Ranvir startled awake jumped out of bed and headed towards Frija’s crib. He’d very nearly picked her up before he realized she wasn’t crying. She was only letting out a slight snore that seemed to burble curiously in the back of her mouth. He swayed for a moment, blinking his eyes as he looked at his sleeping child.

She was all wrapped up and sleeping, Why am I awake? The thought finally churned itself through his mind, he staggered a step back looking around. Something had awoken him. Absentmindedly, he embraced the pressure and snapped up the two drawers he’d let fall out before going to bed. Unfortunately, he was, as of yet, incapable of maintaining a proper connection while asleep. He’d only needed to hear all the stuff he’d put in his pocket slam onto the floor once before he learned to empty it before going to bed.

Scanning his surroundings, Ranvir couldn’t figure out why he’d awoken so suddenly. Did you do this? He wondered turning his attention to Latresekt. He only got a vague sensation of self-satisfaction from the splotch of colors lingering in his mind.

Ranvir shook his head and staggered out the door into the hallway of the building. Both ends of the hallway ended with windows, going east-to-west, with the stairs in the middle. He staggered forwards to the eastern window and looked out it. It was still dark out, though he thought he might just be making some figures moving along the wall.

Black shapes with white accents ran along the same path his class ran every morning. Alarm settled into him, had he overslept? Master Vigo was going to kill him… He took in a deep breath, it was still to early. The horizon was only slowing slight signs of growing lighter, something else was going on, Fifth-years or fourth-years, Ranvir realized getting a closer look at the students, their accent were too elaborate for first- or second-years.

“Thank the Goddess,” Ranvir muttered with a yawn and returned to his apartments. The deal he and Pashar had made with Hjara, his wet nurse, was that she would arrive with a carriage that brought along a bunch of people who didn’t live at the academy but had business there. It was rare that the same person took the carriage twice in a week, mostly it was people who didn’t want to walk, but couldn’t afford their own wagon.

Ranvir quietly shut the door and prepared himself as best he could. That meant avoiding putting on his uniform coat and shirt until after he’d taken care of Frija. While he went about it, he started warming some milk on the small stove, he also put out some logs to sit next to fire and dry out. He’d spent enough time with his lumberjack father to know how hard starting a fire with wet wood was.

It took another few minutes to get everything set up and wake Frija. She didn’t like that. He checked if she needed her diaper changed, but was safe for now. It took a while for her to calm down enough that she could be convinced that she was actually hungry enough to eat something.

Finally, Ranvir slipped on his shirt and coat after getting Frija back to sleep. As always it only took a few minutes in his arms wrapped in his Veil. Ranvir did not envy parents that didn’t have the ability to assuage their child’s fears with Goddess-given talents.

Ranvir closed the door to his apartment silently, then stood by it for a few minutes fighting the urge to go back inside. I have plenty of time, I could easily go back in and spend a little more time with her, Ranvir didn’t actually know if he had time, he just knew that after spending so much of his day with her, suddenly leaving for a couple hours felt like torture. He’d already spent most of yesterday just wishing the pocket-spaces would break instantly so he didn’t have to wait in the palace any longer. Even the carriage ride back hadn’t felt as agonizing when he had the goal of returning to his daughter.

Inhaling, Ranvir took one step away from the door and he instantly heard Frija start crying. Let it go, it’s just in your mind. It doesn’t even sound like it’s from the right room, he blinked his eyes open, realizing that it wasn’t coming from the right room. It was from the one opposite him, his neighbor. If something’s really wrong, the door isn’t locked and they wouldn’t let her cry forever, Ranvir reasoned and took another step away. He should really introduce himself to them soon, otherwise he would end up with a really awkward encounter.

Now was not that time, however. As he started down the stairs, Ranvir slipped his hand into the pocket space and pulled out his bracelet from where he’d put it on top of the drawer of stuff. He’d pulled the cold box out of the space again and left it in the apartment for Hjara to stock up again.

Fastening the bracelet around his wrist, Ranvir soon left the Parentage behind. He saw a few students roving the fields, though, he’d never been outside at this hour before. Usually, the older students were already on to other business by the time the first years got going.

Might as well start, he thought making his way to the wall, trying not to slip on the dwindling ice and snow. Really dwindling wasn’t the right word, it just felt like that since there hadn’t been any snowfall for long enough that it actually had time to be fully smashed down.

Ranvir was slightly surprised to find that it felt good to be running again. He hadn’t been active during the trimester break, especially with all the time he’d spent taking care of Frija, but he’d found himself getting increasingly antsy over the last two weeks. Now that he was finally out and running again he realized that this was what he’d been missing. Physical exercise. He shook his head wondering how he’d gotten there. A year ago, he would’ve greatly preferred to be inside his mother’s forge all day, even on a good one. Now he was running in the snow, in winter, and enjoying it. Granted the ass-end of winter, but it still counted.

Ranvir felt none of the weakness he’d experience after the previous breaks, he wondered if that was due to him becoming stronger, or his advancement, which in the end meant the same thing, he realized. Ranvir slowed to a walk, then stopped, as he drew his attention into his tether-space, expertly stopping the transition before completely shoving out the pressure.

He even managed to maintain a weak connection with his pocket-space, though it was only barely strong enough to sustain it, keep it from degrading and collapsing. This half-state, perceiving tether-space while maintaining enough control to have functioning powers was tough to manage and he’d only accidentally achieved this state while practicing his Wings exercise. It wasn’t really good for much in practicality.

On this knife’s edge of balance, Ranvir perceived his tether, sensing the magnitudes with which it had developed. The massive size increase, the many times the string count had increased, the recovering filaments lodged within the middle of the tether. After he’d advanced, his tether had been much more functional than his friends’ had been, though, he’d still had his fair share of ‘dead’ threads as they were called. Thankfully, they’d all been able to restore those threads and his had been no different. The massive increase in quantity was less noteworthy for him than his other friends, however.

It seemed to be about a multiplier of five, taking Esmund and Dovar well beyond the others, though theirs had been incredibly tangled and was difficult to count due to their sheer numbers. Sansir and Grevor were both a twenty-five, however, Ranvir only had fifteen. Those fifteen hadn’t changed much, in fact, they’d gathered into three ropes of five and twined about each other, like nothing had changed. He hadn’t even had to make them do that.

It was a strange experience to say the least. He was happy he hadn’t struggled with it as much as Dovar or Esmund had. The benefit of coming last, I guess, Ranvir thought with a smile. After making sure that everything was good, Ranvir let the pressure wash in and fully returned his focus to the world around him. In the distance, he saw the carriage carrying Hjara enter the compound, while from the Masters’ Tower figures started emerging.

Ranvir wrapped his Veil about him and started running again. More than few tether-senses flooded over him as he ran, overrunning him like a storm blowing in from clear skies. Only one of them lingered, however, Ranvir traced it back to one master standing outside the tower. His own tether-sense, fully recovered from yesterday’s damages, couldn’t reach as far as the master’s but he still recognized Vigo’s form. Ranvir waved to him and kept running, after a moment the tether-sense left and Ranvir saw the teacher head over to the first-year dorms.

As Ranvir continued running, he felt his mind start to wander, heading first in the direction of his daughter still in her crib, just waiting for him to return. What if she’d choked on, on, on… something and she was crying out for him now. He wasn’t there to help her, he needed to get back, he should…

Calm down, Ranvir chastised himself, even as he felt the monster within stir, Latresekt raising his nearly human head. A flash of light caught his eyes from his wrist, turning his attention to he armband his mother had made for him. Where they making it back okay? He hadn’t had a chance to properly say goodbye to them. Sure, he’d hugged them a few times, told them goodbye, told them he loved them, told them he’d see them again, but he hadn’t done it properly.

Ranvir shook his head. He’d done it well enough, he was just in a worrying mood. I need something to distract myself, he thought. He wrapped his Veil about him again, trying to make it feel like it fit him, but it just didn’t. It sagged around his physical form like someone had thrown a huge blanket over him. No amount of pulling and drawing it in made it better.

So he decided to work on the banding exercises, running a line of energy from his body into the Veil and back again. They’d first tried it before any of them had advanced and it hadn’t done much, however, that had changed once the Es advanced. Ranvir let his mind focus on the exercise, his feet plodding forwards.

He blinked, letting his attention expand from his focus on the exercise and realized he was running in the middle of his class. Ranvir smiled, he could always rely on distracting himself with tether exercises