"Assumed Dead - 04, Nesaddi" by Melia Arney

The sun of Ekarku was sinking behind the tree line when Savant Haff finally located Initiate Taren. He had searched the entire expanse of the roof without finding a trace of her when something had prompted him to look up and there, a black silhouette against the setting sun, sat Jaerri on the top of one of the highest spires of the Sanctuary. How she had gotten up there was a mystery to him. The wall of the tower was stone, but it didn’t provided many useful holds for climbing. Still, there she sat by some machination or another.

For a brief moment he wondered if she was considering jumping, but he pushed that thought aside. She was not near the edge; she wasn’t even looking at the edge. Taren’s eyes were focused on the sun, and from the way she was sitting with her knees drawn up and her chin resting on them, he had a feeling her mind lay even further away.

"May I join you, Initiate Taren?" he asked, after levitating himself up to the little space of roof she had claimed.

Jaerri shrugged in answer, her eyes not turning from their contemplation of the sunset. She didn’t act surprised to see him, though she’d only met the Savant earlier that day before the ceremony. She’d probably seen him wandering on the roof below long before he’d discovered her hiding place.

Haff settled on the roof next to her. He waited a few moments, but Jaerri didn’t show any signs of acknowledging his presence further so he took the initiative. "What are you doing up here?"

"Sitting."

"That’s a little obvious. What are you doing besides sitting?"

"Converting oxygen to carbon dioxide."

"I see. Well, I’m sure the trees thank you for contributing to their air supply."

Jaerri looked at him for the first time. Her eyes scanned his face, looking for any indication that he was mocking her. He didn’t seem to be so she shrugged again and the silence settled between them once more.

Haff studied his companion. She was tall for her age. Her hair and the eyes that mirrored it were both too red to be natural, though, Jaerri and her sister were the first Kaesynalics that Savant Haff had ever seen so perhaps that was normal for their race. The minute peak of her ears he assumed was common to Kaesynalics as well.

Jaerri for the most part ignored the Dejine, though he caught her darting glances at him more and more as the time passed. Considering that, besides being in a restricted area, she was not causing any sort of trouble at all, Haff wondered if all the stories about her were true.

Finally Jaerri sighed and addressed him. "So what are you doing up here?"

"Truthfully, Elder Kinot asked me to come and attempt to comfort you."

"You don’t have to."

"Yes, I didn’t really think you were the type to welcome comfort."

"I don’t mind comfort," Jaerri said, turning back to watching the sunset, "but I can’t stand hypocrisy. You don’t care about my feelings anymore than anyone else here does so I’m not going to make you sit here and pretend that you do."

Haff was taken aback a little. It hadn’t been a whine or a "whoa is me, I wasn’t chosen so everyone must hate me" sounding comment. The way she said it made it seem like she was only stating an obvious fact that anyone would be able to tell for themselves if they were interested, which they probably weren’t.

"That’s a little unfair, don’t you think?" he said. "Savant Uraela did offer to take you as her Acolyte when no one else would after all. That was very kind of her, especially since she had already committed herself to two other students."

Jaerri shook her head. "She wasn’t going to take me when no one else would; she was going to take me because no one else would. There’s a difference. She didn’t really want me."

"Now that’s not…" he began, but was cut off.

"She wouldn’t even complete her half of the ceremony."

It took Haff a moment to understand just what Jaerri meant and then, when he thought about it, he realized she was right. Savant Uraela hadn’t said any of the traditional lines of acceptance. At the time he had been too relieved that someone was offering to take Taren that he hadn’t caught it, but Jaerri hadn’t missed the lack.

"You’re right, though I’m sure it was just a slip. It was an unusual circumstance, and we weren’t thinking of tradition at the time."

"Just because I’m ten doesn’t mean I’m stupid. She didn’t want me. No one wants me. My own people didn’t want me."

Haff had the feeling that he’d just heard something she wouldn’t have admitted in most situations. Actually, she’d said that last part so quietly that he probably wasn’t supposed to have heard it at all. Having seen her temper flair up once already that day and not wanting to see it again, he proceeded cautiously.

"From what I’ve been told, your mother sent your sister and you here to protect you, not because she didn’t want you."

"You don’t understand."

"Then why don’t you explain it to me?"

"No thank you."

"You know you can’t always blame everything on someone else," Haff said, annoyed that she accused him of not understanding, while refusing to explain. "Occasionally you have to take responsibility for a few things yourself. Your own behavior in the School of Initiates had some influence on the events of today. If you apply yourself to your studies then you won’t have anything to worry about next time."

Jaerri snorted. "That’s what Savant Issol said when we watched the last Choosing. I was dead last in the class and she said that if I didn’t work harder I’d find myself without a teacher come my own Choosing."

"Then perhaps you should have listened to her."

Jaerri turned to the Dejine and bore down on him so strongly with her gaze that he had to fight the urge to look away. Then, just as quickly as she had turned to him, she turned away again.

"I did. I’m currently ranked sixth in a class of twenty-eight, I’ve hardly been in trouble at all for nearly two whole months, and this is the first time I’ve been on the roof in three. I shouldn’t have bothered, though. Trying didn’t help any; it just got my hopes up. Excuse me, I’m going to be late for dinner."

Jaerri stood before Haff could come up with a reply and strode to the edge of the roof, then walked off of it.

"What in the…!" Haff lunged forward to catch her with the Arts before she could go splat on the ground, but when he leaned over the edge, he saw Jaerri standing safely on a balcony some four stories down. He gave a stunned whistle. It was a simple enough trick for a Dejine to use reverse levitation to slow his or her descent towards the ground, but not something he ever thought he’d see a ten-year-old do. He hadn’t heard that Jaerri Taren had any unusual strength with the Arts. Of course, he hadn’t heard anything positive about Jaerri at all.

Savant Haff found a more conventional way of getting off the roof and made his way to the cafeteria. As he had assumed, Jaerri hadn’t really gone to dinner.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

That night Savant Haff found himself thinking about Jaerri when he would have preferred to be sleeping. He wasn’t sure what the matter was. He’d done what Elder Kinot had asked; he’d spoken with her. He hadn’t promised anything beyond that. Yet no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the Elder’s words out of his head. Haff reminded himself that he really didn’t have time for an Acolyte. Besides, Jaerri would probably only think he was making a pity case out of her again if he asked. But if she didn’t…

Having finally fallen into a restless sleep sometime just before dawn, Haff was not happy when a knock at his door awoke him early the next morning. He must have looked it too since the young Crafter’s apprentice who had knocked kept glancing down the hall as if to reassure himself of an escape route.

"Elder Kinot said that you would want this," the boy said quickly, thrusting a long, thin box into the Dejine Savant’s hands and fleeing as fast as his legs could carry him.

Haff brought the box into his quarters and set it on the table. After removing the lid and seeing what was inside, he laughed. Kinot knew him too well. He lifted the Nesaddi Lance out of the padding and examined it. It was a fine piece of work, perfectly balanced and with a good grip on it. The hilt was even etched in a pattern of swirls and complex twists at both ends where the shaft joined the egg-sized morphstones. It was lighter than a regular Lance, though not as light as some training Lances he’d seen. Haff had never liked making training Lances overly light; he thought it made it too easy for the wielder to swing it around like a toy. A Nesaddi, even a training one, was not a toy.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Haff found Jaerri once again on the roof. Though this time he didn’t have to climb a spire to get to her. She was laying on her stomach not far from the door he exited, peering over the edge, watching the newly-made Acolytes have their very first Nesaddi Lance lesson in the courtyard below.

"Hello, Initiate Taren."

Jaerri jerked. She’d been too absorbed in what was going on in the courtyard to hear his approach. "I was just watching," she said defensively. "No one said I couldn’t watch."

"I’m not saying you can’t either," he replied, noting that she’d lost her melancholy attitude from the night before.

Jaerri gazed at the Dejine distrustfully. "Then what do you want?"

"I was thinking about you and I thought I’d come talk to you some more."

"Why?"

"Why not?" Haff sat down on the flat roof and watched the children below struggle to master the proper hand positions for a Nesaddi.

Jaerri turned back to watching the Acolytes, though Haff could tell they didn’t have her attention anymore.

"What is that?" he asked, indicating a small, white stone she was turning over in one hand. "It looks like a morphstone."

"It is. The different Crafter guilds came by last month. Savant Issol thought it’d be a good idea for everyone to know what they do before they chose whether or not they wanted to be an Acolyte or a Crafter’s Apprentice. Most of them were boring, but the Forgers gave us each our own morphstone and showed us how to mold them."

"May I see?"

Jaerri handed over the rock. Haff examined the smooth surface. Like all morphstones this one was white with barely perceptible traces of color beneath the surface. All Nesaddi had morphstone blades. Not only did that mean the Dejine weapon had an eternally sharp edge that was almost indestructible, but a morphstone also had some small ability to channel and amplify the Arts.

Haff let a tendril of magical energy flow into the stone and watched as two pillars grew out of the rock. The first was thicker, the second much thinner and with a miniscule hole through it at the top.

"It’s pretty."

"That’s Kylan Peak," Jaerri said, pointing to the first tower. "Kylatar City is inside it. And that’s the Needle. People fly skites through the hole if they can, but it’s a tight squeeze and the winds blow you all over the place."

Haff studied the small sculpture anew. He had assumed it was just a random design. Few children Jaerri’s age could actually shape a morphstone on purpose.

"This takes talent, you know," he said, handing the stone back. "Were you considering joining the Forger’s Guild?"

Jaerri shrugged, not taking her eyes off the Nesaddi lesson. "I wasn’t before, but I guess I don’t have a choice anymore. Savant Issol isn’t going to want me back in the school and it’s not like anyone’s likely to take me next Choosing anyway."

Trying to decide how best to approach his real question, Haff turned to Jaerri and asked, "Who did you want to pick you?"

Jaerri thought for a second then shrugged. She seemed to do that a lot. "No one really. I wanted to get picked, but there wasn’t anyone I’d seen who I was really looking forward to being stuck with. I was just hoping that whoever chose me would turn out to be okay. And as long as they’d teach me how to use a Nesaddi, I would have tried my best to put up with about anyone."

"You want to learn the Nesaddi that badly?"

"I’m good with weapons."

"What else?"

"Nothing else," Jaerri said, not even needing to think about the question. She’d thought about it enough in the past. "I’m not good with anything else here. I can’t do your Refined Arts very well. But I could be good with a Nesaddi. I know I could."

"Really? Come here." Haff walked to the middle of the flat area of the roof. Jaerri followed, reluctant to leave her observation of the Nesaddi class below, but curious to see what the Savant wanted. When she reached him, he handed her the training level Nesaddi Kinot had sent him that morning. "Show me."

Jaerri’s eyes went wide at the sight of the Lance. She turned it over several times, memorizing every detail. She’d have to give it back in a minute, but for a few seconds she had a Nesaddi, a real live Nesaddi. Everyone else from her class had one to keep now, given to them by their new teachers. Mia had one; she’d made a point to show it to Jaerri, but not let her touch it.

There was a swishing noise in front of her and when Jaerri looked up, Savant Haff already had his own Lance staged. Jaerri quickly search for the button that would extend the Lance he’d lent her. It wasn’t hard to figure out which button to push; there were only two and the activation button wouldn’t work if the Lance weren’t already staged. Luckily, she remembered to turn it sideways so she didn’t impale herself when the Nesaddi extended.

"We’ll fight like this," Haff said, taking a stance. "Mine’s a real Lance, not a trainer so I don’t want to risk accidentally hurting you with the blades."

"Hurt me? You won’t even be able to touch me," Jaerri said, the feel of a weapon in her hands making her cocky.

Jaerri attacked first. Haff pushed it to the side with ease. Her next attack had a little more planning and a little less frontal assault to it. Haff blocked it as well and with a quick push, set her off balance. He swung around to knock her feet out from under her, but Jaerri regained her footing and leaped over his attack. She brought a strike down from above, then from the side, the other side, anywhere she thought she saw an opening. Haff’s weapon, however, was always waiting to parry it. Jaerri tried every trick she had ever learned in her two years training to be an Epor at Diomair, but she not only didn’t land a blow once, she didn’t even come close to landing a blow once. The short fight ended with Jaerri tumbling head over heels across the roof when Haff had blocked her last attack with a bit more force than he had the others.

Jaerri pulled herself to her feet, sore and angry. She’d dropped the Nesaddi Lance when she went flying; now she stomped over to it. "Stupid Lance!" she said, kicking it. "I can’t even do this right! The one thing I thought I’d be able to do and I mess it up. No wonder no one wants me."

She turned to walk away, but Haff stopped her. "Now hold on one minute." He picked up the Lance that she’d kicked and reverted it to its carrying length. "First of all, that’s not how you treat your weapon. Secondly, how well did you think you were going to do on your first try? And it’s not like I don’t have a few years of experience with a Nesaddi. I’m considered one of the best lancemen in the Order; you didn’t have a hope of actually beating me." Technically he was considered the best lanceman in the Order, but he had just enough humility not to say that out loud.

"Still," he continued, "I am impressed by how well you did."

"You…you are?" Jaerri wasn’t quite sure she believed him. No one had been impressed with anything she’d done since she’d arrived on Ekarku.

"Yes. Initiate Taren…Jaerri, I didn’t bring that Nesaddi up here to battle you."

"You didn’t?"

"No, I was actually wondering if you wouldn’t mind if I took you as my Acolyte."

"Your Acolyte? But Savant Issol said that you don’t take Acolytes yourself."

"I haven’t in a long time, but I think it’s time I started again. So, Initiate Taren," Haff said with a playful smile, "what is your response?"

Jaerri couldn’t get the words out fast enough. "I humbly accept your offer to be my teacher. May I not live to see the day that I disappoint you."

She looked down at her brand new Nesaddi and then at her brand new teacher and the biggest smile she could ever remember having spread across her face. "Thank you!" Jaerri threw her arms around the Savant, her Savant.