Daniel's father was coming home in the spring. That was the most important piece of news to Daniel, but he itched to find out more about paladins. Unfortunately, his mother had gone back to poring over her letter, and asking the others felt like cheating. Grandmother had likewise picked up the family letter and was going through it again. He listened for a while to Grandfather and Henry discuss who to send letters to, but the names were pretty meaningless to him. Dad becoming a paladin seemed to mean that Grandfather could boss around more people, although Henry was advising caution. Eventually, Daniel lost interest and went over to distract himself by distracting Beatrix and Conrad.

When his mother finished reading, she folded up her letter and left the room, presumably to put it away somewhere. He guessed it was a love letter after all. He rose up to follow her, but she came back in and met him as he reached the door. She raised an eyebrow, and a look of understanding passed between them. He smiled at the association his brain made between his father and unspoken communication.

"It's good that Dad is coming home," he said.

"Ask Zachery about paladins tomorrow," she said, answering the question he hadn't needed to ask.

Daniel glanced over his back at Grandfather and Henry. He didn't really get what was going on with them, but they seemed to be making a lot of plans. Henry looked over in their direction and nodded, presumably having overheard.

"It's fine it's not a secret," he called over.

Mum then led Daniel over toward Beatrix and Conrad.

"Alright girls, listen to me, we need to talk about that weird retching expression you two have been doing," she said.

"Urk?" Daniel asked.

"Urk!" Beatrix declared.

"Urk," Daniel disagreed.

"Uuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrk!"

Beatrix made a profound point, but she was also in dire danger of either hurting herself or accidentally vomiting onto herself. Conrad seemed swayed by Beatrix's argument, opening his mouth and starting to stick out his tongue. But Mum reached out to close it again, leaning down to look him in the eyes while shaking her head and mouthing the word 'no'.

"Yes that's the one thank you," Mum said, rising to stand up straight again. "I know I've teased you about it, but my mother may well come to visit us soon. I don't want you to think she is an unkind woman, but she cares a lot about our family, and that can make her quite strict. Please, please, don't ever do that in front of her. I want you two to try and drop the habit now just in case. Can you do that for me?"

"Urk," Beatrix said sadly.

"Alright, I'll try."

In truth, he had already grown out of the habit, but being told not to do it anymore did make a part of him want to pick it up again.

The next day, Daniel had a reason for once to be eager to go to church but found that Zachery was occupied with other work for most of the early morning. He didn't mind the wait too much, it made a change since he'd been spending a lot less time recently working at his affinities. Mainly, he was looking ahead to spring, and not just due to Dad coming home. The skills he wanted to be learning, such as mage skills or weapon training with the guard, were supposed to come after eight years old, and he was excited for them.

"I'm finished now Anne," Zachery said, coming into the room from his office and sitting down opposite Daniel. "Did you want something earlier?"

"Yes, I wanted to ask about paladins," Daniel said.

Zachery's eyebrows rose at the question, but after a moment he softly asked "Marcus?"

Daniel nodded, and Zachery's face crinkled into a happy smile.

"Oh, that's very good news. I'm glad," he said, leaning back in his chair. "Good for Marcus, he deserves it." He seemed to take a moment to take in the news, and then spoke again. "Was there more news? how much do you know about paladins already?"

"Just that Dad became a paladin and is coming home in spring," Daniel replied. "Oh, Grandmother mumbled about it possibly being due to divine enchantment. That was about it."

"Divine enchantment? No, that's a misconception," Zachery said. "Paladin is a rare type of profession. Most combat professions don't make much use of magic. They can't because the skills required to do so are the core of the mage professions. You need to be a mage to take them as profession skills, do you understand?"

"I think so. What do you mean exactly by mage professions? as in more than one?"

"Ah, I feel that we are heading off-topic already," Zachery said, shaking his head, "That's the problem with impromptu lectures on topics I am interested in." He took a deep breath, his bearing returning to teacher mode. "Let's focus on one thing at a time. First, your question about mage professions. It's just a term to mean all the various stages of becoming a mage. Apprentice Mage, Mage, ArchMage. When people reach above that level, the profession names start to become more unique. But it's more convenient to just call them mages and to talk about mage professions. The same applies to many other professions."

"I see."

"Let us move on," Zachery said, pausing to think for a moment. "As I was saying, Mages have a Magic Infusion skill. If I was an archer I could shoot an arrow, and I could still do this," he said, summoning a flame in his hand. "But I couldn't infuse the arrow and use it to shoot the Flame at people."

"But what about the virtues? And the fields in the classrooms, are those not from priests?"

"A question which may illuminate our main topic. The virtue skills generally give the Flame of Kyburad additional effects. From there you can apply the Flame directly, or a mage could infuse one of their spells with the Flame, and therefore the virtue. The field spells built into the classrooms work in a different manner, from a profession similar to paladins. Paladins do not use a mage skill to infuse their other skills with the magic of their domain. Instead, you become a paladin when your combat profession itself is infused."

"What about the fields?"

"The churches are created by Kyburad-infused builders."

Holy engineers, batman.

"But how do you become a paladin then, or infuse any profession?"

"A gift from Kyburad. How do you receive any gifts? There is no guarantee, but I would suggest that you first must become someone worthy of such attention. We have spoken about different types of skills. Racial, Profession, General, and Domain. On rare occasions, someone might gain a skill outside of these four, called an extra skill. Becoming a paladin is such an occasion."

"And divine enchantment? Is that related?"

Zachery took time again to think, to the point that Daniel wasn't sure he was going to answer.

"Each domain works in different ways. Sometimes different domains achieve similar ends through distinct means. Before the fall of Lissirast, the people there worshipped Salidera and even had their own version of a paladin. But rather than an extra skill, theirs was created by a different method called divine enchantment. A method no longer possible since Salidera fell with Lissirast."

Daniel thought he understood what Zachery was saying, but it also seemed to him that a good part of it was technical definitions. The extremely important difference between a warrior-priest and a priest-warrior might only matter to religious types offended by the comparison. The discussion had made him more interested in mages, but that was like a squirrel becoming more interested in nuts.

"But does being a paladin really matter much?" Daniel asked, "Dad's coming home and Mum said people only go to the borders once."

"I imagine your grandfather was quite excited by the news."

Urk! Henry had said it wasn't a secret, but Daniel found it hard to trust the priests. Suddenly filled with worry that he had given something away, he held his tongue.

"That's not something that will be a surprise to anyone who thinks about it for any length of time," Zachery said, apparently reading the reason behind Daniel's silence and finding it amusing. "You are correct that the guard here has little need for a paladin. Perhaps your father will travel or move to somewhere where his gifts can be better utilized. Even if he stays here, I believe he will enjoy a different level of trust and esteem than he did previously."

Daniel hoped people weren't getting excited over Dad having to leave for a new job as soon as he came home. But he wouldn't be totally against them moving as a family of five. People in Laston were fairly disparaging about the capital, or sometimes about a more general area like 'the south' or 'the cities'. But he figured that just meant they had a different culture there, and different could be interesting.

If no one was leaving Laston, then he didn't think paladins or increased esteem mattered much to him. The version of his father that he liked best was the man trying to live up to his own beliefs. He found it aspirational, like a role model. He also thought children naturally desired and latched onto role models, but he would rather take credit for his thoughts than make complaints about his instincts possibly manipulating him. Either way, he didn't think becoming a paladin made any difference to that ideal. So if his Dad was happy with becoming a paladin, then that was good enough for him.

Grandfather and Henry stayed riled up for the next few weeks, mainly over the sending and receiving of more letters. This seemed to aggravate Grandmother, and she made them hold their endless discussions downstairs. They even got a three-day visit from a beady-eyed old man who called himself Daniel's granduncle. The man treated Daniel to a long-winded lecture on how they lined up on the family tree which turned his brain to mush. Daniel figured it was the same as how everyone was related if you went back far enough. The sort of connection only nobles might care about. Rory and Gemma reappeared for winter at this time, but one or both of them did not take to their visitor and they quickly disappeared until he was gone.

Time passed and with it came Daniel's eighth birthday. Over halfway to adulthood, which was defined as fifteen years old here with good honest status-related reasons. But the scary part was still to come. Puberty didn't start until at least ten years old, he insisted to himself and to Alien Magic Jesus. He thought that at eight he had mostly acclimatised to life in Laston. It was becoming harder to think of things as Earth vs weirdo fantasy land. He didn't think he would ever really understand the religion, but he supposed that was true on Earth as well. Why were cows sacred? Why were blood transfusions bad? He had never cared to know and he guessed he would never find out now. With trouble-making on hold, he had still explored more of the town. But while there were some differences in how things worked that he enjoyed trying to understand, a lot of the town was less interesting than he had expected. The place was less novel to him now because he didn't think of himself as a pure tourist anymore. He also suspected he had acclimatised to being a child, and possibly just to his mind living in a different brain. Wisdom changes were a convenient blame target, but not everything improved a set amount each year, with some childlike traits getting worse over time instead.

Beatrix's birthday arrived, and with it came another letter with the worst possible news. An evil witch was stalking them from the shadows, biding her time before hatching her schemes. The source of terrifying tales used to scare naughty kids back onto the straight and narrow. The cruel tyrant who took pleasure in the persecution of poor innocent retching bees.

Grandmother was coming to stay with them in the spring.