Tom’s eyes went over to the machine that had started the problem. As he watched, a child of around ten launched herself at a yellow bubble. It popped on her chest and then she started floating. She whooped in excitement.
Tom’s memories told him that the maneuver was not without risk, as occasionally the colours of the balls would change. But successfully hitting a yellow bubble was super fun and made the danger worthwhile. Overall, the artefact created a very enjoyable game, and his more logical brain could see other benefits. It was teaching situational awareness and body control, while floating would help train the kids to adjust to changing physical conditions. It was actually a very impressive toy.
The three of them watched in silence.
Tom focused on his need for context and forced his dual experiences to cooperate with each other. He needed hard information to make sense of everything that was happening. The brain of a four-year-old was difficult to parse at the best of times, but with the way the integration had scrambled the memories it was nearly impossible. Useful bits and pieces filtered through, but nothing substantial did. It was possible that little Ta, despite living here, had never truly considered the possibility or attempted to observe how things work. There were two compulsory hours of solitary isolation required per day. There were dozens of special rooms to choose from, and entering them was monitored. These were all different, but Little Ta had focused on the ones with the best toys and pretty much ignored anything else.
Then there was an actual trial they had to enter for four hours once per week. Little Ta had mixed feelings about it. Being away from his friends felt lonely, but being able to play in a grassy meadow with guaranteed bright sunshine and a small lake to waddle in was also enjoyable.
Tom hoped those memories were evidence of protected training opportunities, but he couldn’t tell. His younger self unfortunately was not at all observant.
The memories combined with the other little pieces he had overheard did bring things together. They were in an orphanage, but not quite. In some ways this place was closer to a boarding school than anything else. Every child born to adventurers or crafters, whether the parents wanted to look after them or not, had to stay here.
It was a rule to safeguard those who were being reincarnated. But it also meant the place was well funded, and it had been designed to protect and prepare all its students for the very harsh world outside this small, protected space.
Not all children here were unwanted, and his wandering eyes spotted a couple of not parents visiting their own kids. One woman had five, with ages ranging from six to twelve crowded around her. Tom’s senses were not advanced, but he could feel the threat she represented from where he stood. She didn’t look the maternal type, but she was treating all of them like one would train one’s own, and Tom could see similarities between their facial features. Little Ta had hated the thought of the not-parents.
He, Bir and Pa were orphans in a practical and probably literal sense. There were no adults that visited them. A lot of their play revolved around them being the offspring of great adventurers who were out saving humanity. For the three of them, that was the only reason their own not parents didn’t visit.
Little Ta had naturally believed that fact absolutely, and he suspected Bir and Pa were the same. The fantasy was not realistic. Maybe they had been abandoned, but it was more likely their parents were dead.
“Chocolate time,” Bir declared as her hand dived in and targeted a particularly chocolate-dense area of their sweets bowl. She grabbed a handful and then settled back down to watch, one hand clutching her prize and the other regularly popping her loot into her mouth.
Pa had Cam out. There was a look of concentration on his face. He was pointing the staff of his figurine at snotty Ma and her not parents. “Pow, pow.”
Tom studied the adults in front of snotty Ma. The dad had a Pacific islander appearance to him. Brown skin, huge shoulders, a thick body and was dressed in finely crafted gray chain link that somehow neither generated sound as he moved nor reflected light. The mum was slighter, almost petite when standing next to her partner. She reminded him a lot of Everlyn. She was clearly a scout, with her dark hair and leather armor that was dyed like military camo - and curiously, a foot-long blade sheathed at her side. He guessed the pair’s larger weapons would be in a spatial storage somewhere, but why the knife was not also there was a mystery to him. He personally had kept his spear exclusively in his spatial storage, since it was the most convenient way to retrieve it when needed.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
There was nothing better than manifesting a spear in your hand when the charging boar was only a meter from you, thus giving it no chance to react before it impaled itself.
The pair of them were powerful, but right now all their attention was on snotty Ma. Their love for her was obvious. They were Ma’s parents, but they were not allowed to be that here, so those two were deemed to be not-parents… They officially visited to help all the children, but no one was fooled. They, like all the others who used the loophole, only had eyes for their own.
All the kids were technically orphans. Strictly speaking, they were all supposed to be treated equally, but corruption spread everywhere humans settled and some children like snotty Ma were more equal than others. They had adults that showered them with attention and gifts. It was not lost on any of them that Snotty had better clothes than everyone else. She even had a magic ring that she could use to knock someone away. It was probably gifted to help her if she was threatened, but it was as equally applicable as a bullying tool. That was something she used regularly when there were no adults around to spot her actions and with it, they couldn’t touch her.
“Pow, Pow.” Pa repeated. “Cam crack them. Turn them to dust.”
Bir giggled. “No not Cam. I’m full. I’ll crack them.” There was a pause. “Who do I target? A not or a snotty?”
“Nots dangerous,” Pa observed, then he looked meaningfully up at the roof above them. He couldn’t actually see it because the hides were in the way, but the intention was clear. “And there are no birds to help.”
“I love it when there’s birds.” She agreed.
“Yes, that’s why it was your first word. We get it.” Pa told her.
She giggled and Tom, letting his instincts guide him, immediately joined in. He wasn’t sure he was following the conversation completely. He guessed he just had to fake things.
“Now how do I do this?” Bir mused to herself. Her eyes were darting from spot to spot.
A fancy bottle manifested out of nothing in the not mother’s hand. Tom’s memories told him that this, while not a regular occurrence, was something not parents did. The lucky child almost always got physically stronger afterward.
“That,” Pa said wisely. “Target that.”
“Good one. I’ll make it broken,” Bir promised with a giggle. Her eyes shut and her brow creased in furrows of concentration.
Fate boiled out of the young girl’s body.
Tom almost jumped in shock.
Bir could use fate? Of course she could, he reminded himself. Any human could. But for a four-year-old to apply it so deliberately… It was incredible to him.
And she wasn’t funneling a small amount, either. It was a flood of energy, and far more than he would have expected any child to have. He watched in awe as it swirled toward snotty Ma. It coalesced around the bottle that was still in the mum’s hand and then shot off in multiple directions, bits going into the mum, some of it into the dad and the rest into snotty. Tom could imagine it priming probability to make an unlikely event like the bottle spilling into a certainty.
The mother was holding the flask, waving it around and explaining something to her daughter. Tom winced in sympathy. The large amount of fate that Bir had released had been barely contested by the trio of them.
He tensed. Something spectacularly unlikely was about to happen.
With the speech complete the Mum handed the bottle over.
Snotty snatched at it greedily.
The abrupt motion must have surprised the mum, for there was a slight fumble as the flask changed hands. Her daughter rushed to open it. Then, to their surprise, but not Tom’s, disaster struck. Ma’s pricy ring, the one that created the force field that she used to bully them, caught on the edge of the bottle. Her second hand, instead of smoothly plucking the cork out, knocked the entire thing out of her grip.
Minus the cork.
The precious flask slipped from her hands.
Panic flared over her face. Snotty Ma tried to snatch it from the air, but she was only a four-year-old, and her inept attempts only made the situation worse. Not Dad, despite his heavy armour, went around the mum and was reaching out to catch it before it had even dropped five centimetres. The speed of that movement had left him a blur in Tom’s vision. Unfortunately, the mum had the same idea. With them both moving at superhuman speed, they collided. His thick, gauntleted hand struck the bottle, and it shattered.
Liquid went everywhere, with most of it going over Ma’s pristine, white, expensive dress.
Next to him Bir was shaking, almost unable to control her laughter. Pa had the sense of mind to attempt to close the flap so the adults would not be able to see them. That was not what Tom wanted and his fingers slid under the leather to jam it open and leave the smallest of cracks so he could still watch.
“That was a body elixir!” the Not Dad cursed. “I’m going to have words with the alchemist. How do you put something that expensive in such a cheap bottle? It broke after barely being touched.”
Snotty Ma burst into tears.
“Oh, sweety, don’t cry. Eloise, listen to me. It wasn’t your fault.” The mom said, gathering her into a hug, ignoring the messy liquid that covered her. Using the name Eloise was very taboo. That was very much against the rules, but the parents didn’t care.