The priest sprinkled the last of his holy water on the baby which had just been born. "Call in the astrologer!," He shouted, his belly jiggling under his white robes.

  The baby gurgled happily as his dad rocked him. The astrologer opened the door in a matter of seconds, stepping to the priest's side. "May I conduct the reading?," he asked, more formality than an actual need.

  The priest nodded, as he had done many times before, and the astrologer got to work. He laid several star charts flat on the floor, pulling out a telescope and looking into the sky. The astrologer looked over at the baby, as if referencing something, and adjusted the telescope, pointing it in another direction. He pulled a curious knife out of a sheath on his side.

  The father held the baby with one hand, raising his other, but the priest waved him down. "It's necessary to get a small amount of blood from the baby for this next portion of the test. The baby will be fine, I guarantee it. This man's done this at least a hundred times before."

  The father slowly nodded, holding the baby out. "If any harm comes to him, I will kill you and your family," he said, the wrath of a parent looming behind his grim eyes.

  The astrologer nodded, used to this, and opened up a small cut on the baby's leg, letting a single drop fall to the floor. The priest hurried forward, a burst of healing magic closing the wound.

  The priest frowned. Why hadn't the baby cried? The small cut, which an adult would probably ignore, would be something that a baby would cry about. All the other ones he'd performed the ritual on had cried. Well, it didn't matter much.

  The priest turned to look at the astrologer, continuing his work. The astrologer moved the telescope once again, grabbing another star chart. Then he stopped. "What's wrong?," the priest asked.

  The astrologer grabbed the knife once again, plunging it into the star chart. Then he stood back, silently, motioning for the priest to look.

  The priest hobbled over, bending down to look at the star chart. "God save our souls," he said, looking at the knife's point, embedded directly in the center of a constellation. Everyone called it the Shield, for it did look like one, but priests and anyone who was a religious leader knew it by a different name. The Guardian's Wall, they called it. The last time someone had been fatemapped to this constellation, they saved the world from a calamity. The time before that, they called down the calamity, and broke the walls protecting the world.

  The priest almost fell over. Why did he have to be the one to find this?

  He turned to the father. "Sir... Your son... We might want to call his mother in for this, no matter how weak she is."

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  The father nodded, walking to the door. "We'll go to her. She's not going to be able to walk the distance," he said, opening it. The priest followed, and the astrologer started gathering his star charts and telescope. The night sky shone above them as they walked down the path from the church to the father's house. Entering, the father led them all to a bed, which a woman lay in. He passed the baby down to the woman in the bed, who held it to herself. "What happened?," she asked weakly.

  "He has something to say," the father replied, pointing at the priest.

  "Yes. Well, your son. We fatemapped him earlier, and... we got the Shield as his constellation," the priest started.

  The father immediately interrupted. "I've never heard of someone getting the Shield, but why would this matter?"

  "You may call it the Shield, but we have a different name. It's the Guardian's Wall. The person who gets this constellation either holds the wall between us and a calamity of massive proportions, or brings down the wall between us and the calamity. I think you can imaging which way we want this to go. I think you can also imagine why you haven't seen anyone else get this one."

  The father nodded, the mother simply staring at the ceiling. "Our little boy is going to protect the world, whether he likes it or not," she whispered into the baby's ear. It didn't seem to care, still gurgling happily.

  The father turned to the priest. "We can't have the child fail against the calamity, then."

  The priest nodded. "I can get him into a good school of magic, but he hasn't chosen his ability yet, and that will be a better indicator of where to put him."

  "We need to teach him everything he can within the ten years we have," his mother said. "Afterwards, he'll be off, saving the world."

  The father nodded. "We never had great destinies, but he'd better be amazing."

  The priest looked them both in the eye. "How do you accept this so reasonably?"

  The mother laughed. "That's easy. I've always seen something special in the boy. He's more intelligent than he has any right to be, as a baby, and he never cries."

  The father smiled. "You too? Yeah, same thing. Also, he has a couple weird abilities. All without even supposedly having one yet."

  The priest, curious, asked, "What abilities are these?"

  "The child is supremely durable whenever he feels like it, has incredible strength, and can apparently see and hear anything and everything."

  The priest, taken aback, looked at the child again. It let out a happy gurgle, turning to face him again. It tilted its head, staring him in the eyes. Then it went directly back to playing around again.

  The priest stepped back, startled. Regaining his composure, the priest coughed. "Boy. Please be a good kid. Don't destroy the world. Okay?"

  The child turned to face him once again, nodding its head with scary intelligence. Almost running, the priest exited the house, leaving the couple and the baby inside.

  "Thanks!," the father called out after the priest, who was not speeding away from their house, and the baby within. He stepped back inside.

  He decided this would be a good opportunity for storytelling, to help set the child on the right path. After all, the baby could already understand him, couldn't it?

  "So, kid. Do you know the story of the Mantle of Good?," he asked.

  The child nodded, almost sadly. The father stepped back. "How?," he asked.

  The baby shrugged, apparently unknowing of how it came by this knowledge. The father nodded. "Sure. I'll leave now."

  The father exited the room. The baby's mother started stroking its head. "Who's a good baby? Who's a good world-protector?"