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The calf stopped and stared at him for a few seconds, as if the sound of his voice needed thinking about, and then it went right back to being thrilled it was alive.
Eventually, the mother bokabv came over to see what was occupying her calf, and since Alden had been instructed not to distress her in any way, he held perfectly still while she got him back for dodging her tongue on his last visit.
“You have a real baby now. Lick him. Look at him! He needs yo—yuck. Okay. Okay, this is fine. It’s probably…you have an unlimited supply of drool, don’t you?”
She left him alone when the calf came over for a drink, and he made a slow escape back over the fence.
“You two aren’t ever going to end up like that thing in my dreams,” he said after watching them for a while longer. “You’re not allowed to. You only get to be normal, happy bokabvs. Because I said so.”
He found the red star in the sky.
Because I want it. Because I feel like screaming it at the universe until the universe listens.
Maybe it wasn’t strange that wizards could do magic. Maybe it was strange that everyone else couldn’t.
Right now, Alden almost believed he could cast protection over these two simple, peaceful lives just by flinging his authority at reality and demanding that it be so.
And something about that thought felt special. Closing his eyes, he targeted the bokabv mother, and wishing to be entrusted upon, paid attention in a way he'd never done before. To understand without words.
She licked its baby when it arrived nearby, and he felt her wish to watch her child grow in peace. It's so simple, and so pure.
Yet... Why does it feel so heavy? So... far away, yet right here?
Why is this a burden I cannot bear? That's.
That's wrong. That's so wrong. I can carry. I should be able to carry this.
His skill refused. Nothing to hold. Nothing to grasp. Nothing there to carry and bear. His affixation too rigid for a task so ephemeral.
But where his skill failed, maybe his authority would work. And the Bearer of all Burdens felt the part of himself that could still be more, coiling like a spring, ready to order reality to cast a mantle of protection. It exploded into a mantle around the bokabv and its child. A bastard copy of his skill as it wraps around a burden.
So weak and frail. What could it even protect against?
A cold breeze went by, the herd creatures didn't feel it, and the frail mantle of his bunched up authority broke apart, its pieces vanishing into the air.
That's why we croak instead of talk. Alden thought, as he exited his casting trance and opened his eyes.
Stu was a few meters away, both of his eyes opened and focused on the remaining dredges of authority, as if they could be seen instead of felt.
Fuck. Nonononononono. No. Not like this.
"Alden!" Stu waved at him, both eyes curious rather than accusing. Too soon. I needed more time. "What was that? It felt too <<real in the way spells are real>> and <<effusive like a badly casted spell>> to be an illusion or a spell impression."
"Hi Stu, how long have you been here?" Alden tried to buy some precious seconds.
"<<Skill-based epiphanies>> are rare, so I didn't want to interrupt you." Stu seemed too intrigued to care about his plight. "That was very different to what you usually do. Did you find a new dimension of your skill?"
I don't want to lie. I can't lie to him. I... Half truth. Let the door open.
"I was wishing to protect them, and so I targeted the mother, just trying to feel if she had something to entrust upon me. I could feel something of that sort, a wish to see the child grow, with other stuff I couldn't grasp." Stu was enraptured. "Somehow, I refused to believe that I couldn't do that, even if it was too intangible an idea to carry."
Alden paused for a few breaths, thinking. Stu seemed content to wait. And stare. Too intense Stu. Please be less intense.
"So I... I don't have the words for it." He felt a sweat droplet falling into his cheek. "I felt insulted that I couldn't protect them, and I..." It merged with the glowing saliva left by the mother bokabv.
"You <<tossed authority>> at them. Right?" Alden's auriad clenched even more into his arm, as his heartbeat spiked. Stu's furrowed eyebrows didn't help. "But it felt sort of like your skill."
"Yes?"
"But that wasn't quite your skill, was it? <<Force-copying>> shouldn't be possible for avowed, you'd need an authority sense for that."
Alden gulped.
"...Yes?"
And Stu came near. He was very large, but closer to Lute than the immensity of Jenneth, Alis, or Esh.
Stu patted him in the authority, and Alden stood very, very still.
The artonan boy seemed to concentrate, expecting something. Anything. After a minute, he sighed and started to pull back. Something about his face was shadowed by such agonizing loneliness that Alden couldn't force himself to leave the greeting unreturned.
And pat-pat back.
[:O]
Stu's face lit up in exhilarated glowing glee, for all of one second.
Only to plunge deep into paralyzing horror, and Alden saw a single teardrop falling before the boy turned and ran away. Into the school sumonarium.
[Oh. Sorry. I did not expect this.]
Stu ran so fast that Alden couldn't possibly catch up, not without anything to trigger his movement trait. By the time he reached the summoning platform, there was somebody else with Stu.
"Greetings Hn'tyon Rel-art'h, I was just leaving with Stuart."
"And now you're coming with me." His expression unreadable. Stu's, behind, crying in distress. "What's your skill, young <<non-oathed wielder of power>>?"
"...I hate Ro-den."