re: sandstorm-

my answer to you has three parts

1. real life
2. finishing up another chapter of little things, which i have sorely neglected
3. giving rhen and lars some alone time to recharge myself for next chapter.


I will try to hurry, but I'm not going to lie. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the next chapter will take a while

as long as its out eventually, the wait, even if its forever, will be worth it.

Well, not quite forever, as I think we'd all be dead by then... Lol.

But, hey, the longer we wait, the better the chapter'll be when it comes out!

A small update on this fic's status:


My apologies.
At this point I know pretty much exactly what is happening the next couple of chapters but I have literally not had the opportunity to right down more than a few paragraphs.
There's good news and bad news. The good news is that in a little over a week I will have enough time to hopefully write a LOT.
the bad news is that until then I probably will barely manage to eke out a few snippets a night.

Blurble-thank you for the update! Good luck in your real life and can't wait for you to have enough time to sit down and get all your musings out

(sigh) Well, as long as we get to read it in the end. We'll wait, it's more than worth it.

reality...i hate it. ive always hated it.

so, anyways...please, please dont get me wrong, im NOT rushing you or telling you to update, i just want to know how you're doing with your story.

I know it's been a long, long time.

(Believe me, I'm not happy about it. I have been DESPERATE for a moment free to write this stupid thing for... a while now. It just never happened.)

The next chapter is... coming. I'm actually going right now to continue working on it. And I'm sorry I can't magically make it happen faster but... yeah. Sorry D=

*tries to cast a free time creating spell on Blurble*

*fails miserably*

D=

Hey, we'll wait. Waiting will just whet our literary appetites.

just as long as you try...we'll wait.

Now that this wait has been going on so long you've obviously been getting your expectations up... getting kinda nervous because I'm not sure I'll live up to them.

*takes deep breath*

Blurble! Hooray! You live! Hooray!

aw, come on, blurble, it cant be that bad, considering that you're the one writing

good news and bad news, again.

good news- I am an inch away from finishing next chapter, and the next few parts will hopefully write themselves so that they'll be much more quickly than this one.

bad news- but that doesn't really help you right now, because I'm losing internet access thanks to real life issues for an itty bit and while I have tried extremely hard to finish in time to get up the latest chapter before then, this is beginning to look extremely unlikely.

So I'm posting this just to let you know, and if I do manage to get the chapter up you'll know KI somehow finished.

Next post of mine, as far as I can tell, will be the story.

Have a good weekend.

I'm sorry to hear that Blurbie. I'll miss you!

HA! I LAUGH AT YOU, EVIL FATE.

This chapters ends slightly earlier than intended but HA.

At least I got it up.

but I do have to apologize... had I had time I would have polished this up, maybe. I didn't, though. Which means it's possible I'll be coming back to this post and editing it at some point in time.

---


He wandered morosely back to his apartment, in the vast thrown shadows of the day’s fading light, and in his head her words replayed- not the actual things she had said, but the way she had said them, amplified in his head.

At some point he took a wrong turn and someone tried to pickpocket him, but he only barely registered it on the edges of his melancholy. He sort of… limply waved his hand and zapped them.

“Not that it makes a difference, anyway,” he’d said, damply, and the would-be thief had clutched his stinging hand and backed away, muttering something about a “nutty magician”.

A long-forgotten memory surfaced in his head with a small pop, the curious feeling of rediscovering something you hadn’t realized you’d lost. Zap- Like a cry of pain and the clang of metal bracelets clattering to the ground.

That day… years ago, centuries ago, he’d given her the name Peta. He cringed at that, suddenly- in his mind it had lost all its former malice, had become simply a sort of… private joke, and now he was left wondering if that had been only in his mind, if in hers it still stung, if all this time he had…

Certainly this afternoon- and he rubbed futilely at the bridge of his nose, pressing down the fierce humiliation of the memory- certainly this afternoon had been to him simply some harmless… some harmless game to play, to annoy her, and to her it had been much more than that and oh, it was making him shrivel up inside how he could have been oblivious to connotations that were in retrospect so obvious.

He entered his apartment quietly, and stood there remembering how this morning he had thought to himself that that there was no reason for Rhen to dislike him.

There were so, so many reasons, this night.

---

He dreamed that as they were fighting to reach Ahriman a giant fairy came down and turned Dameon into a yellow frog.

“Come to the dark side, Rhen!” The frog croaked sonorously, hopping up and down.

“Oh Dameon! I’d love to! Because I love you so, so much!” She cried, and ran over to him, wearing a skimpy white taffeta dress that trailed and trailed behind her.

And he woke clawing at the sheets.

This was just… ridiculous. He breathed out slowly, trying to compose himself.

Lars Tenobor, losing his head over a girl. Pathetic.

He crawled out of bed, sorely in need of a drink. In his kitchen the jug of milk in the icebox had gone sour, and he poured it distastefully into the sink. Down at the bottom of the icebox where his fingers went cold and cramped he managed to chip out of the ice a bottle of mulberry juice.

Alcohol he never drank outside of a social setting. It was a social thing, a matter of manners and grace and being picky about the soil quality of the grape juice you drank and that was all it had ever really been to him. As for water… Absolutely not. It almost nauseated him, so plain and dull and common.

Mulberry juice then had become his drink of choice, the dark red sophisticated color combined with that bitter, sweet, rich and earthy taste. So it had some negative associations attached to it tonight, all the better.

He made a small explosion to heat the water faster, dipped the bottle in and waited a few seconds for it to run slushy.

Although the outside of the bottle was warm, bordering on uncomfortably hot, the drink itself was refreshingly cold, sliding gloriously down his throat. He stood with his head tilted back and the liquid sliding slow but smooth into his open mouth and… focused.

When he had drained the bottle he set it down carefully on the counter, and did a quick stretch of his arms, round in a circle each way.

He felt better. He felt magnificent, really. And why shouldn’t he? Magnificent was what he was, after all.

---

He was finishing up his breakfast when he heard the light yet peremptory knock at his door.

“Mother!” He said, when he saw standing there. “What a surprise!”

She swept past him into his dining room.

“Have you been eating enough?” She asked, sharply.

“I… yes, mother, I’ve-”

“You never come to visit me. It’s lonely in the house and now that you forced me to get rid of the slave-boy…” Rona Tenobor rarely waited for her son to finish a sentence.

“I didn’t force you, Mother, I just-”

“What a nice kitchen you have,” she said. “Do you have anyone cooking for you?”

“Not really,” he muttered.

“Oh, dear,” she said, and smothered him suddenly in a hug. “I am so proud of you. I always knew you would be a success. You remember, right? I always told you you’d be an incredible success.”

“Yeah…” He said, awkwardly patting her on the back.

“Because you have the right blood in you, remember that,” she said, “you’re not like that… that trash nowadays, you see them all getting into high positions, really what is the world coming to when people don’t understand their place, it’s really…”

She sniffed.

“You really out to buy yourself some help. Someone of your rank, without even one slave… just a little one, the older ones are always more difficult, I’ve always said that, they lie and steal- But just yesterday I saw them selling a little girl, scrawny thing but she could do cleaning and cooking, I’m sure.”

“I- I’ve already told you that I’m not-“

“What?”

“I’m not sure I…” He gave up. “I’m managing fine on my own, that’s all.”

“What is this?” she said, peering at him. “Is this… does this have anything to do with that nonsense you were telling me a few months back?”

“It…”

“Oho,” she said, laughing. “I see. Someone’s gone and brainwashed you with this equality nonsense, you know slaves are different from us, Lars, their brains work differently and it’s only a kindness, to give them the work they were meant to do.”

She saw that he wasn’t answering her and continued defensively. “It’s not as if I beat them, not really, just a light whack when they need it, it’s the only way they learn. It doesn’t even hurt them, actually, they feel things differently.”

She laughed, airily. “Oh, why are we sitting here discussing this, darling, it’s too serious and heavy for a visit I went to such trouble making. But don’t worry, Lars, it’s just a fad you’re going through, you’ll understand soon enough.

“Yes, Mother,” He said. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Oh yes, please darling, a little wine…”

“I bought this just for you,” he said, bringing a bottle out from under his counter. “I’ve been keeping it cool under here, I was planning on bringing it over… when I had the chance…”

“Oh, thank you,” she said. “You really are such a good boy, I always did know it.”

And he smiled and nodded. There was a point in his life when he’d transitioned from a child’s selfish relationship with their parent to something more… delicate. He’d come back from his adventure to a home somehow changed, and he found that his mother was… more fragile than he’d imagined, more small and human and weak and… flawed.

She’d been happy albeit bewildered about the respect he showed her, a new phenomenon- and he had simply been struck at the strange feeling, of newfound love and respect for someone with whom he now profoundly disagreed. He understood… where she was coming from, understood because it had been ingrained into him since birth. But he couldn’t…

People could grow, if they expanded their world. But Rona would never do that, would never pull herself out of the world she created, its only real occupants herself and her perfect, perfect son.

---

He offered to accompany his mother home, and was not surprised when she refused. He did walk her to the city entrance, however.

As a result he missed all his morning classes- not a big deal, he was ahead of schedule anyway by almost a week, a rarity among teachers.

Rhen’s classroom was… in a different wing of the building from his entirely. That day when he’d intercepted her as she’d left, he’d been only coincidentally in the area. She was probably there right now. Dealing with Sirona.

She’d been upset about something yesterday also, hadn’t she? Some new screw up, she really wasn’t suited to this…

His mouth twitched upwards. She always did things regardless of the odds. She always…

Always…

One day he’d started watching her, noticing her. The kind of milestone that slipped by unnoticed, because once you realized it had happened you couldn’t remember how.

Maybe it was time to stop, he thought.

---

That morning she had barely been able to drag herself to school. She hadn’t wanted to face him- She had woken up dry-mouthed at the thought of having to see him and when she’d tried to figure out what she was afraid of, she wasn’t able to quite put her finger on it, only that somehow she knew meeting him today would be catastrophic.

But she didn’t meet him.

Mornings for her had become suddenly quite relaxing- apparently the morning schedule was quite rigid in terms of letting students take special classes, something she hadn’t really noticed in her years here but then she’d never needed to miss class for… tutoring. So she was only going to meeting with the three of them after the lunch break.

Why had she come to school then? Habit mostly, she supposed. And, well, when you were living alone in a place attached to the building itself, it was rather hard to avoid.

She had time, then, to read through her files at leisure. But she already had, the night before- as if she’d have put it off any longer. They offered… not much, actually. Somehow she’d been expecting, especially after the Gaden incident, that they would be full of essential information. But they weren’t. Most of what they said she knew already- Kylie was “easily distracted,” Hio had “an attitude problem,” and Gaden…

She couldn’t help but wince when she came to Gaden’s file and found a three-page long listing consisting solely of each time he’d been injured. Also included were several notes recommending he be politely encouraged to go into another profession, followed by at least three sensing reports that confirmed that yes, he did have a very impressive sword-singing ability.

That there were three was what was of interest, because she’d never heard of anyone having a second sensing.

But she hadn’t yet figured out what exactly it all meant. So she spent her morning sitting in the lounge mulling it over, and with plenty of time left until her first class she wandered down to her classroom.

It was locked. She jiggled the knob just to be sure, but it was unmistakable.

She… well, this time she less wandered than walked briskly to the office, to ask as to where to acquire a key. And when she was directed to a completely opposite end of the building she went from walk to run…

But it made no difference, she was still five minutes late as she bent, panting, to fit the key into the lock.

Not that there was a need to have rushed… none of the kids would be on time anyway, she thought resignedly, and straightened.

She jumped a full foot in the air.

“Lars!” She said, and her heart was racing so fast she thought it would burst. “What are you doing here?”

For a moment he simply stared at her.

“…Nothing,” he said, “I was just… passing through. And why are you here?”

“I-“ She said, and felt herself flushing. “Well. I. I was going to tell you this… But then, you know… I-I’ve been transferred, I’m not assisting Sirona anymore- isn’t that great?” She finished, weakly.

“Congratulations!” He said, flashing her a smile. “Well, I have to go now… my classroom is right up there,” he said, pointing towards the staircase at the end of the hall.

And just like that, after all her worries about this moment and how she would handle his reaction… Like an anti-climax, as he headed up the stairs.

She felt the relief flood over her, flood over- and then flow on, leaving her with something like hollowness in her throat, an ache she couldn’t identify.

Because he smiled and waved as he went up, and there was such a distance in that small gesture, that just for a moment Rhen felt her heart break. So selfish, like a little child, only wanting a toy once it was taken away.

...This story makes me feel so sad. It has some relation to the sheer amount of amazingness of plot and style that is found here.

"There were so, so many reasons, this night."
<33

Anti-climatic encounter of vague politeness... Sadface.

DEFINITELY worth the wait. Totally looking forward to more, because this story is spectacular, and so are you. =)

Oh I'm so glad you updated it! Hurray! This makes me so happy!

wonderful!

you are amazing! and so is this!!! as usual. I agree with Rena. DEFINITELY worth the wait. Now take your time. I would like to see what comes next! =)