gotta take it easy. You’re doing fine. It doesn’t matter if you forget something because you’ll be reminded of everything important a dozen times over.”

“It’s just hard not knowing what is important for me to know and remember and what isn’t.”

“I know… But you’re thinking about this too rigidly. What you have to remember is that you’re the only one that gets to determine what is important for you to know. And yes, right now you’re still at the stage where it’s unclear. But pretty soon you’re going to get used to this world and you’ll be able to start deciding to yourself what information to care about and what not to. That means that if you decide that you don’t care about the history courses and are only going to study for the test and forget everything afterwards, that’s totally fine.”

“No it isn’t!” objected Yvessa.

“Yeah,” agreed Sam. “You had me going until you said that it’s OK for me not to care about history.”

“That was only an example! Don’t care about something else then. Civilian patterns, monsters, unarmed combat. The point is that you’re going to be the one that gets to decide what’s important for you to know. And until then, it’s OK if you happen to forget something important, it happens to everyone.”

“Fine, I’ll try and keep that in mind. Still.” He laughed. “Not caring about history? C’mon, you got to know me better than that at this point. Ow, ow!” He rubbed his neck where Sarah pinched him. “That’s parental abuse, that’s what that was. Ow!”