The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2
Chapter 186

Part 26

There was a lively conversation as those who had been in the time-bubble filled the rest in on what had happen within it, while those who had remained outside reciprocated with news of the latest happenings on Kellaran and in the new training programs.

The Volunteers related how their plans to form eleven households with eleven group relationships had not turned out as they'd envisioned. Instead it seemed that once they were committed to loving each other, being lovers, and raising their children together, all of them had become much closer than they had already been. Their loves and relationships had spilled over between their households, perhaps triggered by the closer, loving relationship they all now shared with Mark. At this point, the bonds between some of the Volunteers were stronger than others, but there was some truth to the idea that all eighty- seven of them, including Mark, Talia, and Alilia, shared a single group marriage.

Upon hearing that, Fire had asked with a giggle; "So does that mean we should consider all The Hilian Volunteers to be our co-parents too?"

"You certainly can if you want to." Zayobod told her with a grin. "But I'm not sure it would really be that wise, since it's debatable whether we're really any more mature than you three, even after we've been parents for the last dozen years! Your accomplishments since you left the time-bubble are entirely astonishing, not least being the change you've made in our children."

"More mature than you?" Val laughed. "Some ways yes, some ways no. We like to think that we're intellectualists; we believe that our intellect should guide our behavior, rather than our emotions, and our intellects are good enough to make mature decisions. But we do still feel the emotions and instincts of children our age, and we're not perfect at being intellectualists."

"None are!" Yazadril chuckled. "I've been an intellectualist for eight millennia, and I still occasionally find myself behaving emotionally in ways that I wouldn't have chosen intellectually."

"Hmm. I never thought of it in those terms." Povon mused. "It's certain that I wasn't an intellectualist before I met Mark, and I am now, and there's no doubt that I'm better for it. Though like most, I'm often not that good at it. But are we really intellectualists? I use my intellect to decide what I should do, but the goal is still happiness and emotional fulfillment."

"Exactly." Mark nodded. "We use our emotions to decide what we want over the long term, and use our intellects to decide how to achieve it in the short term. Our intellects are just a tool, like our physical strength. They don't really provide any motivation for our behavior."

As they were talking, Kimran had made his way up from the lower lawns, pausing a few times along the way to give a quick hug to his mother and a few others of his co-parents. He was both one of the largest and one of the most powerful of the forty-four, which made him one of the more dominant of the group.

"Excuse me." he said with a smile after reaching the head table and waiting for a pause in the conversation. "Brother, Sisters, we found a lot of diamonds on Hiliani, just like you did, mostly in the same ground you found yours in. These are the best three, and we want you to have them."

He placed a handful of fine gold chain with the stones glinting among them on the table equidistant between Six, Val, and Fire, and let the three choose for themselves as he continued. "They're all pretty equal in value; one's a bit bigger but has a bit less clarity, and one has a tiny flaw, but you have to look at 'em pretty closely to tell which is which. We cut and polished them ourselves, we made the chain from gold bar stock and did the mounting, and spelled it all to make them as indestructible as possible, but we'd done all that before. This morning before breakfast we charged 'em up with as much of our power as they'l hold, and we put our best spells in 'em. Our stuff isn't all complex and weird like yours, but we've had some good creative and innovative moments over the years, and we've been developing some of them for a long time.

"And, we put a little message in them. Whenever you put them on, you'll hear all of us quietly say; thank you."

"Why thank you, to all of you!" Val grinned as she put hers on.

Fire looked to the forty-three faces smiling up at her from the lowest lawn, and asked Kimran with a smile; "I assume they're all listening psionicly? If so it's well done; I can't detect it at all."

"Not psionicly." Kimran told her with a slightly smug smile. "They're using Felia's Listener, which just focuses sound from a bigger area onto the listener's ears. You can use it any time you have line-of-sight to the target, and sometimes when you don't, up to several kilometers away. It's a lot stealthier than using psionics because there's no way for the target to know they're being listened to. It's one of the spells in the diamonds, so you can try it if you want."

"Well thank you, to all of you." Six told them as he put his on. The chains had no clasps, but were easily long enough to go over their heads. "It's very considerate of all of you, and very nice."

"You deserve a lot more than that." Kimran stated, a bit ruefully. "You were right, we were stuck in a way of thinking that we should've grown out of when we were five, but we hung onto it because we're all too damn stubborn for our own good. We were ungrateful brats with no honor, and you fixed all that. It was no fun at the time, but it sure feels good to be past it. And to see the truth of things."

"It was no trouble." Fire grinned. "It had to be done, and I for one had a lot of fun doing it!"

Kimran grinned at her as he waved a hand toward the three necklaces. "How appropriate. Six picked the bigger one that's a bit more opaque, and you picked the one with the tiny flaw." "Appropriate indeed!" Fire laughed. "Val picked the one that's just perfect! She's too nice to have enjoyed yesterday as much as me, but then she's always been the charming one." "Better make that; 'almost always'!" Alilia chuckled.

"Anyway, thank you, all of you." Fire told them as she put her necklace on and heard the message. "And you're welcome." she added with a grin as she started auditing the spells the stone contained.

"We'll start your new training program as soon as we're done eating." Six announced as he buttered a sweet and spicy bread roll. "As you learned from us yesterday, the big exercises have been pretty horrific lately, and you guys are pretty unprepared for what it's gonna be like. You're twelve, so you have the right to refuse to take part, but you're not going to. The exercises are just psionic and they're over in less than a minute in real time, and you will fight. Besides, we never know when the war is going to be real, and not an exercise. I can't picture you choosing to not fight when people are really dying and you have enough power to make a big difference.

"One thing is certain; courage is not your problem, you're almost foolhardy in your attitude toward the risk of dangerous situations. You're just undisciplined, and you haven't really explored the limits of what you're capable of, especially as a group.

"Sometimes a number becomes a name, as I well know, and sometimes a number becomes a title that transcends it's original meaning.

"The Six of Hilia, for example. Another good one is The Ninety-Nine, rulers of Draconia.

"The Sixty-Six of Hilia, winners of the tournament held here for Father's seventeenth birthday, are already well-known as one of the best military units of their size on Kellaran. Their fame and their pride in their name is such that they've kept it as the name of their unit, even though they now number one hundred and twenty-eight, having accepted the finest of their applicants into their ranks. This has led some of the other forces to mistakenly refer to them as The Sixty-Sixth, thinking it's short for The Sixty-Sixth Hilian Platoon or some such thing, but that's beside the point.☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐

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