Weight of Worlds

Ranvir sat on the grass, head between his knees, trying not to vomit. The world spun around him as the morning sun warmed his neck. They were getting into the warmest period of the summer, making him happy physical was over before noon.

He saw Sansir’s long fingers enter his field of view with a cup of water. “Thanks.” He muttered, slowly slurping it down. He’d learned the lesson of drinking too fast the hard way.

Sansir replied something, but Ranvir was too out of it, to fully register his words. He sat like with his head between his knees, intermittently lifting it to sip a bit of water. After a few minutes, the silence was broken by Teacher Vigo’s loud voice.

“At the beginning of next week, some of the other physical teachers and I, will be beginning a weapons class, after your tether training.”

Ranvir slowly looked up, blinking against the bright sun to look at his teacher and the other students in their group. The image of him on the front lines, wielding a sword against the unending horde of the Ralith, flashed across his mind.

He imagined himself, singlehandedly slaying their entire horde. Bringing them to their knees with the might of his weapon. However, that strongly opposed what he was seeing in their field. With the exception of Sansir, Grev, and a couple other students, the rest of the group either had their head buried between their legs, like Ranvir, trying not to throw up, or lying on the grass eyes barely open their sweat soaked uniforms sticking tightly to their bodies.

“I strongly suggest all students at least participate in the course.” Teacher Vigo continued. “Some of you will wonder why you would need a weapon, when you have your Goddess-given abilities, but when you’re standing on the battlefield. Your bones weak from overexpression, you will wish you’d listened to old Teacher Vigo. The ability to supplement your power with a weapon, allowing your body to take the strain you would otherwise put on your spirit.

You’re gonna think of me, and wish you’d been smarter.” He looked across his entire class. They were around thirty students in physical, which Ranvir determined to be about the average. “Some of you will see the usefulness in my words, immediately.” Ranvir thought his eyes paused on him, for a moment. “While others won’t.”

Ranvir started to frown, before he looked behind himself. Esmund was lying on the ground, blatantly not paying attention to their teacher.

Ranvir wasn’t sure how his powers would play in combat, most space tethered seemed focused on utility. There might be a trick or two, hidden in Figir’s books. Or he might be able to use some of the techniques the generators use. But Esmund had warp. Warp in its rawest, untried, and untested form was as dangerous an ability as a tethered could get.

After less than a week of training, he was able to cut most of the way through an apple. The direct combat applicability of warp, would likely outshine all other elements.

Ranvir bit his lip. He couldn’t let Esmund go off alone to the front lines, he would have to be able to keep up somehow.

Slowly, he raised his hand. “Where will we be meeting?”

He saw the subtle shift in his teacher’s eyes, his attention shifting to him.

“Field seven.” He answered. The sudden weight of his gaze on Ranvir almost made him bow his head. “It’s the closest field to Administration, just behind it in fact.”

Ranvir nodded, then let out a breath of relief, as Vigo’s attention moved away from him. “Any other questions?”

A hand clapped Ranvir on the back, as Grev settled in next to him. “You’re gonna join us? This’ll be great.”

Us? Before Ranvir could voice the question, his eyes wandered to the last member of their friend group. Sansir was sweating, droplets forming on his bald head, but he didn’t look the least bit tired. Not compared to most of the class.

The last space class was misery in action. Floki for the most part ignored him, focusing on the other students, the ones that were actually progressing in his class. Ranvir spent most of his time focusing on his tether, being with it for as long as he possibly could. He thought he even felt the bone tiredness, Vigo mentioned.

He was taking a break after having been shunted away from the tether, when Floki was making rounds among the other students. At this point he was the only one not feeling the pressure, their teacher had mentioned. He’d searched as best he could, but didn’t find it. Not even a hint.

“Teacher?” Ranvir raised his hand, as Floki passed. “I heard one of my friends talk about choosing Disciplines, by determining their affinity by handedness.”

Floki paused, seeming surprised that Ranvir had spoken up at all. “It’s nonsense. You can’t determine what Discipline is the best for you by a test that simple. Besides it doesn’t really matter.” He tried to wave it off, but answer caught the other students’ attention.

“Then how do you determine Discipline?” The boy next to Ranvir asked.

Floki let out a sigh, but answered him. “Not by which hand you prefer, that’s for sure. The only real way is to achieve the first stage in all three Disciplines, and determining which one was easiest for you.

“However, this is both a time-consuming and wasteful approach. In the time it takes you to achieve all first stages, anyone else could’ve achieved the second stage in any chosen Discipline. It’s smarter and better to simply pick the Discipline you prefer, then work hard at it. You might get lucky and your affinity fits, you might not. In the end, it’s a lot more efficient than spending years running down your closest affinity.”

Another kid spoke up as soon as Teacher Floki finished. “What about Stonetooth?”

Ranvir was certain he spotted Floki abort an eye roll mid movement. “Stonetooth belongs as much in legends as he does in the histories. Yes, he was a Triplet Master, but more than likely he was simply an impossible talent. His abilities reaching further than any other Elusrian ever.”

“Triplet Master, like the Goddess?”

“No, like the three Disciplines. A Triplet Master is someone who’s mastered all three Disciplines to their fullest.”

If Floki had intended for them to drop the subject that was possibly the worst thing, he could’ve said. Murmurs and talks spread around the rest of the class like frost on a rimeoak. The student next to Ranvir, even gave him an excited grin before turning to their teacher.

“Are their any Triplet Masters alive?”

Floki turned heading back to his throne, at the front of the class. He didn’t fall into it this time, as he so often seemed to do. Instead, he sat lightly. “Not in Elusria. In fact, Stonetooth is our only record of such a person, ever. But Ankiria supposedly has one. Though, there’s supposed to be three currently living amongst all the alliance.”

“Three!” Spread throughout the class.

“By the Goddess’ will!” One particularly excited student exclaimed, nearly jumping out of his seat.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Teacher Floki said, commanding the attention of the class. “Even reaching the ‘simple’ stage of Master is difficult. Most tethered never even manage that much. So before you set your eyes on becoming the next Triplet or Twin Master, let’s try reaching the first stage of your chosen Discipline. Which I do believe is what sparked this debate originally.”

His eyes glanced at Ranvir but there wasn’t any animosity in them, despite Floki’s seeming disregard for these things.

“Most of you will probably take a noble offer and won’t advance past the first stage, since they don’t need more than that. It’s easy to advance, when everyone around you is pushing for it. When you know your life might depend on it. But when you’re stuck with a group of nobles, living it lazy, it’s easy to let yourself wallow in weakness.”

“I won’t take an offer!” The student who’d previously exclaimed about the Goddess, yelled. “I swear it Master Floki, Teacher! I will become the next Master of Space, and teacher at the Academy. I swear it three times on my heart!”

Ranvir glanced at the student out the corner of his eye, afraid he might get roped in, if they made eye contact. That kind of overzealous behavior was frightening, and more than a little simpleminded.

“I thank you for your dedication, but be wary of making those kinds of oaths. The Goddess might take you up on it. She cares not for the trivialities of mortals, but sworn on your heart to her, she might notice. What if something changes, you might be pushed into a desperate situation and the money from a noble house, could pull you right out of it.”

Floki paused for a long moment, making intense eye contact with the student. “It’s easy to make an oath, when you’re at school and things are easy.”

Ranvir almost let out a laugh of disbelief. Easy? Not two hours ago I was fighting not to puke my guts out on the grass! Now I’m stuck here, wrestling with powers I barely seem to have.

But Floki continued. “But when things get tougher later, maybe your parents have another child, or you, yourself, might. Money’s not as easy to come by and there’s a lot of things you might find yourself needing. Don’t take anything for granted, son.”

“YES SIR!” The student flew out of his seat, slapping his hand against his chest three times. The sound could be heard clearly, even from where Ranvir was sitting. That had to leave a bruise on student’s chest, not that he seemed to mind.

“Well…” Floki said, seemingly as taken aback as Ranvir was. “Now that that’s settled, let’s get back to…” His words faded away, as he looked at the sun. “Actually, I guess we’ve spent more time on that, than I anticipated. As you know, tomorrow is your first day off.” Small cheers erupted, though Ranvir noted the psycho-student wasn’t part of it, this time. “Very good. In celebration of that, we’re holding a little test. If you can finish it you get to leave early, with…” He reached in to his jacket, slowly pulling something out. “One of these!” He held three sticks, each with five silver witnesses.

More excited murmurs. “During your day-off you have the option of going to the Capital, and enjoying their many, many services, from restaurants, to drinking houses, to… gardens.”

That last one got even more murmurs from the seventeen-year-olds. Even Ranvir had heard of the capital’s ‘gardens’. His thoughts turned to Shiri for a moment, thinking back to the night in her family’s stable.

“All you have to do, is generate a stable field of space for five seconds while showing it to me, you earn a stick like this and get to leave early.” He looked to the sky again. “You have about half an hour, maybe a little more than that, call it a head start.”

“I won’t misuse it, sir!”

There was a moment of quiet, from the other students, before each fell into their own tether-space and started working. Not a lot of the students had even managed any sort of generated space at all, but Ranvir was certain all of them would try.

At least, they’d managed to sense their power…

He spent a few minutes trying to sense his own power, before giving up. He was already tired from physical and spending so much time in tether-space. The others weren’t spending as much time in that state as he was, since they were trying to bring the power out. Where as he was struggling to even sense it.

As he stared out across the fields, where he noticed a student at another class. He stood next to a teacher judging from the gray hairs hanging from a mostly bald head. The teacher clapped the boy’s broad back a few times, before sending him on the way.

What? Ranvir stared intently, at the student. He wasn’t headed for their class, but close enough that he could easily be made out.

It was the kid—a description that felt wrong, just looking at his hulking form—that had come in with Grev. Dovar. He looked over at their class as he passed. He had a stoic expression on his face, but as his eyes met Ranvir’s a bit of a smirk crept on to it, before breaking into a full grin.

He pointedly turned his head, and continued past Ranvir. What a dick.

He’d been sitting there for another five or so minutes, when someone from a different class walked by. Even from a distance he could recognize Esmund by his walk alone. He was the only other person to walk by, since Dovar the Dick. Ranvir smiled at his friend and nodded. Relieved that it wasn’t another noble asshole.

At least, Esmund was a good guy.

It took nearly another ten minutes before someone else finished. The psycho-student had called Floki over and was soon released into the wild. That seemed to be the opening of the floodgates, as suddenly students were popping by every few seconds. Grev walked by almost immediately after the space zealot. Though Grev didn’t seem to notice Ranvir, his face drawn tight.

“Alright, that’s time.” Floki said, looking out over his class. In the end, only three students had managed the challenge. “Don’t feel bad. Anyone who managed any sort of effort for that long is ahead of the curve. Better than they should be.”

As Ranvir got up to pack his seat up and throw it in the shed, something he noticed the early students didn’t have to do, Floki waved for him to come over.

“I know this hasn’t been a particularly good class for you, especially for you. I know Pashar wants you to pick a class to follow more closely by the end of these six weeks. I don’t think you should pick this one. You might learn more from a class that’s only vaguely related. Warp is known to have some effect on space at the later stages so maybe you’ll find something there, but anything might be better than this class.”

Ranvir stared intently at Floki, he looked older and more tired normal. “Why?”

“Some elements are incompatible between their generators and manipulators. Ice is the most well known example, manipulators most often have to work with lesser forms, like water, or even when it’s cold, snow. Because of this, the techniques taught to ice manipulators vary greatly from those taught to the generators. Not less useful mind you, but different.”

“And you think it might be same with space?”

“Who knows, but it could be…” He put a hand on Ranvir’s shoulder. “I wish you the best of luck, with whichever class you choose.”

“Thanks…” Ranvir turned away from his teacher and back to his chair, picking it up and folding it. It was old and worn, probably older even than Ranvir. He glanced over his shoulder, at Floki who was standing before his own more elaborate chair.

He might’ve said it was older than his teacher, if not for turn of his shoulders and the worn look on his face.