A couple days after the incident in front of the parentage Ranvir was returning to his apartment during lunch only to find it filled with his friends. He paused on the threshold examining the filled room.

Hjara had retreated into the spare room, meant for Frija when she got older, and had shut the door. From her lack, Ranvir assumed his daughter was with her. With his bed, the cold box, the table, the chairs, and the dresser the space was pretty crowded even without his chest of personal belongings and Sansir and Grevor sitting on his bed.

Four mostly grown men simply took up a lot of room in the relatively small space, with Kirs shoved in as a little extra polish.

Ranvir cleared his throat before stepping in and shutting the door behind him, “What’s going on?” he decided to forgo pleasantries since they’d already invaded his space.

“Hi,” Es said with a wave from where he was sitting on the table.

Ranvir briefly acknowledged him before scanning the rest of his friends. Finally, Grevor let out a sigh slapping his hands on his knees and stood up, “I don’t know if you heard about what happened a few days ago?”

“I’m not sure…” Ranvir replied.

“Well, you see a few students were beaten just outside of this dorm. Two second-years, one of whom had been knocked out by unknown means and another who suffered a pretty bad bruise to his hip bone,” Grev stopped in the middle of the room facing Ranvir. “Now, they were unwilling or unable to say specifically who attacked them. All they would say was a red-eyed monster, a flesh-torn, had fought them.”

Grev paused bowing his head slightly and scratching his chin with his thumb as he looked at Ranvir.

“Of course, when we heard it happened just outside the parentage we were worried for you and Frija, but you hadn’t said anything to us… So I didn’t personally think you had any involvement. Then I heard about the red-eyed monster…”

Es pushed away from the table to stand next to Grev, “Did you get hurt? Why did you get in the fight? Why didn’t you say anything?” the words came out in a stumbling rush as Es tried to get the words around his clearly hurt expression, “You could have told us, we wouldn’t have ratted you out.”

Ranvir frowned looking at all of them. Grev had his mask up and was unreadable, Sansir was clearly a bit worried, he was handling it better than Esmund however. Dovar seemed more confused than anything else. Kirs and Es were plainly the most worried about what had happened. Es with that guileless naivety that Ranvir had grown used to, and Kirs with a more considering long term nature.

“Do they remember it was you? Did you attack first, like they claim?”

Ranvir sighed slumping back against the door, the fight draining out of him. He shrugged, “There really isn’t that much to say… They came for me, they threatened Frija so I stopped them. There’s no boiling blood between us.”

“What do you mean, ‘no boiling blood?’” Kirs exclaimed stepping forwards. “They threatened your daughter! Why did they even come for you?”

Ranvir looked at her uncomfortably then shrugged.

“You don’t know?” Then more shrilly, “You don’t know?” She looked to the others in disbelief before returning her glare to Ranvir, “Did you hit your fucking head?”

Ranvir shook his head, pulling even further into the door, “No. They didn’t hurt me.”

Kirs sighed throwing her hands in the air, “Something’s wrong,” she stormed past him, tearing the door open and rushing out, not shutting it behind her.

The others slowly filed out as Ranvir stood by the door, feeling… nothing. Es stopped briefly, brows furrowed as he examined Ranvir’s eyes, then he stepped through and Grevor was the only one remaining, “You’re coming to training tonight, right?”

Ranvir nodded, “Of course.”

“Good.”

Ranvir arrived at their usual field for After Period, with Frija in her portable cradle. He stood with her examining the crowd before him, before silently looked down at the wicker basket. One side of the lid had been folded up to reveal Frija inside. Tonight had been struggle, she hadn’t wanted her thicker clothes on at first. Ranvir’d considered putting on the harness instead, but that was a lot of work, different work and he hadn’t been able to muster the energy for it.

So he’d persevered and come out on the other end with only a slightly ruffled baby and a minimum of tears shed. For a second as he looked down at his daughter, he saw the image of him slowly putting the basket down just a few days ago. The memory accosting him suddenly and without warning, the sound of shattering wood echoing in his ears.

Before his emotions could rise to become too tumultuous, an attention grabbing yellow informed him of something in his surroundings. Ranvir blinked looking around, he couldn’t immediately parse it, but finally noted that both Svenar and Ayvir were there today.

“Student Ranvir,” Master Svenar greeted from where he was standing with Esmund. He muttered something to his student before walking over to shake Ranvir’s hand. “I understand from your friends that you were involved with the attack on some students the other day.”

Ranvir let his eyes close for a second, wrapping his Veil tighter around him. “Yes, I was. I believe the description is red-eyed monster.”

“Oh?” Svenar seemed a little taken aback by his statement. “So you were the one who attacked them?” he frowned as he looked closer at Ranvir, “Student, tell me… Are you okay?”

Ranvir shook his head, “I feel fine.”

Svenar’s lips thinned as his frown intensified, “So you were the attacker in the scenario?”

Ranvir nodded, “They threatened my daughter so I attacked them.”

“When was this?”

“Immediately after my talk with you, I was still on the way back to the dormitory.”

Svenar sucked in a breath, “They threatened Frija so you attacked them? Is that all that happened?” he waved his hands in the air, “No— wait, let me rephrase that. Was this motivated by the faction issues we’ve been having here?”

Ranvir’s brow twitched slightly, before shaking his head, “I don’t think so. They mentioned something about showing me my place, but I don’t properly remember.”

“What do you remember?”

“They showed up, two second-years, two first-years. One of the first-years already had a red band around their arm, they talked some vague nonsense. One of the second-years threatened Frija and by the time I’d dealt with them, the first-years had already fled.”

Svenar nodded, rubbing a hand over his jaw and glanced at Ayvir, “Can we have a moment to think?”

“Sure,” Ranvir said retrieving his pad from Frija’s cradle and dropped it on the lingering ice and snow. Spots were beginning to show signs of the dirt underneath, even yellow grass in some places. Ranvir started his training with a few minutes of banding training, like he used to start with tether exercises. Except now he needed to manage his Veil better, not his tether.

He vaguely noticed the masters retreating from the others and briefly discussing something. He hadn’t even gotten himself comfortable before they returned, their gazes intent on him. He could feel their tether-senses scouring his Veil. It felt like someone ran one of the rough brushes his mother used to clean off debris from metal across his Discipline.

“What are you doing?” Ranvir asked with a wince.

“I’m sorry, Ranvir,” Master Ayvir said. “There appears to be something in your Veil. It feels odd. Like there’s a haze permeating it. We feel as masters and teachers that it’s in both yours and our best interest to examine it further.”

A flare of red lit up within Ranvir, causing him to jerk slightly where he was sitting before it too dulled. “Okay…”

Master Ayvir’s tether-sense exploded from him like a tower of sunlight rising before Ranvir’s eyes. The destructive Concept was layered throughout its structure and it seemed a little more understandable to Ranvir’s budding senses. He hesitated as what felt like a brick the size of a boulder fell from the tower, heading directly towards him.

Instinctively, Ranvir formed a shield of his tether-sense projecting it in front of his native presence. The immediate impact made Ranvir’s vision double, his breath forced out of his lungs as he hunched over and a headache developed into an instant migraine. Instead of rolling off, the boulder kept pressing shoving his shield down.

His Veil flattened and fell weakly to the ground around him as all of his energy focused on maintaining his protection. His back hunched and his fingers slipped from tightly curled fists into loose hands as his bones went weak.

Ayvir’s kept pushing.

Then Ranvir’s felt his shield start fuzzing at the edges, like warp was disintegrating it at the fringes slowly dissolving it.

“Ayvir, what’s going on?” Svenar asked his voice ringing in Ranvir’s ears. “Stop playing with him.”

“He’s stronger than I expected.” Ayvir’s voice boomed, echoing within Ranvir’s native presence as the entire tower descended. Ranvir immediately blacked out on impact, his shield not even making the descend pause.

Ranvir blinked awake moments later, his eyes wide and aware. He heard someone scream in the back of his mind and he could feel the nearly incoherent silhouette of Latresekt, a twisted mockery of its usually well put together form shifting and twisting in on itself as it kept screaming in pain.

“What did you do?” Ranvir asked. He could only vaguely feel the lingering pain of the headache and his bones were strengthening by the second. As quickly as the weakness had come, as quickly was it disappearing.