There was only one story of interest to a very lonely-yet-friendly boy in Dardham. A story about how those who wanted something so much that there was nothing they wouldn't raise or lower themselves to for to find it, and yet, even before they learned that the something existed they'd been already giving up what they had of it and could only get further from it.
It wasn't just a long tale, and obscure, it was also particularly lacking in even the teaching or preaching departments that you got out of a story when it was over. Knights slaying dragons, or Mages taming them, or Rogues burglarizing dragons, and Paladins dealing war or peace upon dragons were the bulk of such tales.
So many dragon-based-tales one could get sick enough to listen to others, which for this boy had led him to this unique-and-puzzling story for a unique-and-wondering boy, but for all the other children his age had been about all the more 'grown-up' stories. They were more complex, yet filled with simpler elements and motives.
Unlike the earlier fantastic-tales the boy had heard, these stories meant little for him, and instead neither adults nor children allowed him around when they told them after the first few incidents of him hearing them. For him it was a painful experience and a trauma both, to be so cut off, and from the times the other kids his age would all gather for their hearing at night.
He remembered the first time the most because of how it had made him feel. The feeling of standing out apart a little could be a bit painful, but the pain of standing out a lot even the once without knowing why before? That wasn't just a trauma you had to live with; it was also a living-trauma.
"Watching the shadowy figure rummaging through his home and from the shadows of the underbrush amidst a cluster of trees in his nearest field, Kragen drew out his knife from his sheathe, and slowly made his way towards his door where the thief would have to emerge, eventually."
"No! It can't be a thief! You said it can't!" Kragen, the storyteller using his name as the character like most people, had softly and slowly looked at me with a knowing look and smiled. "Why not?" He'd asked, and I found now, everyone looked at me like I was the one telling the story. I felt unsure, but my conviction did not wane at all.
"You said the brothers had made an almost-perfect barrier, that no other two born when they had made it would be able to have gotten through. You also said they made an oath, that they'd never need to steal from each other in that paradise! And the last thing.
"You mentioned every time they'd walk past that magic fruit tree, it had only bloomed its fruit once, and that was when they'd had to help each other to survive the djinni. It was their love that made it bloom, for a few moments, and the older brother was in love with the fae-lady who they had met when soon after they arrived.
"If the little brother figured it out and he got the fruit his older brother would need to win her love, but he couldn't give it to him directly because his older brother had nothing to give him of equal value like their first shared oath demanded, then it's not a thief. It's his little brother giving him the fruit."
Immediately all the other kids fell into different states. A few of the more mature younger kids waited for Kragen to correct me, and when he didn't, they were crying as much as the younger kids who were more honestly willing to see where the tale had been going. I wasn't in any better state, with tears in my own eyes, at that time.
Right then, he had pulled me aside and gave me a 'simple' lecture on why lying, terrorizing, and manipulating were about as low as a belly could get towards scuttling like a roach across the dark, filthy, lonely places and states any humanoid could find itself in. Worse was how quick he was to leave me alone, and leave hours later, still looking disgusted.
At some point soon after he and my mother had talked, and, pressed more into others to find out whether I'd heard the story before if not one similar. All that happened over the next day, I hadn't felt good enough to get up, and would only tell my mother Anne I didn't feel well. Like any mother with a child she knows something has occurred to, she started sniffing about.
As best they figured then, I may have heard someone recounting bits and pieces of that story or similar, just enough pieces spoken aloud or else someone had spoken it while I was sleeping. Nobody heard a tale from Kragen for a few weeks until the second time it happened. This time, I'd tried to escape the scene before I could perpatrate another crime.
"Alyseus? You feeling okay?" I wasn't, and I'd been prepared for another trick of sorrow, but the flavor had changed again. Enraged, I simply had left with a dismissive grunt. "Yeah. I'm just great. That bad-guy is about to take everything from the good-guy, what he worked, suffered, bled for. And take it forever from him."
I'd gone off whispering it to myself, too quiet to have been heard, but I'd made a scene once already so the other kids were unsettled and the story had barely gotten past the middle. This had been when my mother and others forgave Kragen. Though there'd been a less obvious splash for others, my fate was not the same.
I was six when I started being told this same tale. A man had come from far away just to tell me it, which had terrified my mother long before he arrived. Shortly after he had come to our Eindlon town, Kostya must have said something that calmed her over the whole deal. After a short while of it, everything had gone back to normal.
I'd been accepted back by the kids my age, parents had gone back to mostly the same as they'd treated me before, and if that was even a little better it was beyond me to notice. There had only been that one short moment in my life where I was different, and it seemed natural the after of it would include being brought closer after. In other words, normal again.
But I couldn't hold onto that forever. I had been, and I was holding on so tight, all that made my future possible was the average persons ability to eventually sense all the indications of bullshit. "Your eyes. They haven't been the eyes of a boy wondering, not for months. I'd wagered them first as the eyes of one bored to boredom."
Kostya had been sitting across from me reading quietly, the same thing I was doing reading more informative books he had and nobody else did, when he said it. Clever man that he was, he'd made sure to wait only the few minutes it took me to grab a book and get comfortable.
And then, he turned his books page. Right in sight of and facing me, I saw where I'd written my answer the night I'd heard his extensive version of the story. As afraid as I was when I looked up from the desk with my eyes low, of what I might find on his face, he was the one who looked more guilty and afraid.
Every reason I should have been terrified or comforted was all mixed up; I was a young child who knew he should have been afraid by his look yet was comforted. 'He feels bad, he has to do this to me, I'd never had of hid it if I knew it would hurt us both more this way.'
Comfort, the truth, it was like the lie I'd kept had been a festering wound. The types where, if you didn't notice it early and do something, it got a whole lot more painful and took longer to heal from that otherwise. Hurt, the lie, that I'd been like everyone else and free to do what I wanted. No, something was wrong with me and I needed to leave.
"You wrote 'Weakness', you underlined it, then wrote 'Power' beneath the line. I can only look at the dust that was gathered on this page, in the back of a higher drawer in your room, and guess that it's been awhile you've known. How-and-why you thought to hide it, it is very vexing."
He'd stood and talked more sober after a moment. "Something your mother mentioned made me investigate in your room. Once early on in our time together, she mentioned everyday you tell her the same thing, which was you 'Might give me the solution today' at my summons for recounting the Writ.
"I think at that time it was a mix of a slip of the tongue, her worry making her weary, and her fear making itself known subtly. Her fear you might have had the answer. Only when she said yesterday 'He still says the same thing every day.', did I grow suspicious as I reflected then-and-there on the look in your eyes.
"Your mother no longer believed it, between me and you, because she'd long known you for yourself. All the much in you that's relatable and average, she saw for so long and close, what's hidden in plain sight was blinded to her by you. Us, I must include myself before now, as even yesterday I was only skeptical.
"Before I go on, your mother and you both are fine, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. However, your and her actions about this matter are all quite contrary, as most in your position are eager for it. More than one, like yourself, has had their parent try to convince them to keep the truth to themselves.
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"Never has a child. No child in your position has any way of knowing what happens when they do. Even the small number of parents who do know, and could try to do this, all they could do is indirect. That's what vexed me so, I know I nor any else revealed it to you. So, why?" Desperate curiosity.
"A seer. If one had come, they'd have thought you a demon. Your mother would've been deemed a witch and tried for consorting her soul to birth you, had a seer or seeress found you when your sixteenth-birthday came around. Any sign, of any unorthodox attribute, and it seems that all you are is every-atypical-aspect.
"I'm a philosopher, not a seer, so when I look it isn't at the apparent I ever start looking at to begin with. I've drawn blanks like yours in my work a few times in my life, only when I found those my age who discovered their sign and station younger. There's any royal, as a solid start, but few nobles can claim my potential.
"That's because I was twelve when I discovered my station, and fifteen when I discovered my sign. That won't get me any tales for my efforts, but any noble, and every common person would feel the same bliss I did. The lord of my town was responsible, of course, he provided for potentials.
"I'm as worried what yours could be, as to try and ask you 'that question' and find my fear is realized, that you are a demon." "Jack Legand. That's my true name. I'm really Jack, only Alyseus is what mother named me when-." "Alyseus!" My mother was there, bursting in and roughed up. Men were grabbing her, roughly pulling her.
By the time I was out of the chair, both were slumping, and by the time we were holding each other and crying Kostya had barked out words I couldn't understand. The next man had still approached too close for my comfort, and had not lowered the spear in his hands at all. I was glad to note a man forced face-to-ground mechanically could not grip a spear.
The hand that had slipped down his spears shaft was the only bloody wound incurred, however, not even Kostya seemed to be able to calm the men who appeared. Not at first, until he had whispered my true name in my ear, and told me to stop them without hurting anything much.
"Stop forever, or suffer forever. I am no demon, my mother is no witch." I yelled and they slowed. "If you hurt my ma' then I'll make you pray I was a demon. You'll pray that I was to god, but find yourself there with him and see the truth too-late." That stopped them sure. Too well, in fact, because the first to run wasn't the last.
It was then; much more memories from before became prominent. They were the more dominant, and after passing that threshold, to say who I'd been reborn as becoming a submissive or dormant part of myself would suggest it had been different. Who I was and had been were superfluous without any need for anything complicated.
I remembered enough to learn as well that only my young memories were there. It was a process, gradual, and yet enough perspective was present suddenly to realize some things. I'd just terrorized men some place in Akyria where people couldn't lie. In other words, even a demon couldn't have terrorized people here so well with words. This was not an 'oops'. It was 'oooh-nooo', face-palm, hand not sure whether to reach out towards them or cover my mouth.
Either was too late, yet, my hands did just that as if they had a mind of their own. "They won't be getting over that soon, ah, now you'll probably get a tale out of that one kid. It will be a story for others some day in the far future. You'll have a ringing name in the world, those men will recount how they almost made enemy of a prodigy, when he was a child."
I looked at the man and knew he was only trying to make me feel better. It didn't work when I thought about it too much, the looks and sounds they'd made. Anne wept inconsolably, heavingly between heavy sobs and breaths, caressing me to her when she wasn't looking at me. Looks full of loving care, and then mourning pain.
"Ma, it's okay. I'm sorry. Kostya saw I had kept the answer hidden. I didn't mean to get us in trouble. I love you Ma." She was speechless still, and was still the minutes later when Kostya and I left on a draft horse shortly after. The Dardham providence was not poor, but Eindlon was remote for a town. Isolated wouldn't be a strong word.
I'd never left it, and hearing that right away while leaving, I'd had nightmares about not seeing it again that night. Even though my mother was too shocked to have spoken much, coherent only to herself when she tried, she had been with me until we left. Then, she'd lost it, and tried to get to me.
So I had, and went to hear her tell me she loved me. Hadn't she been able those nightmares would've been worse. It took a few months of travelling through villages and towns that left Kostya and I more to the quiet. Silence was often noisy enough over that time to make one want to long for its song endlessly.
That was how muggy of a mood I was in the whole time. Kostya did the trading, talking, and communicating with anyone we came across. I didn't once see another child out of a town, and even those from smaller villages were never far from them. Women on the road were nearly as rare to see, and in all that time only one was alone, an elderly woman Kostya escorted to her home outside of a small town.
These weren't close to the well built and thought out Akyrian civilizations I had seen. Their people as a collective seemed to lack the diversity of a village, when it was even a town. The buildings, all were scattered, they linked to roads of course. The roads had been built later, and off the cobble street was only dirt-roads or foot-trails.
We had almost been there, days away, when Kostya broke the silence. All I'd had on my mind that moment was, 'The way I used my words wasn't as different to theirs as I feared, but as an other-worlder and a versatile person, if the imperial capital was as simple as other places, I was as good as hung already.'
Even limited in what I had of my persinal memories, still, I had all those others of taking materials and making whatever was required with them. The first washing machine to start shaking around, whirring, rattling, booming, and I was dead. I could not make a washing machine if I wanted, the concept I feared was trying to advance anything. Standing out at all.
"Alyseus. Your true-name is something I'll give back to you, if you decide in the coming days, or to the empress-heiress otherwise. You'll have choice of a kind, not the normal kind, its more the type of choice you made to protect your mother." He said, overstudying at the horses feet while we went. Its feet were fine, he however, had that trapped in thought look though.
"In-huh-uhu-instinctive?" I asked, clearing my throat from disuse. I turned my head into my elbow, though, I wouldn't have hacked up anything on his hands in front of me holding the reigns. "Close." He answered. It was a few minutes before he kept on, by then we'd made it to a paved road from the cobbled street.
Close, he hadn't lied, I could see this for the highway it was by the signs of traffic over it if there was none in sight. Kostya left very early in the mornings, for which I was always grateful, and he still always waited until inn's cooks fed us. Cooks wake early too, so their ovens are good-and-warm, else they wake to hungry, annoyed customers.
"That's an even better word than instinct. 'Close'. I hadn't the intention to use it, I would have said 'Divine', as your word makes it sound base. Then, close suggests there is even some distance, while instinct suggests it is beyond thought or will to do else. Instinct is a wonderful word for it."
He was only quiet a second then, and slowed the horse to a lazy-trot, before continuing. "A seventh-year lad will have a hard time with older kids around. Teenagers, young adults, no kids your age. You'll be in the same classes that they'll be, learning the same. It's going to be hard for you not to stand out, but please, do try."
Kostya implored, but I was internally groaning when his worry and mine were lining up. "Okay." It was all I could offer, and a meek offering it was, but Kostya held up his hands as if to defend himself. As if to say, 'I know. Nobody said you will have an easy time of it.' What I thought, not him. The motion was preparing his next bit.
"They'll be calling you the 'Husband-Minor' of the young empress, in no time. You'll take the next few nights to learn the etiquette, but, you'll only have to show deference to the Emperor, Empress, their children, and above all your Charger. If you become her Charge, of course." 'Husband-Minor?' I thought, hoping it wasn't marriage.
I was too young for that kind of ceremony, two sets of kids memories did not sum up to much, especially not in a young mind. "I don't want to be married, Kostya. If she is as young as me, our baby would be so little, we'd have to watch you adults around it." At first he just laughed, then, he got logic out of it my current mind assumed.
Kostyas laughter for a few moments, thinking about 'little-little-ones', didn't last long as his mind turned to the all too sobering realities a child wouldn't be aware of. Worrying came next as he remembered country folks kids saw what the barn animals did, which was why he stopped laughing, because this boy knew how babies were made.
Just not that he couldn't make one yet. Kostya swallowed those thoughts hard, then said, "Best you wait at least until you have a home and work for that lad. You best.", and got quiet for a short while. We didn't stop talking much the rest of the trip, and he showed what he said I'd need to know, telling me when it was proper.
That I eagerly learned more etiquette than I needed, choosing to show deference towards more than imperials like he would, at first he had rejected. Then I'd explained it as learning what others should do and when, if not me, and he'd relented and even helped me learn the subtleties of how to do it with and without offense.
The last days on the road flew by, where the rest had drug on so long. Then I saw the place I had hugely underestimated based on the rest of Akyria. The 'real' Valkyrian imperial capital was a sprawled out metropolis we spent most of the last days passing through only the heart of. Its borders were each one of nine cities. There were humanoid species, all near to human looking.
Elves, humans, demihumans, demielves, and I could only guess at the shorter species of humanoid, there were less variety of them and none appeared to have any bestial quality. Everything had gone to finery, exquisite craftsmanship, and advertising no different than any modern city. Only the modern processes and materials were lacking, but with alternatives, so much was the exact same.
The 'Akyrian' province was everything good and wealthy. So much of both I would never have known of its ills and destitution, if I wasn't to live there until at least fifteen, when I legally became adult enough to me held accountable in the eyes of everyone else.