Chapter 3: Magic, why not? Sure, let's go with that.
"...oh Founder...Mother...disown...commoner...Noble...familiar..."
Evron continued to watch in mild amusement as the little girl rocked back and forth on her bed, constantly muttering to herself. He was amazed she was still going strong, to be honest. Nearly twenty minutes of mumbling and she hadn't snapped out of whatever trance she had fallen into. She had fallen to the floor and started babbling nonsense about Mothers and Familiar and he, being a gentleman and a Grey, had taken it upon himself to lift the girl to her bed and try to unbreak her mind. He had done whatever it took to get her attention; flying around, messing around with lightning, playing with telekinesis. Anything to snap the girl out of her weird trance; you name it and he had tried it. At one point, he had even juggled some blue fireballs and that didn't even seem to faze her. Throwing some ball lightning into the mix had made her pause for a moment only to go into a fetal position and fall back into her nonsensical mumblings, this time emphasizing the word "noble" more. All in all, nearly fifteen minutes of work had accomplished nothing. He did feel rather drained after his little show but he attributed that to his recent travel through the portal. He probably wasn't even close to halfway recharged yet. That probably explained why his muscles still felt somewhat sore.
'Although, I was knocked out for a bit," he paused to glance out the open window, noting the reddish-orange sky. "It's nearly nighttime. I should have at least regained enough Zirin to feel perfectly fine by now. Odd."
"Noble...familiar...Mother...Eleanor...Mother...Noble...familiar...familiar...Noble..."
The little pink-haired girl's voice dragged him away from his thoughts of his own body. Her reaction to his powers was...
Well, hilarious was one word to use for it. Amusing was another. Peculiar was probably the correct term for the situation but he didn't really care that much about linguistics anyway. It was funny so he called it funny.
The way her eyes had bulged when he spoke Tristanian just before her face took on the pinched expression she had moments before she opened her mouth wide to deliver one of the shrillest sentences he had ever heard had been enough for a chuckle on it's own. All of that leading into the way she had swooned to the floor in a manner that was so stereotypically fem it should have been criminal, well...that would have been enough to send anyone into fits of laughter. In short, it had been comical to the extreme. The only thing stopping him from laughing at her was the simple fact that he was trying to make a good impression and avoid being hunted like a criminal...again.
He looked down at the little girl still rocking back a day forth on the bed and had an odd thought.
Immediately jumping on the impulse, he leaned over and poked her in the back.
No response.
He did it again. "Hey little girl..." His tone was somewhat of a whisper, if a whisper was loud enough to be heard from the other side of a room.
He poked her again. "Hey, little girl, your family doesn't happen to be really rich, do they?"
Taking her continued murmurs as a negative, he continued. "OK, that's good. Do they happen to be well connected? Like local government?"
Nothing but murmurs in the same frantic tone that only little girls could pull off without sounding "too" whiney.
"State government? Regional?"
Still nothing but the panicking mewls of a preteen girl.
"Federal government? Country?" Pausing to glance at the stone walls and the somewhat rough but still oddly smooth wooden furniture, he added, "Any friends high up in the...uh...kingdom or empire liable to hold a grudge or put a bounty on my head over some sort of miscommunication?"
The girl rocked back and forth, making no sign that she had even heard him speak. Evron just took her continued noises as a yes. 'Still,' he thought after a moment of silence, 'why did she react like that, though? Wait a minute... What am I talking about? Her reality is obviously still in their version of the Middle Ages. She probably thinks I'm a witch or something.'
Nodding at his accurate deduction, Evron took a moment to give himself a figurative pat on the back only to pause as another contrasting point hit him. 'Wait, why did she call me a noble if she thinks I'm a witch? I assumed witches were burnt at the stake not given titles belonging to royalty.'
Considering the weird way she had screamed after he had spoken to her, she was acquainted with superpowers in some fashion. Why she associated them with royalty was an entirely new mystery.
"You're a noble!" didn't really make sense given the context. Were all superhumans in this world given titles? That was a definite possibility given how superstitious ancient societies were. People with special powers would probably seem like they were blessed by their deity. Or maybe...
'Maybe the people on this planet evolved like Lia`s species! Advanced powers appearing in a few genetic lines allowing them to subjugate and rule over the weaker people! It's another species just like the Kherans...Korathians? Kherathians? Whatever. Lia never really specified their name anyway.' Evron smiled as he came to a conclusion that actually made sense.
"Familiar...Mother...familiar...oh dear Founder..."
He looked down again as the little girl's pitch rose again, edging into the shrill tone that she began with.
'Although, I won't know how right I am until I have someone to ask. Seeing as this little girl is the only person that actually has reason to speak with me, I probably should wake her up...somehow. I guess I do have one option left.'
His face twisted into a slight frown and he fingered the choker around his neck, his thin pale digits lingering on the large blue gem resting on his Adam's Apple. "Sorry about this, little girl. I need answers."
Tapping the strap at the back of his neck, the choker undid itself and fell into his other hand, the gem losing it's blue glow and fading to a pale green.
He lowered himself onto the bed and laid next to her, close enough that the breath from his mouth made her long pink hair ripple softly.
'Subtle, Ev. Be real subtle. You don't want to break her mind or make her an Agent. Just ease her out of this.'
He took a deep breath. "Hey there, little girl. You okay there? I'm just sitting here, kinda bored."
He paused, watching the girl as her rocking began to slow.
'Okay, that's good. Keep going.'
"I've been trying to calm you down for a while now. It really hasn't been working. Do you mind giving me a little help?" He sat up as her rocking slowed down to a crawl. Despite the fact that she was no longer bobbing back and forth like a mental patient, she still remained in the same position, huddled up with her arms around her knees. Her mouth was still moving, quietly forming the words that she had been muttering for nearly half an hour.
'Okay. Just one little push.' Evron calmed himself, taking in a deep breath. He needed to really focus for this last mental prodding. Too light and she wouldn't react but too hard and she might as well be a puppet. "Now, I'm gonna need you to do something for me, okay? Can you do it?"
Her mouth hung open, frozen mid-sentence and she turned her body to face him, staring at him with the blank eyes of someone under his thrall. She nodded slowly, the movement taking much longer than a simple raising and lowering of the head really should.
"Okay, then.Wake up."
No sooner had he said the words than the girl blinked rapidly, her eyelids fluttering as if something was caught in them. She shook her head and looked up at Evron, her slackjawed expression fading away as the shock and fear she previously had slid back onto her face. "You're a Noble!"
Evron stood up rapidly and shot a question back at her before she could fall back into her shock-induced trance once more. "A noble? What does that actually mean? What do you mean by noble?"
The girl blinked again, more shocked by his question than the fact that he was apparently a "noble". "Wha...what do you mean? You're a noble! What you just did...Only a noble could do such a thing! You have to be nobility!"
He raised an eyebrow at the girl. "Do you not know how to answer a question?"
"W-well of course, I do! What sort of question is that to ask of a Valliere?" She stood up on the bed in a huff, hands on her hips, and glared down at him. The expression on her face was one of annoyance mixed with a tad of nervousness, almost the same thing you'd expect to see on an angry squirrel. He glanced up at her with half-lidded eyes and slowly floated upwards until he was looking down at her once again.
Running a hand through his hair in frustration, he shot a look of mild frustration at the girl. "What I'm saying, little girl," he noticed her flinch at his tone, "is that I asked you a simple question. That question was 'what exactly do you mean by noble?'. Instead of answering me, you replied with a question. I asked for a simple definition. What I did not ask for was another question. I'm going to ask again and I expect an answer." He narrowed his eyes and the girl took a step back, nearly stumbling as her foot almost sank into the voluminous mattress. "My question is, and I repeat, what exactly do you mean by noble?"
Instead of immediately answering, the girl glanced up at him with a conflicted expression. He noticed her eyes lingering on his feet, as if trying to burn the fact that he was floating into her memory. Her expression soured as she simply stood there in silence until she was left with an even stranger expression on her face accompanied with a pursing of her lips, leaving her looking as if she was suffering from a severe case of constipation. All in all, she looked confused as to how to answer his question.
Evron couldn't imagine why this was taking so long. All he was asking for was a definition. He didn't understand the big deal about it. "Well, I'm waiting."
The girl glanced up at him once again and opened her mouth to speak...only to close it again. "How...What...but...you're...fine." She took a breath as if to steady herself and looked up at him once again. "A noble is...A noble is one who is held above all others with the glorious gift the Founder, in all his infinite wisdom, has bestowed upon him...or her. With this gift, they are held as superior over the commoners and with pure heart and benevolent will, they are to lead those poor souls lacking in the blessing that the great Brimir has bestowed upon his chosen few."
She let out another breath. "That is what it means to be a noble."
Evron tilted his head and stared at the girl in front of him, his brow furrowed in thought. This was just like like he had expected. They see superpowers as a divine gift and essentially elevate those who have them. Still though, the way she had phrased that. Something...something was off there. The word 'gift' in that connotation and with that sort of reverence...didn't seem right. Straightening his head, he asked, "And what is this "gift" that the...Founder has bestowed upon you?"
She made that expression again, pursing her lips and squinting her eyes a bit. Her eyes once again went down to his floating feet and back up in confusion. Throwing her hands up in the air, she gave a loud huff and shouted out, "Well, magic, of course! What else would it be?"
This time it was Evron's turn to blink. 'Magic? Magic? Seriously, magic? I thought I was just amusing myself with the witch comment but seriously? Fucking magic?' A peal of laughter burst from his lips and the girl jumped back, falling down on her mattress ungracefully. That was his fault, really. His laughter tended to be a bit on the manic side but seriously, who could blame him in this situation?
Magic, though. These primitives and their fucking 'magic'. It was just too much. Sure, vampires and werewolves were real but that was just genetic engineering. He knew that it wasn't their fault there were lacking scientific knowledge but he just couldn't help it. The thought that people actually believed in magic slayed him.
He doubted that they could barely do anything with their powers. At most, they were probably limited to lifting books or lighting candles if they tried hard enough. 'Gift the Founder bestowed? As if?' He kept on laughing as his mind kept him occupied with what the people thought were glorious gifts. Maybe they could actually boil water with some mild pyrokinesis, possibly. Their strongest man could probably lift a cow, if he was lucky. Maybe he could take an arrow to the knee without bleeding out, too. Laughter just kept pouring out and he couldn't do much to stop it and he really didn't want to. 'Oh my god, fucking primitives and their magic. Oh my god, they kill me.'
The girl didn't seem to be all that happy that she wasn't privy to the joke. At least, he assumed so from the way she jumped up on the bed and puffed up her cheeks like a little chipmunk. It was rather cute and the fact that she obviously intended it to be an intimidating display only made him laugh harder. "Oh my god, your cute little face...like a little chipmunk."
That same face reddened until she resembled a tomato more than she did a chipmunk and her green eyes flashed angrily as he continued to laugh. She stepped closer to him, wobbling slightly on the mattress with each unsteady step and placed her hands on her hips once again. "What in the Founder's name is so funny? You dare to mock a Valliere? I don't care if you are a noble. I will not stand for this!" She stretched a finger out imperiously, another attempt to intimidate coming off as cute. She was a little kid playing at adulthood. What else could you call that?
He broke out in laughter again and bobbed up and down in midair as he continued to cackle. Glancing down at her feet and the way she barely managed to stand on her mattress, he barely managed a retort through his hysterics. "You're barely standing as it is, little girl."
If it was somehow possible, the red in her cheeks deepened and he laughed even more at her embarrassment.
"Aaarghh! Shut up! I command it!" She let out a scream of barely repressed rage, pulling out some kind of smooth stick and pointing it in his face.
Evron paused his laughter and looked down his nose at the smooth piece of wood the girl held in her dainty fingers. 'oh my god...It couldn't be...'
"Is that...oh my god...Is that really your magic wand?" he asked in a hushed tone, his voice giving off a feeling of awe at the sight of what she held.
The girl blinked and seemed to forget her anger, looking down at the stick she held. "Well, yes. Yes, it is. I've had it for years now." She puffed up her little chest and actually seemed to be beaming as she held up the stick. The way her voice had swelled with pride as she proclaimed the stick her own had pushed Evron over the limit and more mad peals of laughter burst forth yet again.
Her eyes widened in shock and her jaw dropped slightly as his awestruck expression vanished only to be replaced with more laughter. "By the founder, that is it! You will tell me what is so damn funny right now."
Evron stopped his laughter and locked eyes with the child, bright blue meeting light green. He flashed her a shiny, white smile even as he continued to giggle. "Magic, sure. Why the fuck not?"