Amber and Ava returned from their magic tutoring with news of them all coming over to learn manners before the wedding, and met with… mixed reactions, Harlan ignored them and kept meditating, Aida was grateful to get to go to a noble's mansion while they sent workers to help Kass run the farm, Harlow was worried that if Fomorians were well known and bad that someone who knew something would see Harlan.

They all pretended things were fine again and put on happy faces.

“Oh thats wonderful.” Aida was the only one to break out of their thoughts and speak.

“Let’s get inside and you can help me with dinner.”

Another dinner with Aida trying to clear the tension and not let them all sit in silence, Harlan went back outside to meditate after helping to clean up.

Ava still shared a room with Harlan but Amber was over in Autumn’s old room, she missed him at night, she never had to sleep alone before now.

She decided to see what Harlan was actually doing outside every night.

He jumped right onto the pull up bar and did 50 of them, then ran for some time.

As soon as he rested she just sat beside him, she tried to sense what magic he was doing but all the mana was just swirling around him, never touching or forming into spells, then it all pulled towards him, making a bright ball in his chest to her mana sense.

She tried to do the same thing but the mana kept touching and making bursts of elements that drained her mana quickly, she stopped after a little over 10 minutes, the ball of light in Harlan’s chest just moved around his chest, never changing in shape or size, she couldn’t figure out what he was trying to do, and how he stopped the mana from clashing inside him.

Then he stood up and began lifting rocks over his head, he had some in a line, as he grew stronger he needed bigger rocks, Ava decided to try the smallest one, she lifted it 10 times then stopped, sweating slightly, Harlan didn’t even look challenged with the rock twice the size of the one she used, she counted 27 lifts, she didn’t know how many times he lifted when she was still, then Harlan started jumping up and down from a stone stump, she knew her uncle had made it, but she could see where Harlan had crudely made it taller with his own magic. She found a stump nearby that she could jump up and down, she counted 12 before she heard Harlan jump down the final time and walk away.

He went over and grabbed a small box of shaped stones and then began throwing them at the reforming clay target her uncle set up on a tree. The stone balls sounded like either they or the tree would break if he threw them any harder, the clay splattering and hanging in the air, trying to reform as quickly as it could. It barely faired better when he started with the darts, then he started trying to pull the stone back to him, it took over 10 minutes but they were all back in the box, he handed them to Ava.

She couldn’t throw them as hard but she didn’t miss her target once, this was something she had already been training in with fireballs.

He walked over and picked them up this time, having burned a lot of his meager pool to pull them back the first time.

Then he placed the box back in its hole and covered it with dirt so some goblins didn’t try to steal them.

Then he ran did his 50 pull ups as Ava rested, he hopped down and began to run after a few stretches, and Ava didn’t bother with the stretches but still followed, he would run a small circuit around the house and Kass’s cabin, a figure 8, he had lapped her once 2 minutes in, not seeming tired at all yet, then another time at 3 minutes, he was getting faster still.

Then a sound of pain rang out, Ava’s leg had cramped, she sat crying on the ground, Harlan froze, he couldn’t keep going, he turned around and rushed over to see what was wrong.

“My leg cramped, carry me inside please.” she tried to stop but she still couldn’t use her leg yet.

“I know how to fix it.” Harlan started cycling fire and then water mana into his hands, the hot and cold soothed her muscles, she still had a little pain but she could stand.

“Will you help me inside still?” Harlan looked like he wanted to say something. He let her lean on him and helped her inside and tucked her into bed.

“Why won’t you tell us whats wrong?” Harlan tried to flee, not ready to face the pain of Ava and Amber rejecting him, he was paranoid. But Ava held tightly to his sleeve.

”I’m… not really human.”

“Ok? Kass isn’t human but thats fine, at least sleep tonight, I… I don’t like the dark when I’m alone…”

Ava didn’t really understand, but neither did Harlan, he felt a lot better regardless.

Harlan thought about going back outside more, but he decided just to do his soul searching inside.

He started gathering mana of all elements in equal quantity and spacing them out in a perfect pattern, it had taken him days to get them to stop clashing with one another, he began to slowly draw them into himself, checking another spot, he could feel the mana ripped throughout him, searching for something.

He finally felt it touch on something, he found his soul, a small red flame, flickering white and black flames would shoot out sometimes, he knew he was dark aligned but finding out he had light in him soothed his mind some.

He had no idea how long he just stared at his flaming soul trying to see how or why it made mana, but he felt tired like he never had before, he crawled into bed and slept for the first time.

Flashes of violence, someone screaming, a woman carrying something, placing it on the ground, smiling but he couldn't make out her face and then running in the opposite direction, the shadows chasing after her.

Harlan awoke in a cold sweat, he didn’t know what dreaming was supposed to be like but he was sure thats what a nightmare was.

Breakfast was nicer, Ava looked haggard by the training last night, barely keeping her eyes open as she ate.

“I’m ok now, I don’t mind not being human, what those other people did isn’t my fault.”

Aida and Harlow dropped their silverware and froze, Kass looked relieved, he had forgiven the boy for the sins he never committed but felt to awkward about threatening him to speak with the boy about it.

Amber was starting to get scared that everyone else reacted so strongly towards Harlan and tried to process what he was talking about.

“Thats nice.” Ava didn’t get all the implications but she was glad he was starting to talk again.

I’ll… explain things when you’re sister is around, no point saying it all again.“ Harlow decided that its best to just clear the air finally.

Harlan did Ava’s chores since she didn’t get enough sleep last night, and then not much else happened for the next few days, Harlan was speaking again, riding around on Kass’s shoulder and asking for whatever he knew about the Fomorians, this led to some awkward silence until Kass realized how much could be learned from a Fomorian who could actually be questioned, he decided to send a letter back home when the family left to learn manners, asking for some others to come up and study him from a if nothing else they could feed questions to Kass to ask Harlan.

The whole family made themselves as presentable as they could for their tutoring session, they were going at the same time Amber and Ava would learn magic.

What they didn’t expect was that Jaramis wanted to come so he could talk with the rest of the family on the way there, both sides learned about the other till they were about to arrive and Harlan asked a question.

“Have you heard of Fomorians? I heard someone in the village say the name but they wouldn’t tell me what they were.”

Jaramis had training for avoiding questions and not showing too much reaction to things, but the stories he had heard of Fomorians made his movements stutter and freeze, dozens of dead men, fighting until they were little more than lumps of flesh, living towers with too many arms and mouths to count chanting and weaving dozens of spells at the forces that nearly wiped out the rest of the Fomorians.

“No I can’t say I have, let’s get back to some stories of you, how have you been training yourself lately? Autumn tells me she was the one showing you guys how to do magic before she came here.”

“I’ve been training every night, I lift a rock over my head, jump up and down from a stump, run, then pull ups and mana training for 30 minutes while I rest.”

"don't you get any sleep." Jaramis joked

"I slept 6 days ago"

Jaramis was shocked at how casual he made it all sound, then he started to think about how long he could do such a thing, he recalled more memories of the Fomorians, most variants never or rarely slept, he took in the boys skin, pale in the summer months? Jaramis paled in turn, did they know? Was this all a trap? He remained silent for the 20 minutes, they had finally arrived, Autumn was at the doorway waiting for them.

Jaramis spoke to the nearest guard, and he moved into the house, arriving 2 minutes later along with 20 more guards that all had their hands on their weapons.

“I think it would be best if we all had a private talk with my father.”