student_of_impossibility | [OOM(M) AU: Calderon] Playtesting is for awesomes

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[OOM(M) AU: Calderon] Playtesting is for awesomes

In the few weeks since Second Calderon, everything's changed.

Uncle Bernard has been busy getting settled in as Count Calderon--somehow Tavi feels like he gets to see his uncle less. Amara's been coming to visit, which is nice; Tavi never thought he'd make friends with a Cursor of the Crown, but he has. A part of him hopes he can serve Alera with that much effectiveness one day, even though he doesn't think someone like him is likely to.

Some other part whispers he'll be a Cursor one day, and to be patient. Tavi hates being patient.

Aunt Isana's been trying to hide how worried she is about his moving away, although it only takes his enthusiasm for the classes he'll get to take to start putting a smile back on her face. And sometimes Tavi isn't sure if he should try to talk to Fade alone about what happened--Araris Valerian died fifteen years ago. Do you understand, Tavi?--and sometimes he knows with absolute certainty it isn't the right time.

Which is why Tavi's now out watching the sheep, instead of getting ready to go. He volunteered. So long as he's out here, things are almost like normal. He doesn't want to go back--there's too much to do, and see, and explore. He's getting all he ever wanted now, and doesn't even begin to imagine where it might lead.

He just needs a little quiet, and a little time. Sheep are good for that.

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From the bushes there's a loud shriek of surprise or startlement. Or something unhappy. It's human, definitely. Rather unhappy human, but human.

They sound stuck.

Tavi turns a little, head tilted, and heads over to the sound.

"Are you all right?" he calls, trying to get a better look.

A teenage boy with a muss of black hair and brown eyes is stuck in the bushes. His foot is caught in some bramble and what looks like some rocks. His clothes are well made, if strangely fashioned. He's got a long coat on and it looks like a hat has fallen off. Embroidered on his his shirt in dark blues are birds.

The hat, a brown bowler hat, is being chewed on by a sheep.

"No! I'm not all right." He gives Tavi an imperious look.

The imperious look isn't entirely impressive. He's met Gaius Sextus too recently for it to have a serious affect on him.

Tavi glances over him, noting the odd clothing, and for a moment a frown creases his forehead. But then again--

Well, enough in his life is strange lately that it doesn't fully matter.

Tavi crouches down. He only looks twelve or thirteen, and on the small side--and yet he's rather business like. "Does it hurt trying to move your ankle, or is it just a little irritating?"

The travails of the hat concern him not at all. He'll rescue it from the sheep eventually--but generally, messing with Rivan Mountain Whites is a bad idea.

Jono does imperious looks far better than he does anyway.

Alec is about fifteen and hasn't gotten into his growth spurt yet.

"It hurts. A lot." He scowls at the hat-eating sheep. "And it's stuck."

"And that's my hat!" He snatches the hat from the sheep.

Tavi eyes him for a moment, one eyebrow raised. At this age and size, it's only a little skeptical with a faint, faint hint of arrogance beneath it--in later years it will be unconsciously as imperious as Alec was trying to look, or more so.

There's only a hint of that now, though.

As Alec snatches the hat, Tavi half-instinctively lunges for the sheep, grabbing it by an ear to start wrestling it around. "Careful--they're liable to bite if you disturb them too much, and they're not used to you. Let me get this one distracted."

And he just has to hope and pray that he doesn't wind up hiding in a tree again. It happens, from time to time.

"Don't try moving," he adds, calling over his shoulder. "Do you need water? I might be a couple minutes."

The hat, sadly, goes with the sheep.

He watches Tavi wrestle with the sheep wondering if this is something that all farmers do. The sheep doesn't look too dangerous to him. It doesn't even have any bony plates on it. The horns are even sheered clean. Of course his sheep tend to look like this (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v618/Kippur/drawings/Alecsheep.jpg).

"Where would I go!?" He snaps back and crosses his arms looking sulky.

Tavi is wondering if all city-boys are like this--unaware of their surroundings and never dressed sensibly. Sure, he's gotten caught in fixes like this, but at least he was always doing something... well, stupidly dangerous. There's not much dangerous out here.

And the hat is just ridiculous.

Tavi's too busy wrestling with the sheep and trying to get the hat loose to reply for a few minutes. Eventually, however, he does manage it, having picked up a new bruise or two and ending up liberally covered in grass and dirt.

The hat... well. It's probably not salvageable by now.

He regards it for a moment, then shrugs, turning back to larger boy with a rueful shrug. "Sorry," he says as he walks back over after slapping the sheep a little on the rump to get it to rejoin its fellows.

And then, with another shrug, "I don't know. You could have gotten free and wandered onto Garados. It wouldn't have been good, with an ankle like I bet you have."

... his father gave him that hat. He liked that hat. It was his favorite hat. And now it's... not a hat any more.

Stupid sheep.

Alec snatches the hat back from Tavi with a mildly ungrateful look and puts it on his head anyway.

"If I could have gotten free, I wouldn't be in this situation."

As for his clothes, they're perfectly sensible for walking down to school.

For all that Tavi looks to be physically a couple years younger than Alec, right now he's just giving the other boy a look which seems to give Tavi several more years than he has.

He's recently come close to dying in various painful ways. Clothing is very low on his list of important things.

Pulling his canteen off, he takes a drink, then sighs. "Some people try to get free and wrench something even worse when they do--and then go wandering off on it. And even if you're used to living in the country, Garados can be tricky on his calmest days--to say nothing of when Thana Lilvia gets angry."

He offers the canteen to Alec. There's no telling how long the kid had been out here without water.

Clothing is very low on Alec's list as well. He was planning on walking to school not end up in the brambles with sheep.

"I'm not stupid," he said sounding like he knows people who would be. "My godfather would kill me if I were to do that." He ignores the bits about Garados and Thana.

About fifteen minutes. He does take a sip of water and gives the canteen back.

Tavi shrugs a little, expression a little placating. "Everyone gets a little stupid when they panic, and most people panic at something like this." For a moment, he thinks of the Wax Forest being set on fire, and hopes nothing bad comes of it.

(He already knows something will--what, he doesn't know. But he knows he hasn't heard the end of it. It gives him chills.)

He kneels down, picking up a stick, and starts gingerly nudging the brambles away with it to get a better look. "What are you doing out this way, anyway? Not too many people come here."

And the last time anyone had, it was a Cursor, and his life went to hell for a few days. He'd rather not have to deal with it again.

"Where is out this way?" Alec turns his hat around and tries to get it to settle better on his head. Focusing on the stupid things like the hat is what is stopping him from panicking.

He looks around and realizes this isn't anywhere near home. "I was going to university and I took the short cut because I was late. And then here."

The foot has wedged itself rather nicely into a crack that was hidden by the bramble.

That gets Tavi to pause as he clears the bramble away, looking up at Alec with consternation and a pensive look.

"Well, you're closest to Bernardholt. I don't know why anyone would be out in the Valley here in clothes like yours--and we... definitely don't have a university."

The word is foreign--the closest thing is the Academy, after all.

Tavi, meanwhile, is frowning thoughtfully at the problem of Alec's foot, trying to figure out how to get it out.

And Alec pauses.

"I've never heard of Bernardholt," he says back. "And your clothes are strange."

Yes, that was petty. He's cranky because his foot hurts.

Tavi sighs and rolls his eyes. "You've never seen a farmer before, have you?"

And then he shrugs. "Not many people have--we're just a steadholt. ...Isanaholt, now, I guess," he adds with a wry smile laced with pride.

His relatives are Important People now, through their own merits and accomplishments.

(This fundamentally shapes his entire outlook and policy.)

He sniffed. "I've seen farmers before. In the market."

His arms cross and Alec looks at him sourly. Did Tavi think he was stupid?

The names still mean nothing to him.

Tavi's giving him odd looks now. A city boy, out in the valley, clearly with no idea where he is?

And what the crows did he mean by 'the university', anyway?

"Great bloody furies, it isn't that easy to just... get lost and wind up here. Even Riva's... what, at least a day away, I think? How'd you manage to end up in Calderon, anyway?"

They're odd looking each other then.

"I. Don't. Firebolting. Know! You slush brained nitwit!" He practically yells. "I just turned the corner and was HERE!"

A stiff breeze stirs up at his frustration, but he clamps down on it quickly and it dies.

Tavi blinks at him, feeling the breeze and doing his best to figure out what's happened to Alec.

"...Oh, so you're a windcrafter?" he asks after a moment, head tilted a little at the other boy.

Alec freezes, a surge of panic flushing through him. Not allowed to use other elements. Not allowed to use other elements. Chants through his head at lightning speed.

"... No I'm not."

Tavi blinks at him, frowning. He saw that freeze, that moment of panic, and it confuses him.

"What's wrong? Windcrafting's amazing. How strong are you? Enough you'll be able to fly one day?"

Stressing every word, Alec repeats, "I can't use air magic."

Sure, they were out in the middle of nowhere, but he never knew. There might be wizards out here and if they found out...

Tavi frowns at him for a long, long moment. "Well, then, what can you do? I mean, you have to have some kind of crafting. Everyone does. I don't know why you want to hide it."

Crows, if he had crafting, he wouldn't even think of hiding it. Not for a moment.

Of course, he hasn't yet reached the age where he realizes he has to.

Then again, this is... getting odd and mildly suspicious. And after Second Calderon, he's not taking chances.

Tavi gets a frown back as he wonders if the other boy is mad. Why would he have more than one elemental ability... or crafting, which had to be the strangest thing to call the magic.

"Fire."

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