On the potragos, Ranvir was in no mood to talk. He spent the rest of the day continuously repeating the events of the afternoon. Asimina- and Mihail’s heads appearing in the shadows and recesses of his house. The voices whispering through the rustling of the leaves. The feeling of fist against flesh through every thump on the floor and slam of the door.

It worried him, something so simple knocked him out the entire day, yet he couldn’t stop himself. But the rest helped. An early night’s sleep eased the tension in Ranvir’s mind and helped him let go of the events at the café and the echoes they brought.

Waking up early, he spent a flare sitting outside his house soaking in the sun and breathing deeply. So he was well aware of Pashar’s approach, bringing with her another echo. A complicated knot of discomfort seized in his stomach as he observed her.

Pashar came on foot. Carrying a long bag over her shoulder, a pair of ornate sandals hung from the fingers of her other hand. Ranvir could smell the products at the bottom of her bag, even from a distance.

They looked at each other for a long moment. Pashar finally nodded towards the door. “Can I head inside?”

“Yeah,” Ranvir agreed. “Frija’s in her bedroom.”

The Ankirian nodded and opened the door. Furrowing his brow, Ranvir watched her set foot inside his house. “She’s talking with Menace. She might attempt to play it off like she’s asleep, but she’s been up for a while.”

Pashar nodded and stepped inside. Ranvir sat for a moment longer, watching the surrounding nature. It was still writhing season. The bushes and trees were alive with movement and growth. The only things untouched by nature mana stuck out like sore thumbs. A small dried fruit here, a hairy hard-shelled apple there. Other fruits were showing up as well, these with storm mana inside them.

Nature lived and churned rapidly all around him. Ever shifting and ever changing, never growing out the same way twice. Except for small barriers erected around the mana-attuned fruits. Small remnants of Ranvir, unwilling and perhaps unable to change. That knot of discomfort throbbed within Ranvir’s belly, seeping with dark purple and black liquids, specks of red flicked within.

He sat then, listening to the world. It was quiet here. The animals knew of Menace and kept a healthy distance from the house. It was going to be a warm day, Ranvir could already tell. Even as the heat barely touched him, kept at a distance by minor use of his powers. Just another attempt at training while going about his business. The nature mana which took so eagerly to the world around him couldn’t touch him either. Kept at a distance by both his native presence and his intent.

Ranvir looked down at his hands, away from the world around him. But he couldn’t keep it entirely out. Pashar had finished climbing the stairs and knocked on Frija’s door. He listened as his daughter attempted to fake sleep. It wouldn’t have fooled Pashar, even if Ranvir hadn’t told her of it, Ranvir realized then.

It didn’t take long before Pashar had the little girl up and in the bathroom. Together they washed her hair, Pashar retrieving some products she’d brought along.

“You’re gonna make my hair really pretty, right?”

“Of course, sweetheart,” Pashar agreed as she threaded some cream into the rust-colored locks.

“But not as pretty as Amalia or Elpir, right?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

There was a splashing of water and Frija gasped, then giggled. “Good.”

Ranvir smiled as he listened to them, and he wasn’t sure how that made him feel. Mostly, his emotions were apparent to him. The colors explaining themselves as they appeared, but these just appears as ribbons swirling around the knotted emotions. A riot of inexplicable colors.

Licking his lips, Ranvir returned his attention to the forest. Kasos hadn’t visited him since they parted ways at the station, but the old man’s words at the café now came back to him. “Interesting thought process. What have you learned from this encounter?”

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Ranvir rubbed his face vigorously. Getting up from the stone, Ranvir turned his attention towards the only sleeping person left in the house. Up the stairs and knocking on Vasso’s door, Ranvir waited patiently as the teenager didn’t stir at all.

So he stepped inside and sent a spray of water onto the kid’s face. “They’re almost done in the bathroom,” he nodded towards Frija and Pashar. They weren’t even close to done with the hair, he didn’t think, but enough that they could finish it in the kitchen with a mirror. “Up and at ‘em.”

Vasso nodded sleepily and laid back in the bed. Ranvir stared at him for a long moment. He walked over and knelt next to the bed. “Vasso,” he said, slowly. “Remember what we talked about after you moved in? About how I would allow you to stay up late and read, but that wouldn’t free you from responsibility?”

Vasso grumped something incoherent, even to Ranvir’s enhanced senses.

“I’ve made a similar deal with Frija,” it wasn’t really the same. Frija was five, Vasso would turn thirteen soon. The core concept remained, but Frija had a few more guidelines than his agreement with Vasso. “I won’t be some hawk. Carefully watching you, ensuring you get enough sleep. But if you cannot learn to manage reading habits, or find the discipline to get up anyway, then perhaps it was too early to start you on the same deal.”

He patted Vasso’s bed twice and got to his feet. Stopping at the door. “Like Frija, she didn’t get it immediately either, but we can always try again next year.”

Was he threatening Vasso? Ranvir could see how it could be construed that way, but really, he was reminding him of their deal. Ranvir didn’t care how the teenager managed his bedtime. He had no desire to enforce his authority with an iron hand.

When Ranvir was Vasso’s age, his parents had let him decide when he was going to bed for about a year. Sure, Ranvir didn’t grow up with entertainment as readily available as the books spread about the house, but Esmund had knocked on his window more than once in the night, dragging him out of bed.

But if he promised his mother that he would help her warm the forge in the morning, there was nothing else to it. Keeping your promises wasn’t everything, Ranvir realized that. But it was still an important part of being an adult and partaking in society. He suspected it was a lesson someone like Vasso, who’d been an oddball in a house full of oddballs, had trouble internalizing.

However, if there was one thing young boys did not appreciate. It was being compared to girls. Especially when you implied they were comparable to a girl half their age. With bags under his eyes, his ringlet hair a disorganized mess and only in a set of underwear, Vasso glared at Ranvir through squinting eyes.

That’s the moment Frija got out of the bathroom. Which was fine. They lived together, and she’d inevitably seen him in his underwear a few times over the months. She was also a five-year-old. Pashar, an older woman, a stranger to Vasso, and exotically attractive.

Vasso yelped and leapt back into his room, slamming the door. It echoed loudly through the house, causing Frija to whip around. Her hair, still wet, swung around and slapped her in the face. She giggled and did it again.

Menace appeared in the doorway to Frija’s room, peering out curiously.

“That,” Pashar said. “Just won’t work?”

To Ranvir’s surprise, she was looking at him. Frowning, he looked down at himself. “I’m not wearing this. You realize that, right?”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Pashar said. “That beard’s got to go. No more of that.”

“She’s right, daddy,” Frija agreed, even Vasso nodded as he emerged fully clothed.

“You’re not a savage living in a hut anymore,” Pashar said. She nodded towards Vasso as well. “The boy could use a shave as well.”

“What?” Vasso looked at her wide-eyed, touching his upper lip. While there was far from enough hair on it to call it a mustache, there was perhaps enough to warrant a shave for important events. “Really?”

“Fine,” Ranvir agreed.

“I’ll get the razor,” Pashar said. Heading back to the bathroom. The idea of Pashar shaving him didn’t even put a hitch in Ranvir’s steps. Yet, I can’t even consider telling her about Orykto. Ranvir shook his head at the thought.

Shaving him nearly turned into a disaster when Frija saw the scar on his face. Ranvir had purposefully kept his beard thick enough to mostly hide it from her, admittedly, short attention span, but now that it was gone, she could see it clearly.

Pashar eased the tension swiftly, however. Once Vasso sat in the chair and she’d gotten the blade ready, both Frija and he were happily entertained. Ranvir feared the poor kid was going to have a fit as Pashar firmly pulled his head back into her so she could get at his still-in-development beard. With the back of his head firmly pressed into her stomach, Vasso’s ears and cheeks flushed, and he went still.

The amusement of the scene was enough to break Frija free of her worry and confusion over Ranvir’s own facial features. Once shaven, all of them dispersed to their individual processes.

Vasso bathed and changed into a nondescript formal uniform. While it wasn’t true men’s formal wear, it was still acceptable where they were going. Frija and Pashar retreated to her room, to fix up her hair and other girl stuff Ranvir was still trying to wrap his head around.

Ranvir bathed after Vasso and changed into his own formal Sentinel uniform. Soon, it was only Pashar herself who borrowed the bathroom and hurried through her own preparations.