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Tales of Vesperia: The Silence of the Dragon-Rider - Part 2, Chapter 1
This is a translation of the Tales of Vesperia novels: The Silence of the Dragon-rider, Judith's story. I am only responsible for translating it, and for any content in ((double parentheses)).
PART 2: THE GREAT CIRCLE
Chapter 1
"--It's a smiling old man....... He's really happy... because he's going to eat a lot of gamol nuts, his favorite."
Judith's words stunned Instructor Dektell. It took her a moment to clear her disbelief off her face and replace it with a smile.
"Well...... Well, well, well! That's exactly right, Judith. That's amazing!" She stepped up to Judith and ruffled her hair approvingly. "But how in the world did you get so good at it......"
Even though you were so terrible at learning it, she wanted to say, but didn't. She was always careful to be considerate of the delicate children in her care.
But the girl herself didn't say anything. She had read into the sphere, and now she was playing with it idly, bored.
Dektell really did wonder what had happened. The instructor found herself suspicious. After two years without a single sign of her talents beginning to blossom -- when even children who had started after her had begun to surpass her -- Judith took a few days off without any contact whatsoever and then came back, suddenly able to easily perform tasks intended for much more advanced children. It would be unreasonable not to be suspicious.
Today Judith had been set to begin her usual exercise, performing the most basic training, but she picked up the sphere and read the hidden figure. Thinking that it might be a lucky guess, Dektell had offered her another sphere, but she had correctly read every last one of them. Her answers were almost too smooth, even when given a more difficult sphere. She could see the simple shapes, and then the more complicated ones, and then even the ones with elaborate mental images, all right in front of the instructor's eyes until she had no choice but to admit. This was the real thing.
She had asked how, but she could see now that Judith was stubbornly not going to answer.
Well, so be it. The instructor shrugged. It wasn't too unusual to have a late bloomer, any more than it was unusual to have children who were precocious and developed early. In that case, it shouldn't be impossible for a student to suddenly come into their own all at once. And her father was such an odd one, it wasn't even too surprising.
What was important was that every child eventually learned to awaken their nageeg. Now Judith's peers -- what was now every child in Temza over the age of six -- had all taken steps towards mastering the nageeg. And she herself had gone from the worst of them to the best of them in one amazing leap. She must feel as if a great burden had been lifted off her shoulders.
"You've come so far, joining the Great Circle can't be far away. Wonderful work," the instructor added approvingly, and then promptly declared that class was over for the day.
Judith left the assembly hall triumphantly. She didn't want to stay in there for one second longer.
Remembering the astonished look on the instructor's face, Judith smiled. In reality she couldn't be offended by it right now, not when all she wanted was to enjoy this moment.
She was finally free from that hellish routine, and she felt exhilarated. Of course, she wasn't done with practice altogether. Until she met the qualifications to join the Great Circle -- which normally took place in a ceremony after becoming an adult at age eighteen -- she would have to continue taking lessons. But right now she didn't care about that at all.
Up until now, she hadn't been able to feel anything from the sphere at all, but today she had been shocked to realize that when she gently directed her consciousness toward the sphere, she received its clear images easily. But she could also tell that it was crude and incredibly simplistic. She couldn't help comparing it to what she felt when she came into contact with Ba'ul's mind.
But thinking like that was better left to the adults. What it all came down to was that she hadn't had the slightest idea whether or not she was even capable of doing it, and now she was full of confidence in her ability.
Still, she was careful not to let it show on her face. Judith knew that her current situation was all thanks to Ba'ul, and she felt a little bit guilty about that. Still, more than anything else, she didn't want everyone to find out about him.
He was a secret. A secret just between herself, her father, and Ba'ul.
Judith thought of the curriculum. She wondered if she would be together with her friends again now that she had graduated to new subject matter. She wondered if there would be a different instructor, and if the time she attended lessons would change. Or maybe she would be in the same classes, at the same time, with the same people and the same teacher.
She found it strange how much she had been looking forward to getting into her new lessons. But it was natural, considering how miserable she'd been before today. And thanks to Ba'ul, that had all changed.
She wanted to see him again soon. But she grimaced a little bit. Her father had told her very firmly that she wasn't to go back up there alone.
It wasn't noon yet. As usual, there were no adults anywhere to be seen. They were mostly in the fields, she thought; working in the terraced farms on Surk Mountain, Baeme Mountain, and Manctenc Mountain. Her friends would all be still in the assembly hall. They almost certainly wouldn't get out before noon.
That was fine, Judith decided quickly. She would talk to them another time. She skipped down the road to her house, heart light.
"Rimran! (I'm home!)" Judith called from the doorway whimsically. She hadn't used the ancient language in some time, but she didn't even notice it as she stepped into the house. Still, she only made it a few steps before stopping again.
The response she was expecting hadn't come.
She knew what that probably meant. Judith headed straight for her father's study.
The first possibility was that Hermes was so buried in his studies that he hadn't heard her. But when she went to check, she didn't see him anywhere.
He had left a note on the desk in Judith's room. She read it, disappointed. It said he'd had to leave suddenly to go to the Fortress.
"I almost wish he'd said he'd gone to Aspio."
By the time he got there it would be evening, so even if he turned right around to come back, he wouldn't be back before tomorrow at the earliest. Even though she'd wanted to tell him about nageeg practice, even though she'd wanted to make him proud...
Judith dropped down into the chair, and for just a moment, allowed herself to feel lonely.
Suddenly she lifted her head, realizing the silver lining to that cloud. She wouldn't be alone if she went to play with a friend, right?
Judith got to her feet and headed out of the house, excited again. Just in case, she checked her surroundings to make sure no one was watching her.
Her destination was Balbusa Mountain.
There was almost no chance that anyone would enter Balbusa Mountain where Ba'ul was, or so Hermes had said. Judith believed him, and she had no worries on that issue. But Hermes had also made it very clear that his daughter wasn't to visit Ba'ul alone.
"Promise me, Judith," had been his exact words, over and over, carving the message into her mind. "You mustn't decide to go see Ba'ul on your own. Other people might see you, and that could put him in danger. That's why we absolutely can't go see him except at night. We need to wait for some time to pass, and then we'll go back together. Okay?"
Although Judith had complained, he would accept nothing less. Since she had already broken a promise to go there in the first place, she hadn't had any choice but to accept it.
But here she was anyway, planning to head down the road to Balbusa. She was already coming up with a story in her mind.
You're the one who was wrong, Dad. I wanted to talk to you, but you were gone. You left me all alone, didn't you?
And now that she thought about it, he'd have to accept what his eight-year-old daughter said. After all, she'd had nothing to do but wonder about him and guess when he'd come back.
She traveled the path that she already knew by heart, and she enjoyed climbing up the path, so it was no hardship at all. Judith got to the cave in what felt like no time at all, without incident.
Ba'ul was awake. He wasn't moving around yet, but he had raised his head expectantly, waiting for her to come join him.
"Aww, I thought I'd get to surprise you," Judith said, pouting cutely, and rushed over to him.
Ba'ul trilled in his throat, eyes partially closed as if smiling. He could tell from the footsteps that it was Judith, he indicated. The mental image of footsteps wasn't literally a sound, though, but rather a combination of various signals that Judith didn't entirely recognize.
"Ba'ul, you have really good ears," Judith said, crouching down next to his head. It made it easier to look directly at his eyes from this level. She rushed on, "You know, today I learned how to use the nageeg! The nageeg is... a lot like what we're using to communicate right now. I was really happy!"
Ba'ul didn't understand why Judith was so excited over something that she seened to feel was natural, but she certainly was excited, and if she was excited, then Ba'ul was happy for her.
Judith smiled broadly, feeling that happiness from him. This -- this was what she'd wanted.
"I wonder why I wasn't able to do it until just now. But you're the reason I learned to do it, Ba'ul. Thank you," she said, leaning in to hug his head. "You could be a great teacher, you know. Ah, but then everyone would want Ba'ul. Mmm, I don't know what to do..."
It was more logic than emotion that was complicating everything, and Ba'ul still didn't understand enough of it. Ba'ul gave up on following along, and waited for Judith to come to a conclusion.
There was a small device that looked like a kettle near Ba'ul. Hermes had established that what sustained Ba'ul was blastia. Or rather, the aer that powered the blastia. This device was gathering the aer from the atmosphere for him.
"The aer around here is quite thin, but it'll all be the same density once it's gathered. So we'll keep collecting it in here," Hermes had explained to her. "It'll take some time to get enough of it, but it's more efficient than bringing dozens of blastia up here for him to drain. He should be able to use it as many times as he needs."
He had also talked about how he had rigged the device and the nature of the aer, but all that Judith understood was that it would allow Ba'ul to eat.
Hermes hadn't been able to reach out to Ba'ul yet. Ba'ul couldn't sense his will like Judith's, and when he reached out to him, a strange barrier prevented him from touching Hermes's mind. Everything that Ba'ul knew about Hermes, he knew because Judith had told him.
But Ba'ul still liked Hermes. Hermes had allowed him to feed from his tiny spring. Even though the man was much smaller and weaker than Ba'ul in appearance, Ba'ul felt that he must be a great person.
Just as Hermes had suspected, the amount of aer scraped together by the device wasn't quite enough to heal him, but he wasn't dying anymore either. Ba'ul was grateful, and slowly little by little his injuries were healing, thanks to him.
"I hope you get better soon."
Ba'ul let out a little sound. Soon. Soon he would be able to swim again.
"Swim? But you fly, don't you? Yeah, that's right, or else you wouldn't have been able to get up here."
Judith stood up, and Ba'ul lifted his head to see her under his tufts of fur as she scrambled up onto his back.
"I want to see! You'll show me, won't you, Ba'ul?"
She sprawled over his back, settling down, and before long she quieted, her breathing easing into sleep. Ba'ul yawned, or made a sound that was like yawning for him, and closed his eyes, following her example and settling in for a nap.
His eyes drifted over his surroundings, but he detected no sign of anyone coming.
It was going to be a peaceful afternoon.
Two months felt like they flew by.
In that time, Judith graduated completely from nageeg training, basking in Fent's stunned response to the news.
She was vaguely aware of what Hermes had told her about going to see Ba'ul alone. But no matter how many times she repeated it to herself, she never stopped going. The way Judith felt when she talked to Ba'ul was more important.
She didn't want to be punished or grounded. But she and Hermes both approved of Ba'ul equally. Although Hermes had only seen Ba'ul two or three times, he had developed faith in Ba'ul's intelligence.
And while she was disobeying him, he was at the Fortress, focused on his studies. As a researcher, Hermes was always interested in staying in the Fortress just a little longer.
In the end, Hermes had tacitly given her permission by saying she should only go at night.
With her father around she would only be able to see Ba'ul infrequently, so his absence was convenient.
Meanwhile, Judith and Ba'ul were growing closer and closer. Ever since that first hazy, unclear image, they had made rapid progress in communicating their thoughts to each other. They were of different species, and they still didn't understand each other perfectly, but even so they had a real, concrete connection.
Ba'ul had still not let Judith know that he thought of her as his kin. He was a little worried, and didn't want to cast a shadow over their relationship.
Besides, he had realized something. It could be that Judith's nageeg and his own ability weren't the same thing after all. Not only could Ba'ul receive her will, he could project his own clearly. But it seemed like Judith's abilities were primarily one-sided, reading what he projected, and she seemed to have no particular ability to send her own thoughts. Still, they certainly had no problem conversing in their limited way.
Ba'ul thought a lot about that while he couldn't move. About the school where Judith and the others learned. About how that had helped him get closer to Judith's heart, too.
The collecting device that Hermes had left by his side continued to work away, even in his absence, providing Ba'ul with aer. Ba'ul didn't let even a bit of it go to waste, striving to recover faster.
And then the day finally came.
The day when Ba'ul woke up with a strange feeling like an itch. His energy had returned, and his body cried out for exercise. Ba'ul tried shaking himself. He'd spent so long lying flat that his body had grown stiff, but other than that there wasn't a single problem left. He cried out happily, knowing that what he'd finally waited for was here, but he didn't dare do anything more than that. So he waited patiently.
Judith didn't come that day.
But he intended to keep his promise.
"The elders have given permission for you to undertake the adulthood ceremony. Congratulations, Judith," the instructor told her, smiling warmly as usual.
Generally, Kritya didn't meet the criteria for the adulthood ceremony where they joined the Great Circle until they were eighteen years old. It took time for them to achieve the criteria of mastering the nageeg, and joining the Great Circle was itself not mandatory, but a privilege, requiring the full consent and agreement of the person joining it.
"You have achieved every qualification required to join. But there's absolutely no rush, do you understand? You should speak with your family first, and give it some thought, and tell us only when you're sure you're prepared."
Judith was finally completely through with her nageeg training. It was an amazing achievement for someone only eight years old, and one that was unprecedented. The elders hadn't seen any problem in her skipping the next ten years -- as long as someday she joined the Circle.
For her part, Judith was ecstatic. Joining the Great Circle meant becoming an adult for the Krityans of Temza. That was all an eight-year-old girl was interested in.
"I'll talk to Dad about it," she answered lightly as she turned to leave.
Hermes was in a good mood. After years of research, he had finally had a breakthrough. There were still some things that he had left to investigate, but he'd overcome the biggest hurdles.
He wanted to drink to his victory, but first he needed to come back after secluding himself in the Fortress for so long without returning. So he had left the victory toasts to his engineers -- blastia technicians who worked for the Empire -- and returned to Temza.
Still, he couldn't suppress his excitement. It might not even be an exaggeration to say it was the kind of achievement that came once in a thousand years! Without even requiring a substantial amount of financial aid, he finally had something material that he could present to his sponsor.
Judith was waiting for him when he arrived home. From a glance at her face, he knew that she had something she was barely holding in something that she wanted to say. She was trying to suppress her grin, as if she was afraid to let down her guard even a little.
"I'm home!"
"Welcome back! Umm, Dad, you know what!"
Hermes pretended to be curious, but confused, as if he couldn't think of what it might be. Children liked to be able to surprise adults, so he had to give her that surprise. That was how it went.
"I'm totally done with my nageeg training!"
"Done? By totally, do you mean -- totally? With all of it, nothing left? Your instructors said so? .......That's incredible. I can't believe it."
He really was stunned. He'd never heard of anyone finishing their entire nageeg training by the age of eight. But beneath his surprise was a strain of unease.
Hermes knew that it was after Judith came into contact with Ba'ul that she had suddenly been able to master nageeg. That had been an unexpected windfall, but he had never suspected it would be so extreme, all at once.
Would he have realized it, if he'd been here? He felt trapped between a rock and a hard place with his research and his personal life. This feeling of being trapped was unhappily familiar.
At any rate, he thought, even if he didn't fully understand Ba'ul, Hermes believed that he wasn't dangerous or evil, and he still believed it. But what could these changes in Judith mean? Could he really welcome them naively? His mind struggled with the possibilities--
"Dad?"
"Hmm? Ah, umm, sorry, sorry. What is it?"
"Well, that's when the instructor said that since I don't need any more training, I can join the Great Circle anytime I like!"
"......!" Hermes reeled from this new shock like he'd been struck.
When he thought about it, it seemed so natural that those two things would go together. Still, while he'd known that it would happen eventually, this...
Hermes realized that he was trembling, but Judith had already sensed something awry.
"...I guess you think I should wait until I'm older."
"No, it's not that." Hermes tried to calm down, self-conscious as he stopped his trembling. After a short pause he started talking without thinking. "Ah, just forget about what I said. It's not like I think that joining the Great Circle would be a bad thing, naturally. It's extremely natural for Krityans to become a member of the Circle. The problem is that it's so hard to judge when that would be appropriate. In the long run, it's really more that you need more experience--"
".......I don't get it," Judith said, stiffly, bringing Hermes to the brilliant realization that he'd misstepped badly.
Judith had shared her amazing achievement with him. She couldn't possibly have expected anything but admiration. That would have been the proper response. But Hermes had only seen it in his own overly serious terms. How could he explain all of that to an eight-year-old girl? He had been completely off the mark.
He slowly unwound, which revealed what he'd been holding so tightly in his hand.
"What's that?"
"It's a thermo blastia. Or, well, it's only the body. The core is missing. The body is the simpler mechanism. So it's not quite a real blastia." Previously, Hermes had brought home useless objects that he'd used in his studies at the Fortress and turned hem into decorations for the house.
"Hmm....."
"If you're interested, you can have it."
"Mmm, thanks," Judith responded distantly. She took the blastia and went into her room.
Left alone, Hermes turned to bang his head into the wall.
The high spirits from his successful research were thoroughly banished. But he was definitely still in the mood for a good, strong drink.
PART 2: THE GREAT CIRCLE
Chapter 1
"--It's a smiling old man....... He's really happy... because he's going to eat a lot of gamol nuts, his favorite."
Judith's words stunned Instructor Dektell. It took her a moment to clear her disbelief off her face and replace it with a smile.
"Well...... Well, well, well! That's exactly right, Judith. That's amazing!" She stepped up to Judith and ruffled her hair approvingly. "But how in the world did you get so good at it......"
Even though you were so terrible at learning it, she wanted to say, but didn't. She was always careful to be considerate of the delicate children in her care.
But the girl herself didn't say anything. She had read into the sphere, and now she was playing with it idly, bored.
Dektell really did wonder what had happened. The instructor found herself suspicious. After two years without a single sign of her talents beginning to blossom -- when even children who had started after her had begun to surpass her -- Judith took a few days off without any contact whatsoever and then came back, suddenly able to easily perform tasks intended for much more advanced children. It would be unreasonable not to be suspicious.
Today Judith had been set to begin her usual exercise, performing the most basic training, but she picked up the sphere and read the hidden figure. Thinking that it might be a lucky guess, Dektell had offered her another sphere, but she had correctly read every last one of them. Her answers were almost too smooth, even when given a more difficult sphere. She could see the simple shapes, and then the more complicated ones, and then even the ones with elaborate mental images, all right in front of the instructor's eyes until she had no choice but to admit. This was the real thing.
She had asked how, but she could see now that Judith was stubbornly not going to answer.
Well, so be it. The instructor shrugged. It wasn't too unusual to have a late bloomer, any more than it was unusual to have children who were precocious and developed early. In that case, it shouldn't be impossible for a student to suddenly come into their own all at once. And her father was such an odd one, it wasn't even too surprising.
What was important was that every child eventually learned to awaken their nageeg. Now Judith's peers -- what was now every child in Temza over the age of six -- had all taken steps towards mastering the nageeg. And she herself had gone from the worst of them to the best of them in one amazing leap. She must feel as if a great burden had been lifted off her shoulders.
"You've come so far, joining the Great Circle can't be far away. Wonderful work," the instructor added approvingly, and then promptly declared that class was over for the day.
Judith left the assembly hall triumphantly. She didn't want to stay in there for one second longer.
Remembering the astonished look on the instructor's face, Judith smiled. In reality she couldn't be offended by it right now, not when all she wanted was to enjoy this moment.
She was finally free from that hellish routine, and she felt exhilarated. Of course, she wasn't done with practice altogether. Until she met the qualifications to join the Great Circle -- which normally took place in a ceremony after becoming an adult at age eighteen -- she would have to continue taking lessons. But right now she didn't care about that at all.
Up until now, she hadn't been able to feel anything from the sphere at all, but today she had been shocked to realize that when she gently directed her consciousness toward the sphere, she received its clear images easily. But she could also tell that it was crude and incredibly simplistic. She couldn't help comparing it to what she felt when she came into contact with Ba'ul's mind.
But thinking like that was better left to the adults. What it all came down to was that she hadn't had the slightest idea whether or not she was even capable of doing it, and now she was full of confidence in her ability.
Still, she was careful not to let it show on her face. Judith knew that her current situation was all thanks to Ba'ul, and she felt a little bit guilty about that. Still, more than anything else, she didn't want everyone to find out about him.
He was a secret. A secret just between herself, her father, and Ba'ul.
Judith thought of the curriculum. She wondered if she would be together with her friends again now that she had graduated to new subject matter. She wondered if there would be a different instructor, and if the time she attended lessons would change. Or maybe she would be in the same classes, at the same time, with the same people and the same teacher.
She found it strange how much she had been looking forward to getting into her new lessons. But it was natural, considering how miserable she'd been before today. And thanks to Ba'ul, that had all changed.
She wanted to see him again soon. But she grimaced a little bit. Her father had told her very firmly that she wasn't to go back up there alone.
It wasn't noon yet. As usual, there were no adults anywhere to be seen. They were mostly in the fields, she thought; working in the terraced farms on Surk Mountain, Baeme Mountain, and Manctenc Mountain. Her friends would all be still in the assembly hall. They almost certainly wouldn't get out before noon.
That was fine, Judith decided quickly. She would talk to them another time. She skipped down the road to her house, heart light.
"Rimran! (I'm home!)" Judith called from the doorway whimsically. She hadn't used the ancient language in some time, but she didn't even notice it as she stepped into the house. Still, she only made it a few steps before stopping again.
The response she was expecting hadn't come.
She knew what that probably meant. Judith headed straight for her father's study.
The first possibility was that Hermes was so buried in his studies that he hadn't heard her. But when she went to check, she didn't see him anywhere.
He had left a note on the desk in Judith's room. She read it, disappointed. It said he'd had to leave suddenly to go to the Fortress.
"I almost wish he'd said he'd gone to Aspio."
By the time he got there it would be evening, so even if he turned right around to come back, he wouldn't be back before tomorrow at the earliest. Even though she'd wanted to tell him about nageeg practice, even though she'd wanted to make him proud...
Judith dropped down into the chair, and for just a moment, allowed herself to feel lonely.
Suddenly she lifted her head, realizing the silver lining to that cloud. She wouldn't be alone if she went to play with a friend, right?
Judith got to her feet and headed out of the house, excited again. Just in case, she checked her surroundings to make sure no one was watching her.
Her destination was Balbusa Mountain.
There was almost no chance that anyone would enter Balbusa Mountain where Ba'ul was, or so Hermes had said. Judith believed him, and she had no worries on that issue. But Hermes had also made it very clear that his daughter wasn't to visit Ba'ul alone.
"Promise me, Judith," had been his exact words, over and over, carving the message into her mind. "You mustn't decide to go see Ba'ul on your own. Other people might see you, and that could put him in danger. That's why we absolutely can't go see him except at night. We need to wait for some time to pass, and then we'll go back together. Okay?"
Although Judith had complained, he would accept nothing less. Since she had already broken a promise to go there in the first place, she hadn't had any choice but to accept it.
But here she was anyway, planning to head down the road to Balbusa. She was already coming up with a story in her mind.
You're the one who was wrong, Dad. I wanted to talk to you, but you were gone. You left me all alone, didn't you?
And now that she thought about it, he'd have to accept what his eight-year-old daughter said. After all, she'd had nothing to do but wonder about him and guess when he'd come back.
She traveled the path that she already knew by heart, and she enjoyed climbing up the path, so it was no hardship at all. Judith got to the cave in what felt like no time at all, without incident.
Ba'ul was awake. He wasn't moving around yet, but he had raised his head expectantly, waiting for her to come join him.
"Aww, I thought I'd get to surprise you," Judith said, pouting cutely, and rushed over to him.
Ba'ul trilled in his throat, eyes partially closed as if smiling. He could tell from the footsteps that it was Judith, he indicated. The mental image of footsteps wasn't literally a sound, though, but rather a combination of various signals that Judith didn't entirely recognize.
"Ba'ul, you have really good ears," Judith said, crouching down next to his head. It made it easier to look directly at his eyes from this level. She rushed on, "You know, today I learned how to use the nageeg! The nageeg is... a lot like what we're using to communicate right now. I was really happy!"
Ba'ul didn't understand why Judith was so excited over something that she seened to feel was natural, but she certainly was excited, and if she was excited, then Ba'ul was happy for her.
Judith smiled broadly, feeling that happiness from him. This -- this was what she'd wanted.
"I wonder why I wasn't able to do it until just now. But you're the reason I learned to do it, Ba'ul. Thank you," she said, leaning in to hug his head. "You could be a great teacher, you know. Ah, but then everyone would want Ba'ul. Mmm, I don't know what to do..."
It was more logic than emotion that was complicating everything, and Ba'ul still didn't understand enough of it. Ba'ul gave up on following along, and waited for Judith to come to a conclusion.
There was a small device that looked like a kettle near Ba'ul. Hermes had established that what sustained Ba'ul was blastia. Or rather, the aer that powered the blastia. This device was gathering the aer from the atmosphere for him.
"The aer around here is quite thin, but it'll all be the same density once it's gathered. So we'll keep collecting it in here," Hermes had explained to her. "It'll take some time to get enough of it, but it's more efficient than bringing dozens of blastia up here for him to drain. He should be able to use it as many times as he needs."
He had also talked about how he had rigged the device and the nature of the aer, but all that Judith understood was that it would allow Ba'ul to eat.
Hermes hadn't been able to reach out to Ba'ul yet. Ba'ul couldn't sense his will like Judith's, and when he reached out to him, a strange barrier prevented him from touching Hermes's mind. Everything that Ba'ul knew about Hermes, he knew because Judith had told him.
But Ba'ul still liked Hermes. Hermes had allowed him to feed from his tiny spring. Even though the man was much smaller and weaker than Ba'ul in appearance, Ba'ul felt that he must be a great person.
Just as Hermes had suspected, the amount of aer scraped together by the device wasn't quite enough to heal him, but he wasn't dying anymore either. Ba'ul was grateful, and slowly little by little his injuries were healing, thanks to him.
"I hope you get better soon."
Ba'ul let out a little sound. Soon. Soon he would be able to swim again.
"Swim? But you fly, don't you? Yeah, that's right, or else you wouldn't have been able to get up here."
Judith stood up, and Ba'ul lifted his head to see her under his tufts of fur as she scrambled up onto his back.
"I want to see! You'll show me, won't you, Ba'ul?"
She sprawled over his back, settling down, and before long she quieted, her breathing easing into sleep. Ba'ul yawned, or made a sound that was like yawning for him, and closed his eyes, following her example and settling in for a nap.
His eyes drifted over his surroundings, but he detected no sign of anyone coming.
It was going to be a peaceful afternoon.
Two months felt like they flew by.
In that time, Judith graduated completely from nageeg training, basking in Fent's stunned response to the news.
She was vaguely aware of what Hermes had told her about going to see Ba'ul alone. But no matter how many times she repeated it to herself, she never stopped going. The way Judith felt when she talked to Ba'ul was more important.
She didn't want to be punished or grounded. But she and Hermes both approved of Ba'ul equally. Although Hermes had only seen Ba'ul two or three times, he had developed faith in Ba'ul's intelligence.
And while she was disobeying him, he was at the Fortress, focused on his studies. As a researcher, Hermes was always interested in staying in the Fortress just a little longer.
In the end, Hermes had tacitly given her permission by saying she should only go at night.
With her father around she would only be able to see Ba'ul infrequently, so his absence was convenient.
Meanwhile, Judith and Ba'ul were growing closer and closer. Ever since that first hazy, unclear image, they had made rapid progress in communicating their thoughts to each other. They were of different species, and they still didn't understand each other perfectly, but even so they had a real, concrete connection.
Ba'ul had still not let Judith know that he thought of her as his kin. He was a little worried, and didn't want to cast a shadow over their relationship.
Besides, he had realized something. It could be that Judith's nageeg and his own ability weren't the same thing after all. Not only could Ba'ul receive her will, he could project his own clearly. But it seemed like Judith's abilities were primarily one-sided, reading what he projected, and she seemed to have no particular ability to send her own thoughts. Still, they certainly had no problem conversing in their limited way.
Ba'ul thought a lot about that while he couldn't move. About the school where Judith and the others learned. About how that had helped him get closer to Judith's heart, too.
The collecting device that Hermes had left by his side continued to work away, even in his absence, providing Ba'ul with aer. Ba'ul didn't let even a bit of it go to waste, striving to recover faster.
And then the day finally came.
The day when Ba'ul woke up with a strange feeling like an itch. His energy had returned, and his body cried out for exercise. Ba'ul tried shaking himself. He'd spent so long lying flat that his body had grown stiff, but other than that there wasn't a single problem left. He cried out happily, knowing that what he'd finally waited for was here, but he didn't dare do anything more than that. So he waited patiently.
Judith didn't come that day.
But he intended to keep his promise.
"The elders have given permission for you to undertake the adulthood ceremony. Congratulations, Judith," the instructor told her, smiling warmly as usual.
Generally, Kritya didn't meet the criteria for the adulthood ceremony where they joined the Great Circle until they were eighteen years old. It took time for them to achieve the criteria of mastering the nageeg, and joining the Great Circle was itself not mandatory, but a privilege, requiring the full consent and agreement of the person joining it.
"You have achieved every qualification required to join. But there's absolutely no rush, do you understand? You should speak with your family first, and give it some thought, and tell us only when you're sure you're prepared."
Judith was finally completely through with her nageeg training. It was an amazing achievement for someone only eight years old, and one that was unprecedented. The elders hadn't seen any problem in her skipping the next ten years -- as long as someday she joined the Circle.
For her part, Judith was ecstatic. Joining the Great Circle meant becoming an adult for the Krityans of Temza. That was all an eight-year-old girl was interested in.
"I'll talk to Dad about it," she answered lightly as she turned to leave.
Hermes was in a good mood. After years of research, he had finally had a breakthrough. There were still some things that he had left to investigate, but he'd overcome the biggest hurdles.
He wanted to drink to his victory, but first he needed to come back after secluding himself in the Fortress for so long without returning. So he had left the victory toasts to his engineers -- blastia technicians who worked for the Empire -- and returned to Temza.
Still, he couldn't suppress his excitement. It might not even be an exaggeration to say it was the kind of achievement that came once in a thousand years! Without even requiring a substantial amount of financial aid, he finally had something material that he could present to his sponsor.
Judith was waiting for him when he arrived home. From a glance at her face, he knew that she had something she was barely holding in something that she wanted to say. She was trying to suppress her grin, as if she was afraid to let down her guard even a little.
"I'm home!"
"Welcome back! Umm, Dad, you know what!"
Hermes pretended to be curious, but confused, as if he couldn't think of what it might be. Children liked to be able to surprise adults, so he had to give her that surprise. That was how it went.
"I'm totally done with my nageeg training!"
"Done? By totally, do you mean -- totally? With all of it, nothing left? Your instructors said so? .......That's incredible. I can't believe it."
He really was stunned. He'd never heard of anyone finishing their entire nageeg training by the age of eight. But beneath his surprise was a strain of unease.
Hermes knew that it was after Judith came into contact with Ba'ul that she had suddenly been able to master nageeg. That had been an unexpected windfall, but he had never suspected it would be so extreme, all at once.
Would he have realized it, if he'd been here? He felt trapped between a rock and a hard place with his research and his personal life. This feeling of being trapped was unhappily familiar.
At any rate, he thought, even if he didn't fully understand Ba'ul, Hermes believed that he wasn't dangerous or evil, and he still believed it. But what could these changes in Judith mean? Could he really welcome them naively? His mind struggled with the possibilities--
"Dad?"
"Hmm? Ah, umm, sorry, sorry. What is it?"
"Well, that's when the instructor said that since I don't need any more training, I can join the Great Circle anytime I like!"
"......!" Hermes reeled from this new shock like he'd been struck.
When he thought about it, it seemed so natural that those two things would go together. Still, while he'd known that it would happen eventually, this...
Hermes realized that he was trembling, but Judith had already sensed something awry.
"...I guess you think I should wait until I'm older."
"No, it's not that." Hermes tried to calm down, self-conscious as he stopped his trembling. After a short pause he started talking without thinking. "Ah, just forget about what I said. It's not like I think that joining the Great Circle would be a bad thing, naturally. It's extremely natural for Krityans to become a member of the Circle. The problem is that it's so hard to judge when that would be appropriate. In the long run, it's really more that you need more experience--"
".......I don't get it," Judith said, stiffly, bringing Hermes to the brilliant realization that he'd misstepped badly.
Judith had shared her amazing achievement with him. She couldn't possibly have expected anything but admiration. That would have been the proper response. But Hermes had only seen it in his own overly serious terms. How could he explain all of that to an eight-year-old girl? He had been completely off the mark.
He slowly unwound, which revealed what he'd been holding so tightly in his hand.
"What's that?"
"It's a thermo blastia. Or, well, it's only the body. The core is missing. The body is the simpler mechanism. So it's not quite a real blastia." Previously, Hermes had brought home useless objects that he'd used in his studies at the Fortress and turned hem into decorations for the house.
"Hmm....."
"If you're interested, you can have it."
"Mmm, thanks," Judith responded distantly. She took the blastia and went into her room.
Left alone, Hermes turned to bang his head into the wall.
The high spirits from his successful research were thoroughly banished. But he was definitely still in the mood for a good, strong drink.
((Editor's notes: Two months? Wow. Just. Wow. No wonder Judith resents his trips to the Fortress. What eight-year-old doing miserably in school and ostracized from her peers would want to be on her own for two months?? Though I do feel badly for Hermes, too. He doesn't want to fail so hard, he just does. :( ))
((In other news: Rimran is our first clearly-defined word in the ancient language. The meaning is clearly indicated next to "rimran"))
((Credits: Love still goes torainfall for getting me the novels for the holidays and for helping me with a few confusing bits.))
Changelog ;;
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Judith and Bual being so attached to each other is so cute and how she's thinking as far as not wanting to share him while Hermes is afraid of something worse. I feel bad for the both of them near the end when everything just seemed for the better but then got bad again.
Of course from how this chapter ended I'm getting an even worse feeling on what might happen next. <_< Thanks for sharing. =)
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Glad you enjoyed!
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...And Ba'ul is terribly adorable in this. I mean, I just want to huggle him. ;;
Loving the translation. This is so much fun to read. <3
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I'm glad you're enjoying!