Chương 9: The People Who Might Listen

He knew Mara Fenwick was coming from the specific smell of the bitterleaf long before she reached the door. It was hard to forget the smell after getting it nearly rubbed into his nose once before already. Ren knew because Elna opened the upper shutter to clear the stove smoke, and the wind brought rain, road mud, and Mara's satchel through the room before the knock arrived. He held still against Elna's hip and breathed through the smell. Mara had noticed him acting strange before.

She watched small things adults usually softened into fever, hunger, or baby nonsense. Which made her dangerous in a potentially useful way. Bren had heard almost a full goblin and carried it to Nela's nonsense words. Elna had followed door, hatchet, and window with her eyes, but worry was not action yet. Tessa had whispered danger, then gone silent when Bren asked what danger meant. The warning still broke when it reached adults. And Ren just needed it to stop breaking. Tessa had words. Elna had patterns.

Mara had questions sharp enough to cut through comfort if he gave her the right place to press. Nela carried gossip without meaning to. Tovin watched roads. Bren would move when danger finally reached him in a shape a father could understand. The knock came. Three taps, a pause, and two more taps. Ren's stomach clenched. For one breath, the sound became branches scratching at wood. Then Elna crossed the room, and the door opened onto rain instead of smoke.

"Mara, welcome!" Elna said.

"Morning." Mara stepped inside with rain clinging to her cloak and irritation already settled around her eyes.

"I brought white bitterleaf and thornmoss. And before you ask, I do not know why Tovin has been staring at ditches since dawn." The word ditches struck before the rest of the sentence finished. Ren slapped the rug once. Tessa looked up from her slate. Mara paused on the threshold with one hand still near her cloak clasp. Her eyes moved from Ren's hand to Tessa's face, then to Elna.

"What was that?" Elna shut the door against the rain.

"That is what I wanted you to see." Ren looked toward the road-facing window and slapped again. Tessa's fingers tightened around the slate.

"Road." Mara did not smile. She untied her cloak slowly, watching Ren as she moved into the room. Rainwater darkened the rushes beneath her boots. When she set her satchel on the table, leather creaked and bitter herb smells opened into the air. Ren crawled toward it with the grim determination of a scholar approaching a restricted archive while wearing a damp cloth around his waist. His palms stuck slightly on the rushes. His knees had not forgiven yesterday's yard campaign.

Body Conditioning kept the ache from eating the whole movement, but it did not make crawling dignified. He dragged himself past the stool, paused to breathe, then continued toward the table leg.

"Ah," Mara said.

"The grand judge approaches." Ominous baby staring had been interpreted as constipation yesterday. Judge was an improvement. Ren fixed on the bone-handled knife tucked near the satchel flap. Appraisal. [Bone Knife] Then he tried again, but not as a blind question. He held the shape, the handle, the satchel, Mara's hands, and the way she used tools for herbs instead of meat. [Bone Knife - Herb Cutting Tool] The label sharpened, bringing use with name. Names were hooks. And their use was rope, a line to pull them by.

[Skill Level Increased: Appraisal Lv. 2 -> Lv. 3] Ren stopped when the warm stillness under his skin thinned. Appraisal still cost Mana, and repeated questions pulled at the inside of his skull with a faint, tight pressure behind the eyes. Ren was still far from becoming a Baby Wizard able to throw it at every single thing around him. He breathed once through his nose. Bitterleaf invaded. His nose considered rebellion. Mara pulled out a packet wrapped in blue thread. Ren chose the target anyway. Appraisal.

[Dried Herb Packet] He tried again, focusing on everything it was. The smell, color, blue thread. And Mara's prior fever lesson. Memory held the satchel from the first visit and the sneeze that had nearly launched him from Elna's arms. [White Bitterleaf Packet] The System had stopped being a clerk and started being an assistant with poor bedside manners. … Or just a clerk who cared a tiny fraction more. The pressure behind Ren's eyes deepened. He stopped.

He turned from the packet to the door and slapped the rug once. Then he turned to Mara's satchel and slapped again. Then he looked toward the road-facing window and slapped a third time. Mara watched all three. Elna went still near the hearth. Tessa whispered, "He does that when it means danger." Mara's face did not soften. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. That was why Ren liked her.

"What danger?" Mara asked. Ren gathered breath. Language had crossed its first milestone. The System Skills helped his intent-to-speech coordination. But even then sound didn't necessarily mean adult belief. He used the tool anyway.

"Gah-bin." The first syllable landed. The second bent into wet air and broke. Mara's fingers paused on the bitterleaf. Elna looked from Ren to Tessa.

"There. He said it again." Mara crouched before him.

"Who taught him that?" Investigation was not belief, but it was not dismissal either. Tessa hugged her slate.

"Nobody."

"Nela said nonsense words," Elna said.

"Nela says nonsense sentences," Mara replied.

"That is different." Ren slapped the rug once and stared at the window. Mara followed his gaze.

"Road?" Ren slapped once.

"Forest?" Ren slapped once. Hope opened its cruel teeth. Then Ren's belly gave a loud, traitorous complaint. Elna's face changed in instant relief.

"He missed part of breakfast." No!

"Elna," Mara said, still watching him. But Elna had already lifted him. The room shifted into shoulder, sleeve, and the warm prison of being correctly loved at the wrong time. Hunger woke harder once his body understood food might be near. His mouth rooted even as his mind recoiled. The signal dissolved into milk. Every warning he gave entered the adult mind through a hidden basket labeled strange baby behavior. And that was it, it found no urgency. Mara returned the next day.

She did not say she came because of Ren. She brought thornmoss for Elna's wrist, asked after Bren's work, complained about damp woodsmoke, and checked Ren's gums as if his teeth had personally offended her. But she watched. Ren saw it in the pauses. Her eyes moved to him after certain words. She placed her satchel slightly farther from the hearth and slightly closer to his blanket. A test disguised as convenience. He tested back.

He used Appraisal sparingly now, choosing only targets that could make pointing less vague. [Door] [Road Cloak] [Hatchet] [Firewood] [Window Latch] [Thornmoss Poultice] The window latch carried the memory of glass breaking inward. The hatchet carried Elna's missed swing, wood instead of skull. The road cloak carried the smell adults brought back from outside. Each label became an anchor. Door plus slap. Hatchet plus stare. Window latch plus goblin. Mara watched his order more than his sounds.

"He tracks tools," she said while changing Ren's chest cloth and listening to his breathing. Elna's hands tightened around the basin.

"Is that bad?"

"It is odd."

"He has been odd since the fever." Mara pressed two fingers lightly beneath Ren's jaw.

"Fever can leave children changed." Changed was safer than impossible – it was also useless unless it made her keep looking. Ren stared at her. Mara stared back. For one breath, both of them understood that she saw a question and lacked its language. Then she sighed.

"He may be early with words. Watch him. If he stops eating, call me." Eating. Again. Food had become the sinkhole beneath every apocalypse.

The following morning brought rain against the shutters and the same question Ren had failed to answer since the reset. How long does he have? How long do they have until the raid? His first life refused to become a calendar. It gave him fever, milk, ceiling beams, Tessa watching him too closely, Mara's bitterleaf, the outside world, the boundary stone, sleep, practice, and then screaming. He remembered the order. But as a baby he could not make the mornings hold still long enough to count them.

Too many sudden naps and fuzzy feverish dreams even for Memory to help with. A cart wheel struck a rut outside, and his body waited for a horn. Bren shut the gate, and Ren saw the door breaking. Rain tapped the shutter, and smoke filled a cellar that was not there. Elna gathered him up before the shaking turned into a full scream.

"There now. It's only rain." Only rain. Only a gate. Only a cart. The world had become a liar with excellent timing. Ren pressed his cheek against Elna's shoulder and counted what he could. Morning cloth. Feeding. Hearth smoke. Bren leaving with his cloak still damp from yesterday. Tessa scratching chalk across her slate. Mara's bitterleaf lingering in the room. Nela's gossip about Tovin. Road mud drying near the door. None of it told him how many days were left.

That meant he had to treat every day like it might be the last useful one. His body disagreed. His body had many opinions. It believed crawling to the door twice was heroic labor. It believed six attempts at goblin deserved milk, sleep, and applause. It believed sore knees were a public emergency. It believed a full warning campaign could be postponed by a blanket. Ren hated it. But he used it nonetheless. Sleeping restored Stamina better than stubbornness. It restored Mana better than lying awake in a fury.

It returned his hands to him after crawling, his throat after word practice, and his head after Appraisal scraped pressure behind his eyes. As a baby he had limited resources, and few ways of increasing them quickly. That made recovery intensely important. So that's exactly what Ren did – turned Sleeping into another part of the grind. Train until the body blurred the work. Sleep before exhaustion turned the next attempt stupid. Wake, eat, check Stamina, check Mana, and spend them again. The first test was ugly.

Ren pushed too long. He crawled from rug to door, door to window, window to hearth, then tried goblin until his throat turned wet and useless. By the time Elna lifted him, his arms shook without rhythm and his thoughts had gone soft at the edges. He slept like a dropped stone. When he woke, Stamina had returned, but the morning had moved without him. Elna had finished the wash. Bren had already left. Tessa had gone outside for kindling. Too late was also waste. The Skill was tricky to handle too.

Its effects were always there, but to get it leveling Ren had to do the same as for every other – try his best and focus. Too much focus and he couldn't sleep. Too little and he would just sleep without gains. The next cycle, he stopped earlier, and prepared better. Door. Window. Road. Gob. Then sleep. He woke before the room changed too much. His throat still hurt, but not enough to steal the next word. His arms ached, but he could crawl.

Mana had risen far enough that Appraisal no longer felt like scraping a spoon around the inside of his skull. Better. On the third cycle, he got greedy again and paid for it by waking too heavy to move while Elna told him what a good sleepy boy he was. That was slander! … Accurate slander, but slander nonetheless. Ren adjusted again, and again. Short practice. Sleep. Milk. Appraisal. Sleep. Crawl. Sleep. Sounds. Sleep.

The grind stopped being one long charge into collapse and became a series of smaller thefts from the day. Every nap took time, but every good nap bought back hands, throat, Mana, and focus. Bad naps stole daylight. Good naps sharpened the next attempt into something more. And soon, his persistence was rewarded. [Skill Level Increased: Sleeping Lv. 2 -> Lv. 3] The message arrived right as Elna picked him up from his nap to feed him some more milk.

Ren liked to pretend he looked awfully fierce when she wiped milk from his chin. But he was afraid he might have simply looked 'feerce', like a fluffed up baby. Which, to be fair, he was. Still, the change was there, and very clear. Sleep pulled him under faster when he let it. He came back cleaner when he stopped before complete collapse. It leveled when he cared to position himself just right. Stamina also returned with less dragging ache. Mana no longer crawled upward like a sulking animal.

Even his throat recovered sooner between rounds of goblin, though not soon enough to make the word pleasant. His murder-prevention plan now included tactical naps. Old Ren would have laughed until he pulled something. Baby Ren burped on Elna's sleeve. Research had its humiliations. By midday, he had rules worth keeping. Appraisal before sleep if Mana was there. Sound practice before sleep if his throat had not gone raw. Crawling before sleep if his arms still obeyed. Stop before the body became useless, not after.

Never spend a whole cycle on panic. He still did not know how long he had. But he could spend the unknown better. He could prepare better. He just hoped it would be enough.