A Concept of Apathy

Chapter 6

“I have heard so many sides to different stories, that all I can say is justice is never fair, just just.”
– Judge Hither, cousin and advisor of Queen Drossa

“SYLIN?!” I heard my mother call me from down stairs. I quickly placed a book mark in my book, closed it and jogged down stairs.
“SYL- Oh, there you are.” She smiled at me. It looked like I was not in trouble.
“Yes ma’am?” I queried, looking at what she was doing to see if perhaps she needed help with it.
“Can you go find Kaeo? She was supposed to just go and get water from the well, but it’s been a bit too long.”
“Okay, let me go get changed and I’ll be off.”
I set off up the stairs to grab a pair of socks, along with my sword, needle, and knife. I hummed to myself, looking at my ring and pulled at the connection. It still looked like Kaeo was in town, so that was good.
These days I rarely went around without using my Sight. It made my eyes look like they were behind shadow, and if you shifted you would be able to see them, although they would always be hidden. It was quite unnerving for most, although my mother told me to keep practicing with it. Evidently the more you used it the easier it was to use and the more you would be able to find with it.
I went down the stairs, waved to my mother and Madam Lie as they were both preparing dinner, and grabbed my cloak. I threw it around me as I opened the door, and snagged my walking stick as well. It helped my leg, as even with the prosthetic it hurt the connection point between my leg and bone quite a bit.
It was almost to the part of the year where it started to snow, and the wind was picking up with earnestness. I pulled up my hood, and dipped further into the sight. It was tricky to do this while walking, but I started making my cloak warmer. I pulled on the concept of “protection from the elements” and slowly I felt the wind less and less. I stumbled a few times doing it, but managed to catch myself with the help of my walking stick.
I passed the stables, which were manned by old man Joven and his wife Haven. I gave them a wave, which they returned as they groomed the horses. I had recently taken up horsemanship by my own volition. I was supposed to start later than I did, and would have to stop here soon due to the approach of winter. I figured it was better to start sooner, and my mother seemed pleased by my initiative. I was a decent hand at it, having done it in a past life, although nowhere near as skilled as Kaeo who took to it like a fish to water.
I hummed something light and happy. I knew I had heard the tune somewhere before, although I had no clue as to where. I sadly had never picked up the skill of whistling, so was stuck with humming down the cobblestone paths. I was nearing the town well, but found no Kaeo near it, although I did see the bucket we used to pull water. I looked at the connection of the ring, and saw it went off to the left.
I followed the faintly glowing line, my uncommon gait earning me recognition from a few of the townspeople who waved at me. I waved back, glad the cloak obscured me so I would not have to drop the sight to be polite. The line I was following was not moving, which made me frown. It looked to go to the outskirts of town in between two houses which were close together. This was not near her old house either, which made me pick up the pace.
I neared the end, and heard laughing and whimpering. I rounded the corner between the two houses, and I felt a hot flash of anger. Six kids stood around Kaeo. What looked like three boys and three girls. She was on the ground, and they were taking turns kicking her. She had curled in on herself, putting her hands over her head. None of them had noticed me yet, so I took a moment to weave a working.
I pulled on the concept of fear, weaving it around myself. It would start weak, but it would slowly grow stronger. I made sure to make an exception for Kaeo by weaving it around her concept in the ring. I took my walking stick and struck it on the ground, amplifying its noise. That was an easy working, and did not take much to do.
Quickly the children spun to look at me, most of them cringing. I slowly started limping forwards, all of them looking at me with wide eyes. One of them clenched their hands, and started to run at me. I cocked my head to the side. That was likely my fault, as the fear set in it kicked in his flight or fight response and it looked like he chose to fight.
“Who are you, you weirdo?” He said, taking a swing at me. It was poorly done, and I had taken quite a few martial arts in my life. I stepped around it, and took a better look at the kid. He was bigger than I was, although I was currently on the shorter side. Perhaps a year older than me as well. He wore a grey cloak over fairly common clothes, his dirty blonde hair being thrown around by the wind.
“I will give you ten seconds. At the end of which, you will leave this alley.” I calmly said.
“Or what?” He sneered. He had a good sneer, I had to admit. I gave a sigh and let my cloak fall to the ground.
“One.” I said, and the other two boys made up their courage to come help their friend. I started humming again, that same tune I could not get out of my head.
“Two.” The biggest of them got to me, taking a swing that was both sloppy and slow. He was grabbing his thumb in his fist, so I punished it by swinging my cane at his hand. It connected, and he yelped in pain. With any luck I had broken his thumb as well.
“Three.” The second boy and the third were reaching me at about the same time, so I took a step closer to the fist boy as he stumbled away. They closed in on both sides, but I took a short step towards the first boy again and spun on my heel, putting me behind him and causing the other two to swing at air. I had hoped to make them run into each other, but it looked like I had fallen short.
“Four.” I kicked with my leg of bone at the back of the first boy’s knees while pushing his lower back with my walking stick, sending him sprawling forwards into the second boy. I heard something behind me, and dropped quickly slightly off balance and saw one of the girls had tried to stab me with a knife.
“Five.” I said, annoyed. With all the force I could muster I swung my stick at her legs, hitting the shin. She gasped, bouncing back and grabbing her shin, dropping her knife. It hit my hand, although luckily hilt first. I finally took my first hit of the fight as the third boy kicked me in the back.
“Six.” I grunted. I spun around, barely keeping in a crouch using my cane to block the next hit. I caught it right above his foot, and at this point the other two boys were getting back up. I quickly got to my feet, but in a less than ideal position. I had the three girls behind me and the three boys in front of me. Kaeo looked bruised all over, and I considered my options.
“Seven.” I breathed out, straining my hearing. It sounded like the girls were starting to move behind me, and the kick I took on my back was definitely going to bruise. I could likely do something about that, but not right now. That’s when I heard a voice that sounded like it cut the air.
“Not bad, not bad.” Mister Sharp stepped into the alley, eyes looking over everyone. “Run along, kiddos.” He smiled, and by the count of ten everyone was out of the alley.
“Thanks.” I said, already going over to Kaeo.
“Anytime, Young Master.” He walked further into the alley. “I’m going to take her back to the house. You should bring Madam Lie here.” He said, sighing.
I grabbed the needle, and took a breath. I disliked this part, but it had to be done sometimes. Carefully, I made a cut along my arm that stung quite a bit, blood welling along it. I doused the needle in it, and like that Madam Lie was standing near me. The needle drank in the blood, and I slowly started mending my arm. This was a rather hard working, and so took some time.
I heard Madam Lie talk briefly to Mister Sharp, but did not have the mental space to listen to that and mend my arm at the same time. I could have done it faster if I was willing to take worse trade offs, such as speeding up the natural healing, but that would leave me feeling hungry and tired. It was better when the time was given to mend it using different concepts. I had to close my eyes for a moment when I finished, feeling mentally drained.
“Are you okay?” Madam Lie asked, moving to stand next to me.
“Yeah. That’s still hard to do,” I gestured at my arm, “and I doubt I can fix the bruise on my back without either a mirror or assistance.”
“That is okay, you did well. How about we get that water and head back?” I looked up at Madam Lie who was looking straight ahead well talking to me. I had learned to pick up on the signs that showed when she was not where she visually looked, and this was one of them. She was likely patrolling the area, and I had a feeling no one would either notice or bother me on my way back.
“That would be nice.” I said, shifting my grip on my cane.
I started over to the well, brain racing. This was the first time I was aware of that Kaeo had been attacked, but she had said she felt like she was being followed when she left the house. It had started perhaps a week after her birthday, and had been about two months since then. She had said someone wanted me dead, or perhaps my family hurt. Had she become a target for that?
No answers availed themselves to me as I went to get some water.

***

Madam Lie and I returned later than I expected, as we stopped by the bakers to grab a loaf of bread as well. When we got back I found my mother having Kaeo sit at the table and was slowly working on her. I was shoed quickly to my room as she had her shirt off, which I quickly complied with after being somewhat embarrassed.
I waited impatiently in my room, wanting to check on Kaeo. I was just now starting to feel my back bruise, and grimaced. I took my shirt off to get a closer look in a polished silver mirror, and started to work at mending it. I was not very far through the working when my mother walked in, face unreadable. That likely meant mad, from what I had learned.
“Are you okay?” She asked, motioning for me to sit sideways on a chair. I let her take over, as she was both quicker and better at this type of working.
“From how badly I hurt the other side, I came out fairly unscathed.”
“Mmmm.” Yeah, she was definitely mad. “You should have called Madam Lie immediately.”
“I, er, probably should have.” I was glad she was not in front of me, as I doubted I would be able to meet her eyes in that instant. “I was trying to work fear into my presence to scare them off, but, well, I see why that is not done.”
“Fear is not enough, terror is typically better, although you can further refine the concept to get better results.” My back no longer hurt, which I was grateful for. From what I had seen her do of healings, she took away the pain first then healed the body. If she did not prevent the pain, the second part hurt significantly worse.
“Thank you.”
“Of course. How about once I finish here you come and eat?”
“Okay.”
It did not take much longer, and we went down the stairs to find two plates set out by Madam Lie. I looked around for Kaeo, but did not see her. I sat in my chair in tandem with my mother before asking about it.
“Is Kaeo okay?” I started reaching for my spoon, looking at the stew and not really feeling that hungry.
“Yes, but she needs to rest. She broke a few bones, and her body is rather confused right now as to whether it should be hurting, or healing, or something else.” My mother replied, digging into her own stew with more gusto.
“I see. How did Mister Sharp know to come find us?”
“I didn’t like how long it was taking you two, so I sent him out shortly after you. More a mothers worrying than anything else.”
“Well, thank you.” I said again.
“You should tell that to Mister Sharp.”
“Okay, yes ma’am.”
I ate the bowl of stew, knowing if I didn’t I’d feel hungry later. It was good, some sort of beef stew with carrots, onion, and potato, mixed in with spices I did not know the names of. I thanked both my mother and Madam Lie for it, and wandered off to find Mister Sharp. It was not hard to find him, as he was usually in the back yard. For whatever reason he rather liked gardening, and we had one at the back of the house. He, Kaeo, and my mother had bonded over it as they all had a love for it.
He was taking out weeds from the look of things right now, placing them in a bucket that would go to compost. The backyard was my mothers world, a garden beautifully grown. The front was made to look nice, but died as winter came. The one in the backyard did no such thing, as giant pillars of wood surrounded it keeping it feeling like summer. It even cut out the wind, and would pretty much only let rain through.
It seemed the extra water I had gotten was also being used to water the plants, as Mister Sharp was going through all the potted ones weeding and watering. I walked over to him, and as he saw me he finished up and gave me his attention. I offered a small dip of my head which he returned before beginning.
“Thank you for stopping the fight when you did, I was likely about to lose.”
“You’re welcome, Young Master. Don’t be too hard on yourself however, many people would have lost the fight long before you did. I heard the start of it, and it sounded like you were making fools of them all.”
“I did what I could.” I said with a shrug. I had a lot of practice, and they, well, didn’t. It wasn’t that much of a surprise to me.
“Well, we will see if we can make you better, although you are naturally gifted in this it seems. The both of you. I am lucky to have skilled pupils.” He offered me a smile, and turned back to his work. I offered a goodbye, and took my leave back to reading in my room.

***

It was after dinner when I heard a knock at my door. I finished the paragraph I was reading, putting my finger in the book and taking it with me to answer the door. Kaeo stood on the other side, a pale green dress with a floral pattern along the bottom of it clinging to her. She looked remarkably solemn as she looked at me.
“Can I come in?”
“Of course.” I swung the door open further for her, waving her in. She swept past me and took a seat in one of my chairs.
“Is there something I can help with?” I asked, taking a seat in a different chair across from her.
“Thank you.” She said, foot tapping against the floor in a tune I swore I knew.
“You’re welcome, although I would have met the same fate as you if Mister Sharp had not shown up.” I hesitated for a moment before continuing. “Why didn’t you fight back? I know you’re better than me in both hand to hand and with weapons, you could have done something.”
She gave a short dark laugh before answering. “I don’t know. I didn’t want to hurt them, and I didn’t think they would go that far? I would have fought back if I knew…” She looked mad for a moment before she went back to looking solemn.
“Why didn’t you get up once they stopped? Mister Sharp had to carry you.”
“I wasn’t thinking straight. Your mom said I had several concussions.” My hand clenched, and I forced it to unclench and grab my book mark. I put it in my book and set the entire thing on the table.
“Do you know why you were attacked?” I put my arm on the table in front of me, hand resting halfway towards her.
“No… no I don’t.” She quietly said, reaching for my hand.
“You sound shaken.”
“Yeah.” She tiredly agreed.
I didn’t push any further, and she offered nothing else. We sat there for a while, until it was time to sleep.

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