Ranvir gagged, “It’s on my fing—“ he only barely managed to stifle the second bout of sickness before he pulled away from the table.

“Grow up, Ranvir,” his mother said looking on from the side. She’d been instructing him and didn’t find his weakness entertaining at all. “It happens, just wipe it off and continue.”

Stifling another bout of ill feelings, Ranvir grabbed the cloth he’d been using and cleaned his finger. “I’m gonna be sick,” he muttered examining the war-zone before him.

“Why are you the one acting like a baby?” Frey asked while the actual baby giggled and shook her fists in the air.

“I’ll get it done, mom,” Ranvir whined stepping closer and continued the process.

“Don’t wipe up! What did I tell you?” Frey exclaimed slapping his shoulder, “Honestly, however you made it to the top of your class I’ll never know. You take instructions like a deaf donkey.”

Ranvir just shook his head and soldiered on. Until he got a whiff, then he gagged again. Finally, after fifteen grueling minutes, his mother lost her patience with him.

“You have to get your hands a little dirty, Ranvir,” she said taking the cloth from him, “At this rate, she’ll be needing to go again before you’re finished.”

He watched in astonishment as she finished up the cleaning before another five minutes passed. He mutely handed the soap bar to her as she splashed some water on her fingers. She quickly rubbed the gritty substance on her hands moving quickly and thoroughly before cleaning with water from a clean second bucket. He followed her motions and was shaking his hands dry when she started the last step in the diaper change.

“You want to wrap like this,” Frey said grabbing one corner of the diaper cloth. With brief explanation and deft hands, she wrapped Frija up in her diaper within two minutes. “Got it?”

“Uhh,” Ranvir blinked trying to remember all the steps in his head, “I think so.”

“Good,” Frey untied the diaper and stepped aside, “show me.”

He didn’t have it all, but he’d gotten most of it. Enough that Frey actually seemed surprised when he finished. He still had to do it again, this time with her guidance.

“That wasn’t half bad,” she said as Ranvir carefully lifted his daughter so she could rest against his chest. “I’d expected you to take much longer to learn.”

“Why?” Ranvir asked curiously, feeling Frija shift on his chest as he started rocking her up and down. Her tiny hand grabbed at the collar of his uniform clenching it tight between her minuscule digits, fairly melting the young father’s heart.

“You were never much of a jewelsmith,” his mother said with a straight face.

“That’s a lie,” Ranvir grinned as he handed her the crutch and they started walking. He’d promised his parents he’d show them the amphitheater on the corner of campus today. Right now, Gunnor was down getting breakfast for all three of them, before they would head out. Since he’d taken Frija into his care he’d learned that she wasn’t as fragile as he’d first feared.

Ranvir forced his eyes open, the crying already having forced his mind awake. He yawned while slipping out of his bed. With one hand, he reached into his pocket-space and slipped open the cold box he’d stored in there.

Hjara had left him a fresh delivery last evening before going home, so he was well equipped to handle his hungry girl. He grabbed a tiny jug and the clean feeding bag next to it before letting the space slip closed again.

“Hey, baby,” Ranvir muttered looking down in the crib where Frija was crying, “I’m go—“ his words were stifled by the yawn that ripped through him. “I’m gonna get you some food, okay?”

He scooped her up with his other hand, slipping under her back and supporting her neck. For safety’s sake, he also hardened the space around his arm so he didn’t have to rely on balancing her right. Even if she shifted, or rolled entirely onto one side, she still wouldn’t fall.

Changing the hardened space as he walked was an annoyance, but if he looked at it like a double line queue to the capital when only a single gate was open. One from each line would interchange whose turn it was to enter, intertwining their paths, making it easier and faster for everyone. He’d found after advancing that a clear image was as important for most of his expressions as the technicalities.

Sure, when he needed something really specific and difficult, he would need the technical details of each step. When he’d been pre-stage almost all of his expressions had been close to the limits of his power and complexity, that wasn’t the case any longer. Now, he only needed the image of a queue zipping together to make a line of hardened space that combined as he walked.

Soon enough, he had some milk heating up on the stove and was pacing the room gently rocking his somewhat quieter baby and shushing her. “It’s okay, it’s all fine, just a little longer.”

Occasionally, he turned back stirring the milk so it didn’t burn to the bottom of the pan. Ranvir tiredly walking in circles, intermittently yawning and speaking gently to Frija found himself wrapping his tether-sense around her, projecting comfort and safety.

Worryingly enough, he’d found in his experimentation that people would notice anything he sent their way, but they would be far more receptive to threatening signals, especially rivalry and violence. Ranvir’d first thought it was just that people weren’t as perceptive so maybe if his friends did it to him, he would notice it easily.

And he did to a degree, but not in the way he’d been expecting. He could, if he searched for it sense comfort, happiness, or other emotions, but nowhere near as strongly as threatening intent.

Interestingly enough, this was a known phenomenon that even the masters knew and used, if somewhat unskillfully. Even non-tethered reacted to being threatened by a tether-sense. Kirs had theorized that it might be related to survival, which suggested that at one point a predator had lived on Vednar who had a tether-sense and, by extension, a tether.

Ranvir stifled a shudder at the thought and reinforced the good feeling into Frija. Once the milk was done, he fed his daughter. He was getting pretty exhausted though and decided to sit down while he burped her.

He was startled awake sitting against a wall in his living room, Frija still cradled in his arms snoozing away.

Kirs finished the last of her ledgers documenting the return of the books she’d grabbed, noting on which shelf and which bookcase they’d gone. In a library this big, keeping track of the books was an endless and futile task that was mostly used as menial ‘I-have-nothing-to-do’ labor, which was perfect when she was mostly finished with her shift anyway.

She was interrupted in her thought process, when she saw Pashar appear from one of the smaller side entrances to the library. It was something only the people that spent endless hours working in the administration building did, as the buildings was littered with small hallways, filing rooms, meeting rooms, and a hundred other spaces to accommodate a thousand other purposes, cutting through the library was something every administrator eventually picked up.

“Pashar,” Kirs called out once the head-administrator got close, “do you have a moment?”

Pashar stopped opposite Kirs, the huge desk at the front of library between them, “What can I do for you, Librarian Kirs?”

“I was wondering if you could take a look at a few of my notes? Maybe give me some feedback?” Thris asked. She kept it vague, a little of Ranvir’s general paranoia of the ankirians rubbing off on her. She was sure the clever head-administrator would know what Kirs was talking about.

Pashar sighed, then looked out at the wall, “I think I have enough time for that. It’ll have to be quick, though. I got an appointment in a few minutes.”

Kirs nodded and pulled her notes from the bag she’d taken to carry with her everywhere, after Pashar’s last admonishment about them not being careful enough. If the ankirians stopped her to check her bags, something else had already gone horribly wrong.

She offered her notebook to Pashar. She skimmed the pages, sifting through the book quickly. She almost never lingered on any page that had a circle diagram, but as she progressed deeper into Kirs’ notes she slowed down.

“You can— Do you know what this means?” Pashar asked looking with wide-eyes at Kirs.

“I have some idea.”

“Have you tested it, yet?”

Kirs shook her head, “I need to work with something that doesn’t leave obvious traces. I worry that light, smoke, ice, and obsidian would leave trace amounts in the room.”

Pashar nodded, “and warp would be too dangerous for an experiment.”

Kirs nodded.

“This is good work, if this actually works out how you suspect, then…” Pashar bit her lip, “Take care with this, okay? Don’t show it to anyone, just yet. Give me some time to think.”

Kirs nodded as Pashar handed the book back to her, black brows drawn down in thought.