Over the course of many months...

Scut didn’t know quite what to think of Mama at times.

Oh, she was a good cook, always cheerful, smelled like old herbs and honey, gave great hugs, and wasn’t afraid to cuff him on the head if he was being rebellious.

The fact that she was blind, but always seemed to know what he was about was worrisome, too.

Then Hazé brought home the Red Widow that had been Amber’s mother, and he watched wide-eyed as with the same cheerful smile as always, she carved it up with Hazé.

She had brought him in there to help out, keeping up a cheerful commentary about poison glands, silk glands, barbed hair, suction tips, the multiple eyes, the magic in her blood, some of the organs unique to shapechangers, pointing here and there as she had him cut and pull. He stared at all of it, wondering how this woman who made such good chicken soup could do all this so cheerfully...

He had to admit his days were very good. While Hazé and Mama didn’t take any shit from him, he had new clothes from head to toe, he bathed daily, he was stuffed with food, they tossed spending money at him to use in town, and told him to make up a go-bag of stuff he needed to take if he needed to leave quickly.

He’d done enough petty thievery for food and clothes to find it plenty strange that he was getting paid to think like that.

Finding out Hazé was a kid no older than him had been jarring. Finding out she was a hideously smart girl with a paranoid streak a mile long was even worse.

She wasn’t a chi-user, but she had a fair handle on the basics, and was able to guide him in his cultivation on internal power, reaching out into the shadows and drawing the energy of the world to him. His bed didn’t get much use, because he was out there in the pavilion, in the drifting shadows filtering through the beams and the trees, feeling the power coming to him.

He was getting stronger every day. It was a glorious feeling.

Of course, he wasn’t allowed to laze about when he wasn’t sitting there Meditating. There were lessons to be had, and he was getting a brutally effective education.

Hazé was utterly dismissive of his whining. “Hard? HARD? You scrimped and survived for how many years without a home, and you call this HARD? What kind of total and utter wimp are you? I thought you were a survivor! I thought you were gifted?! Are you really the trash everyone thought you are? Whining, slinking, sulking, instead of working to be the totally freaking awesome Powered bastard you can be. ARE YOU?!”

He never complained to her again. Every time he was about to, her words rang loudly in his head again, and he shut his mouth and did what he had to do.

All four of them did. He didn’t know if he considered them classmates or a substitute family, but he was the man of the house, and was utterly amazed that they treated him that way when it was appropriate.

At others, they treated him like a punk kid, so it never went to his head, of course.

There were always chores to do, and the reason behind the chores was carefully explained to him so that if he whined, the first thing he had to do was recite why he was doing it.

He stopped whining.

He had to learn his letters, an astonishingly fast process when Hazé used telepathy to help them all along, and since he couldn’t stand the girls learning them faster than he could, he learned very quickly.

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Then, he had to learn poisons.

Oh, sure, it was only part of the herbal and alchemical knowledge he had to learn. Crushing, boiling, tinctures, mixes, preserving, drying, grinding, separating, storing, cutting, harvesting, cleaning... alchemy and chemistry were such huge, broad subjects, and what could be done without magic, just using the natural laws of the world, was so astounding...

But of course, the poisons had everyone’s interest and caution. It was all disguised under the practice of making anti-toxins, as the best ones were made from multiple poisons. Hazé lectured them about the effects of poisons: how they killed, how they were used, how to apply them, the care to take in mixing them, and then had them test them themselves in light doses to feel the effects...

Yeah, she was showing them how to make and use poisons, not just defend themselves against them. He was ecstatic when he made his first anti-toxin, delighted when he mixed up his first successful batch of alchemical fire, overjoyed when he drew his first Healing Potion out of the centrifuge... and deeply, grimly satisfied when he drew an invisible coating of blade venom across his knife, which he knew from personally experiencing it would cause searing heat and convulsions to his opponent’s nervous system, if he hit them in the right areas.

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Fighting lessons were twice a day. There were katas, early in the morning, to greet the Sun, limber them up for morning chores, and remind them of the movements they had to make in a fight. They paired up, and literally danced around one another, punching, kicking, blocking, moving correctly, changing partners to get used to the changes in reach.

Even little Veis had to participate. As Hazé said repeatedly, if hyn could fight, she could fight, and she proved to be pretty wicked with a knife, too.

Afternoon was full contact sparring. Hazé had all the Healing magic they could need, so it was unrestricted, stopping only short of killing... and when Hazé Mercied their weapons, not even then.

He very quickly learned the girls weren’t going to hold back against him. He had seen all of them go through the Ritual, he had held Verd’s hand, and she had held Veis’, and both of them had held Amber’s.

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That experience had harrowed them like nothing he could imagine. They’d burned away something of the Dark, so profoundly evil that even thinking about it roiled the chi inside him defensively.

They had to learn to fight Powered, so him having Shadow Chi was a boon. The ability of a Shadow stylist to grip and cling was immense. Hazé was also happy to bring in some of the guards from the vineyard estate nearby who were looking to earn some extra cash, showing them what it was like to fight someone bigger, stronger, and more experienced.

There was blood. He was knocked, stabbed, kicked, punched, throttled, and beaten into unconsciousness many times. He did it to all of them in return. Hazé healed them back up, and showed them how to focus, leaving the emotions of their little dojo in the dojo. The fighting was to make them all stronger, and the only personal thing about it was the desire to both beat the other person, and force them to get stronger, too.

It was about bonds. It had been so long since he had bonds...

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The middle of the day was about trades. He had to be able to do something to make him money, that was a given, so an apprenticeship was a thing.

“I want to learn how to make music!” he blurted out, after Hazé asked what he’d like to learn.

Verd nodded eagerly, as Mama and Hazé looked a little amused. “I want to learn how to cook like Mama!” Verd spoke up.

“I want to make sweets!” Veis waved her little hand.

Amber lifted her nose. “I will be a clothing designer!” she stated firmly. She had completely taken over the t-shirt cuts for everyone, and her ‘Mama’ surrounded by a dozen hearts in different colors was definitely eye-catching. She found the simple combination of a t-shirt and all the images it could have, plus tight jeans, to be just perfect, and was always talking about different cuts, folds, stitching, cloth, and accessories. Hazé was more than happy to fit out a room for her with stuff to play with, and the local women were easy to convince to come in and show her different techniques to use.

“A cook, a pastry chef, a musician, and a master seamstress,” Hazé mused, and their lessons started the next day.

They were the best days of Scut’s life, even if, as the only man, he had to be a fashion model a lot...

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“Scut! Scut!” Veis came running out to him, where he was paying careful attention to some of the, ah, more exotic plants in the garden. Weeds sapped the vitality of the plants, as did insects. Working with crappy stuff got crappy results, and Scut wasn’t going to have the stuff he mixed be worthless because of that stuff. He’d intimately felt the results of low QL shit when compared to high QL...

“What’s up, Veis?” he asked with a smile, plucking up a late-flowering hollyhock for her. She accepted it with a delighted smile

She kept it in her hands as she reported, her smile falling somber, “There’s a man here to see you.”

Scut blinked. “To see... me?” His mind spun. Who could... he didn’t know anyone. There wasn’t anyone who...

The introduction.

He swallowed, despite himself.

“Hazé and Mama are talking with him now. They said to come right as you are,” Veis said softly. She reached out to take his hand, and rather numbly, he followed after her.

The introduction! Just who am I going to meet?

-------

Oh, gods, this man is so dangerous.

He’d seen a lot of hard men, but this man was just lethal. Dark eyes, dark hair, handsome without standing out, tall and lean and just sitting there he was ready to kill everyone in the room despite being totally relaxed.

Scut held himself very firmly at attention, but his composure still shook when the spirals rose around the man. They were semi-magical, the chi within him stirred to see them, a very odd mix of fear and desire swirling through the power.

His throat locked up. This was a Void Brother! They were the greatest assassins in the land!

Hazé and Mama knew a Void Brother! He knew Hazé was powerful, but this-?

“Scut, this gentleman knows a great many people who can truly give you proper training, beyond the minor things I have been able to provide you,” Hazé said calmly, seeming quite relaxed as she sat there. “Sing for him Kandaly’s Lay.”

Scut blinked, focusing on her words. The Lay was a very sad song, the Bard who had written it talking about a village where plague had swept through and taken away all they had loved. It resonated with him deeply, for he had lost so much when he was young, and the ache in it drove at his heart.

It had only been a few months since he learned it, but with his chi accelerating his conditioning exponentially, his voice was much clearer, his lung power up to the task, and he began the tune a bit nervously. His confidence soared when the girls began to sing it along with him, and by the time he was done, his voice was strong and firm as it dipped into the last of the weeping notes, and he fought back the ball in his chest as Kandaly buried his kin and his past.

The dark man nodded once. “He needs to learn showmanship, but he’s got potential.” His Helices reached out like living things, and Scut gasped as they stretched through him, rainbow and shadows, and his chi jumped around like a living thing, at once frightened and ecstatic at their passing. He could feel the rainbow swirl slicing through and draining away his power with just a pass, while the shadowy one deposited it back, somehow purer than before, yet without the Shadow bias all his chi had.

“Aye, a good talent. I can bring him to a place,” the man nodded, and Scut flushed despite himself.

“Will any payments be necessary?” Hazé asked calmly.

“My word is enough.” That statement carried all kinds of weight.

Hazé nodded. “Is your go-bag ready?” she asked Scut directly, and his eyes went wide.

“Right now?” he asked, shocked.

“Brother Firesword is passing through. We have discussed what needs to be said, and he has places to go and obnoxious assholes to kill.” The man’s lips faintly curled at her words. “If you go, you go now.”

Scut bowed quickly, and hurried off to his room, aware that the eyes of the girls were on him, especially Verd’s.

He knew it wouldn’t take long. Everyone had a go-bag, even Mama. If they had to get up and go, they had all chosen what went within. There were a couple extra things he had acquired which he could take with him... but there was nothing that he couldn’t replace.

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“We may not see one another again,” Verd whispered behind him.

He turned around, a wooden spoon in his hand... one she had carved out for him herself. Hazé had made it as strong as steel. Her green eyes fell on it, and she smiled despite herself.

“No,” he replied, his eyes keen, refuting her as he stuck the spoon into his sack and prepared to go. “You’re going to be strong, very strong. Hazé said so. I’m going to have to get stronger, or I won’t be able to hold your hand when we meet again.”

Her eyes lit up with that strange and awful drive that had been there, been in all of the girls since they came out of the Ritual. After finding out just how small they were in relation to the evil that was Out There.

“Shadows aren’t afraid of the dark,” she whispered, stepping closer to him.

“Shadows can’t live without the light,” he returned, and swept her up into a hug. She was actually heavier than he was. These months had put on weight on his skinny body, but not enough yet. He inhaled the smell of herbs and wildflowers and three different poisons, free and clear and sweet poison, and he smiled despite himself.

“I will be back for you. I won’t let you go alone!” he said fiercely in her ear, and she clutched him tight, with improbably strong hands.

I helped those hands get strong, Scut thought fiercely. His chi pulsed and their arms slid apart. He held her eyes as he slipped past her, and then turned towards his destiny.

His introduction was waiting for him, and with it, his future.