“When is your appointment with Farris tomorrow?” was the first thing that Felix said to him as they met up on Friday morning.

  “I don’t know. He hasn’t massaged me yet. Probably only will tomorrow, the slimy bastard. Why?”

  “My family’s coming here tomorrow and you guys are all going to be there to meet them.” He pointed with both index fingers at each of them in turn.

  “I thought that they were already coming today?” Sarah asked.

  “They’re coming to New Alexandria today. But they’ll only get here in the afternoon, so they’ll probably be tired after checking into their hotel and everything. So for today, I’m only heading out to meet them for dinner. Tomorrow they’re coming here and we’re going to spend the entire day together.”

  “The entire day?” Sam said. “That sounds exhausting.”

  “You don’t have to be there for all of it, don’t worry.”

  “I didn’t think I was. I just was talking in general. A whole day with your family? I guess most family vacations are like that, but still, I commend you for it.”

  “I’ll take it. Even though I don’t think it deserves any commendation. So you’ll let me know about tomorrow as soon as Farris tells you, yeah? Or better yet, just send him a message now. I want to know now so I could better plan ahead.”

  “You want me to send a private message to the Supreme Commander of The Allied Sarechi-Terran Forces in the East in order so that you’ll know when to make plans with your family?”

  “Yes. Funny joke, ha ha. Now do it.”

  “Yeah, alright. But whatever you decide, I need at least a couple of hours of heads up. I need to mentally prepare myself before I interact with any children.”

  “Children?! Theresa’s twelve.”

  “I don’t understand. Do I not make enough jokes about you guys being kids for you to definitely know that I consider a twelve-year-old a child?”

  “It’s going to be fine, Sam.” Sarah laid her hand on his shoulder for comfort while trying to hide her giggling.

  “It’d better be.” Felix pointed at Sam threateningly. “You make me look good in front of my family, Sam. They’re all looking forward to meet you.”

  “Why? What do they care about me?” Sam asked.

  Yvessa laughed. “You never met any of your sister’s friends? Your parents never cared about meeting yours?”

  “I don’t want to get into that.”

  “Oh shit, Sam. I’m sorry.”

  “What? No. Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t… I wasn’t thinking about that. Really, it’s not that, it’s fine. You were actually sort of on the ball. I pretty much consider the social sphere of friends and the social sphere of family as two different, not connected spheres. And… well… when you asked it like that, the first thought that came to mind was… it’s not a joke per se, it’s just a stupid thought.”

  “What?” Sarah asked, still visibly worried.

  “It’s nothing, just a silly memory that might not even be real. But when you asked me about interacting with my sister and her friends, the first thing that came to mind was her kicking me out of my room so she could hang out with them in there.”

  “Kicking you out of your room?” Felix asked. “Did you sleep in the same room?”

  “No, it’s… look, I’m making it sound way worse and weirder than it really is. Can we just drop it? Let’s just say that, unlike Felix’s sisters, I never cared about the people my sister was friends with. Every family’s different, you know. The important thing is that I’ll behave myself in front of Felix’s sisters.”

  “Why wouldn’t you behave myself?”

  “I wouldn’t. I mean, I would behave myself. But I don’t like kids; I don’t like interacting with them, and I have social anxiety. So I’m worried about interacting with them. That’s all there is to it.”

  “That’s definitely not all there is to it.”

  “And we can dig into that while working out, or better yet, while eating. Can we go please?”

  “Did you send that text yet?”

  “Hm… right.” Sam nodded and took out his phone.

  To Felix’s credit, he waited until breakfast to broach the topic again, although to take credit away from him, Sam spent the entirety of the workout with headphones on and they were mostly split up anyway. “So about kids…” Felix nudged him after watching him like a hawk until he finished with his first bite.

  “My God, you’re annoying. Yvessa, want to switch seats with me?”

  “How is that going to help you?” she asked.

  “You’re right. I need to switch tables.”

  “No one’s switching any tables,” Sarah said with a laugh.

  “Tell him to stop interrogating me, then.”

  “That like asking the kettle to tell the pot to stop being black,” Felix said.

  “He makes a good point.” Sarah nodded. “Also, I want to hear what you have against kids as well.”

  “We already talked about this…” he moaned. “Me and Yvessa hate kids. You guys like them. What’s more to say?”

  “I don’t hate kids.” Yvessa crossed her hands. “We were talking about not all people loving their siblings. I never said I hated kids.”

  “She’s right,” Sarah said. “You’re the only one who made that claim back then.”

  “Fine, whatever, my point still stands. We already had this conversation. You already know why I hate kids.”

  “But there’s a difference between hating kids, and not wanting to interact with them because of that. To fearing the interaction with them,” Felix mulled. “Wouldn’t you agree, Sarah?”

  “I would,” she said. “Furthermore, I think that in Sam’s case, the difference is even more acute. And, dare I say it, his reluctance to interact with children paints him in a much less negative light than his attitude towards children as a whole.”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “Screw you. As long as I don’t let it interfere with the way I interact with people, my attitude towards children is, at worst, morally neutral.”

  “You just proved my whole point.” Sarah smiled triumphantly.

  “Good for you. Can we please drop the subject already?”

  Felix held up his hands. “Fine, fine. As you wish. I’m sure you’ll be on your best behavior tomorrow anyway. Besides, if you’ll really suffer, I’ll make some excuse for you to leave early. Don’t worry about it. Or… you know, if you don’t want to show up in the first place. You don’t have to, yeah? I was just pulling your leg. I’m not going to force you into a situation you don’t want to be in… At least not anytime soon.” He winked with a smile.

  Sam half-smiled in return. “Nah. That’s alright. I’m good for the one appearance. And if I want to take that excuse for an early leave, I’ll let you know by making a reference that you can actually understand.”

  Sarah smiled. “Lucky they don’t know you, otherwise that would be a dead giveaway that something’s wrong with you.”

  Felix laughed. “Just make sure to not be yourself too much by giving me too much credit or you’ll end up with a reference that I still don’t get and no excuse to leave early.”

  “Don’t worry,” Sam said. “I have a long-standing habit of fabricating an arsenal of modern-popular references when I need to be fake with people. I’m not going to be the reason for not getting an excuse to leave early.”

  “So is Sam the only one who gets that benefit?” Yvessa asked. “Or can I have the possibility of an excuse as well?”

  “I thought you didn’t have any problem with children,” Felix said.

  “I said I didn’t hate them, not that I particularly liked them. Don’t worry, I’m mostly joking. Unlike Sam, I don’t consider teenagers to still be children.”

  “Mostly joking?”

  “Eh… I also don’t particularly like teenagers. Besides, I already met your family. Surely the novelty of hanging out with me has worn off by now. Making my presence much less enticing than Sam.”

  “Hmm… I’m not sure. As you know, my mother likes you a lot, if for the wrong reasons. And Gia certainly seemed smitten with you when you two met. She keeps asking me about you. She wants to get into politics,” he confided with the rest of the table.

  “I’m assuming that means she’s seeking a professional route?” Sam asked. “Not like us, who will only have political power heaped upon us because of our ability to kill being greater than most other people.”

  “Yeah. She wants to affect ‘real change,’ make the republic in general and the border worlds in particular a better place to live in.”

  “Ah. The oft mentioned, ever transforming, and rarely found, ‘real change.’ Not to be confused with its lesser, more personal sibling, ‘actual difference.’ I wish her luck on her endeavor. Then again, I can just wish her brother luck, as that will probably be much more effective.”

  “Don’t be a cynic, Sam,” Sarah said. “Politicians and civil servants are incredibly important for a prosperous nation to have and nurture. And they can bring about a lot of change throughout their tenure.”

  “Undoubtedly. But in times of war, in times of a great existential crisis like ours, the military’s star is the one shining brightest. It can delay elections, cause untold suffering to the civilian population, lower civilian manufacturing much below the norm, change the face of the nation and its bureaucracy for ever after. It can even seize control. All in the name of the war effort. Kaiser Wilhelm the Second entered his nation into war, believing himself to be the supreme ruler of both his military and government. Soon enough, he discovered that he had no say in the former and not long after, the latter found itself in the iron-grip of the military dictatorship that was only released because of the collapse of said military. Now imagine how much influence a person like Ludendorff might wield if the source of his power did not come as a result of the military hierarchy owing their loyalty to him but as a result of him, by his own self, being equal in strength to the rest of the military.”

  “I didn’t peg you to be the sort of person who would put all of their stock in the worth personal strength,” Yvessa said.

  “It’s not worth. I’m not describing a normative scenario here, God forbid, but the realistic one. The facts are that if our Rulers decided to elevate themselves over the civilian government by mutual accord, or if one of them made it to Chosen and decided the same, the civilian government and the population at large would have no recourse but to accept that change. Even if all of them were united against the military’s seizure of power, and willing to risk their lives in order to fight it, they wouldn’t do so while under the threat of the war. Don’t worry, though. I don’t think such a scenario, certainly not in its most grim extreme, is likely to happen. But even without any change, even with the current separation between military and civil government that our nation enjoys, can any of you really argue that if we had a Chosen of our own, they would not be the most politically powerful individual?”

  Felix smiled. “So what you’re saying is that we’ve got to make sure that the first Terran Chosen is a democracy lover like us?”

  “Currently, I do not have any other ideas on how to prevent the military’s influence from overpowering the elected government if the military found itself unsatisfied with the status quo.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Gotcha. One tip, try not to say anything like that to my sister, alright? For your benefit, she’ll drag you into a lengthy debate that I’m not sure that you want to have.”

  “Is she qualified to debate such a subject?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Then I’ll make sure not to talk about politics at all.”

  “What’s got you all wound up?” Farris asked him, this time materializing behind his desk.

  “I’m not wound up. I’m just a little annoyed.”

  “And what a great difference there is between those two descriptors.”

  “Shut up.” Sam gingerly sat down. His session with Lin this morning was the most intensive they had had yet. A ton of exercises to go through, including two brand new ones. A bunch of new information to process. And if that wasn’t enough, they finished off with a long-ass session of sparring. Which made him late for breakfast. Which caused him to not have any time between breakfast and meeting with Farris. Not that it would’ve changed anything with the reason for his annoyance.

  “Good spearfighting lesson?” Farris asked him with a smile, leaning forward.

  “It was certainly harder than usual. Whether it was good or not remains to be seen.”

  “Well, I trust that it was. With a student like you and a teacher like Lin Jingway, what could go not right?”

  “Yeah…” Sam uttered unenthusiastically, closing his eyes and stretching in place.

  “You still haven’t told me why you’re annoyed.”

  “Really? Would you reckon that?”

  “Come on, Sam. If we don’t talk to each other, it renders our meetings pointless.”

  “As opposed to when we do talk to each other and they’re… what?”

  “Alright, if you’re not going to tell me, I’m just going to guess.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “Too late.” Farris got up and started pacing around, cupping his chin for extra processing power. “So first off we got physical discomfort, right? You’re tired, maybe sore from the lesson.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “No, it can’t be that…” Farris said to himself.

  “Will you sit down? You’re giving me a headache.”

  “Ah ah! A headache. A cause for being annoyed, maybe?”

  “Certainly. Not today, though. Also, it falls under physical discomfort and you’ve already discounted that.”

  “Not if we count the headache as a result of mental instigators, such as stress or worry.”

  “Maybe you can count the headache as a result of being annoyed and then you’ll come up with a tautological answer.”

  “Or you could simply give me the correct answer.”

  “If I will, will you sit down?”

  Farris bowed and went back to his sit. “Go ahead please.”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “I was planning to cultivate for an hour today. All a part of my new schedule, which I’m sure you’re well aware of. I gave myself the two options of after breakfast or after lunch, to make sure that I’ll have no excuse to let myself off and that I will have a distinct time commitment that I could follow without feeling bad for not doing more.”

  “And because of me, your after-breakfast plan was off. So what’s wrong with after lunch?”

  “It’s all jumbled up. I have to go meet Felix and his family and eat lunch with them. But we’re meeting later than I usually eat lunch and who knows how long that will last?” He sighed. “All I wanted was an ordinary Saturday, the same day it has been in the last couple of weeks. Would’ve had no problem cultivating for just one hour if that was the case.”

  “I’m sure you’ll still be able to keep to you plan today. Even with all the hardship.”

  “The sarcasm wasn’t necessary.”

  “There wasn’t any.”

  Sam paused to think and replay Farris’ words and tone in his head. “Huh… Anyway, I don’t know what will happen, but I don’t like it. I had this simple plan that I could easily keep to in the coming weeks if I succeeded today. The whole point of having a outlined and strict schedule was that I’ll be able to force myself to sit down and do shit during the allotted time. Day in, day out. Now, who knows? Maybe after lunch I’ll be mentally wrung out and I won’t have the willpower to force myself to sit still and cultivate. And if I won’t do it then, when will I? And how will I feel while doing it then, and afterwards? And tomorrow and next week?”

  Farris nodded in understanding. “Hm… I see why you might be annoyed. Still, I’m sure you’ll be able to rise to the occasion. Even if interacting with Felix’s family leaves you wrung out. Why might that be, by the way?”

  “He’s got three little sisters, for starters.”

  “So?”

  “Don’t get me started on this. I don’t like kids. I don’t have to defend this position.”

  “If you don’t like kids, why would it be so tiring to interact with them? Just ignore them or something. Let other people deal with them.”

  “You can’t do that. Well, to be fair, Felix’s sisters aren’t really ‘kids’ anymore, at least not the kind that gives me heartburn. So maybe I could do that. Or maybe not. That still sounds like a jerk move.”

  Farris laughed. “Oh? So there’s a difference between children? Let me guess—”

  “Please don’t.”

  “You don’t like interacting with young children because you’re afraid of saying or doing something wrong. Being a negative influence.”

  “Or a traumatic one.”

  “True, true. Although that might be your anxiety talking and giving you a more warped version of reality than what it really is. I suppose that it could happen that your random interaction with a kid would result in a trauma for them that will last their entire life, scarring their personality forever.”

  “Exactly. Which is why I don’t want to interact with children. First, I don’t like them, for various reasonable reasons. And secondly, they’re incredibly impressionable and I don’t want to mess them up by acting in the wrong way. But like I said, Felix’s sisters aren’t that young anymore. So it’ll probably be fine.”

  “You know, I felt exactly the same way as you before Alan was born—”

  “‘Exactly the same way?’” Sam raised an eyebrow.

  “Fine, similar enough, whatever. The point is, in the end I discovered that children are made of more resilient stuff than that. And that they’re not as horrible to have around as I initially thought.”

  “First of all, how do you know? Maybe your nephew or niece harbor some Farris-caused dark trauma that you don’t know about. Secondly, of course, you’re going to like them more than the average kid. They’re your family. And if there’s one thing I don’t want to get into right now, it’s the family social structure and its aftereffects.”

  “Very well, I’ll let you have this one. Let’s change the topic then, shall we? Back to your worry about cultivating later in the day? Want me to give you some pep-talk? A motivational, ‘you can do it,’ or two?”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  “Good, so then shall we move to reviewing the last week as a whole?”

  “What’s there to talk about?”

  “Well the major thing is your new schedule, as you’ve mentioned. But we can get to that later. Let’s go in order. Combat practice, we talked about, I don’t have anything to add right now. Gathering, you’re doing fine. Actually, much more than fine, but I’m trying to comply with your strict standards towards yourself. You’re still cultivating less than a month ago, obviously, but I’m not worried. Dan told me that he’ll test you before the third trimester starts and we’ll see just how ‘far’ you are from level 1 then. What else? Tracing. Nothing to comment on. Great work. Also I was right. Oh yeah, I was fucking right. What do you know?”

  Sam shook his head with a sigh. “I knew you weren't going to let this go.”

  “Really? So we were both right in our predictions. We truly deserve the moniker of geniuses. Anyway, you restarted your studies of magical theory. Nothing much to say at this point. And tomorrow you’ll be going back to patterns. All in all, I would say that this has been a great week for you. Even if you were forced to take breaks that you didn’t need to take a month ago. May I make another prediction then?”

  “Will it matter if I say no?”

  “No it won’t. Before the first month of the next trimester ends, you and Dan will go back to your old full schedule. Now, I’m still not sure about your own private schedule, but I venture to say that it won’t be far behind yours and Dan’s. Good schedule, by the way, a little heavier than I would’ve liked, but I can understand why you picked it like that.”

  “A little heavier? Seriously? It’s only three days of the week.”

  “And Saturday.”

  “An hour on Saturday.”

  “An hour that you were greatly worried about just a few minutes ago. Look, the important thing is that you pick whatever feels comfortable to you. Balancing your want to train and study with your need to rest and have fun. This seems to strike that balance. Obviously, you want to go back to your unrelenting schedule from before, which is why you’re comparing everything you’re doing now to back then. It’s not healthy, it’s not realistic, but it is unavoidable. Still, your current schedule is… I would say about or probably a little less than what the average cadet takes upon themselves. I don’t know, maybe it’s a bit more because of all your private lessons. Anyway, for now, it’s more than fine. I wouldn’t worry about it. If I were you, I would keep to it, as it is now, without question and without change until at least the end of the break. Because it feels awful to not have a break during a period titled as a ‘break.’ But up to you. Just remember to proceed gradually. And not worry about mistakes and failures. Try not to worry at least.”

  Sam leaned back, resting on his hands while staring at the ceiling. “Try being the operative word, of course. It’s another thing that annoys me, you know?”

  “What’s that?”

  “That it doesn’t get easier. Say, I’ll ‘try not to worry,’ right? Why does this ‘trying’ not make it easier for me the next time? Why can’t I become better at not worrying and not being anxious?”

  “You can become better.”

  “Yeah, of course, I know. But I’m talking about the mere act of experiencing the emotion, of trying to suppress it. Everything else, you get better by practice. Oh, you want to be a better reader? Then read more. You want to be better at math? Solve more math. You want to be stronger? Work out.”

  “By that logic you would become more anxious by being anxious. Which does make sense, actually.”

  “That’s not the logic. I don’t want to be anxious or worried. I want to be less worried. So what do I do? I go through the experience of being worried while wanting to be less worried. Why does that not help me become better at being less worried?”

  Farris chuckled. “A good question, I suppose. Definitely a good source of annoyance if you see it like you do.”

  “Mhm… Lamenting the difficulty of trying to change your own psyche is always greatly annoying. Anyway… is that it for your review of my past week?”

  “Indeed. For the remainder of our time, I wanted to try something new.”

  “Something new?”

  “Well, I felt like after last week I owe you some ‘actual mentoring’ to use your oft uttered, if mistaken, words. And I have just the thing that we can start on.”

  “Well, go on then, don’t keep me waiting.”

  “Perfect.” Farris smiled and Sam suddenly found himself sitting straight in front of him, with only the desk in between. “So I have some very minor paperwork that I need to go through. It’s nothing too difficult, nothing too important, so you don’t need to worry about being less worried while we go through it. It’s just assignments and placements that I have to go over and sign myself because the individuals in questions are nobles. So, I already have all of my notes ready, all the information I could ever need. For most of these guys, the decision has already ‘been made’ and for those that haven’t, the possible choices are all written down. So usually this is pretty much just brainless work—if you can even call it work—confirming what my subordinates wrote. But today I’ll have to work a little harder because I’ll be explaining to you why they wrote what they wrote; their logic, thought process, and any other required information. Sounds easy, right?”

  Sam shrugged. “It does. But doesn’t that count as politics?”

  Farris sighed before nodding in dismay. “It is politics. But it’s my lot in the world to have to deal with these sorts of politics. Come on, I’ll give you a crash course on how to read confidential military papers.”

  Sam and Farris ended their meeting without making a sizable impact on the paperwork on Farris’ desk. Credit where credit was due, Farris was a good teacher, and he spent most of the time explaining to Sam the what and why and how instead of just trying to get the work done. And despite his claim that he did the work reluctantly, or maybe in spite of it, it was more than clear that Farris knew what he was doing and took his job seriously. Sam himself found it, even if it was “just” paperwork, extremely interesting, but he could also easily understand how a person might grow bored of it. Especially if the person in question was a high-ranking general like Farris.

  Be that as it may, he left the complex in a happier mood than how he had entered it. Still, it only took him looking at his watch in order to sigh in annoyance because there was less than an hour until he had to meet up with Felix. He could split the hour of cultivation into two halves… But that wasn’t the point. He wanted to have a straight hour dedicated to cultivating. It would have a better effect (practically, if not ideally) than two halves of an hour and it would help him get more ready to return to a longer schedule.

  It was doubly annoying because that meant that he still had to decide what to do with the time that remained to him until then. Go back to his room and then leave it less than half an hour later? Stay out here? Fuck around on his phone. Maybe—

  His phone rang. “Hey, Sam, you done with Farris?” Felix asked.

  “Yeah, I just finished a couple of minutes ago. Why?”

  “Well, I figured that if you’re finished, then we might as well go grab lunch now. If that’s alright with you?”

  “Hm… no, I mean, yeah, it’s alright. If that’s what you want.”

  “Great. So pick up your food and come meet us outside the usual mess hall. We’ll see you there.”

  Sam took a deep breath after putting the phone back in his pocket. Don’t let it show in your face. Don’t let it show in your face. He smiled nonetheless and started walking towards the nearest mess hall. Inside, he ran into Yvessa, choosing her meal just as he was about to do.

  “Hey Sam, we’re heading the same place, I assume?”

  “Guess so.”

  “And it’s good news for you, right?”

  “Please tell me you didn’t mention that to Felix.”

  “I didn’t. And I’m sure Sarah didn’t as well. But apparently Felix’s tour of the academy ended earlier than he was expecting, which is why we’re meeting now.”

  “Well good thing Farris didn’t keep me any longer, then. I’m sure he would’ve liked to, even if his working pace while lecturing me was horrendous.”

  “Working pace? What did you do?”

  Sam recounted to her what he and Farris had done for most of their time together. They got into a discussion on the topic that lasted them all the way to the meeting spot. Where they saw the Polaris family and Sarah, already waiting for them, ready to eat. Introductions were soon in order, and lunch commenced. Sam sat in the most strategic position, nestled between Sarah and Yvessa, hoping it will afford him the best protection against social interaction. Felix, for his part, seemed to have drilled his family on the dos and don’ts of talking with Sam, so he thankfully found himself rarely engaged in conversation throughout the meal. Well… mostly.

  Lucy, the middle sister, asked him a lot of questions about Earth, but she was a lot less smug and annoying about it than Farris, so Sam was (mostly) happy to indulge her. And the number of her questions was dwarfed by the number of questions that Gia, the oldest sister, sent Yvessa’s way. Thankfully, no one told her about where Sam was coming from and his own brush with power, otherwise he might’ve had to juggle two inquisitive sisters long after lunch was over.

  But as it were, shortly after everyone finished eating (meaning five minutes after everyone besides Felix finished), Felix and his family excused themselves to go check out Felix’s room and Sam was given leave. Although, not before being given a cake that was jointly made by Cassie, Felix’s mother and Theresa, the youngest sister. After farewells and thanks were exchanged, Sam went back to his room, cake in hand, accompanied by Sarah. The cake was small enough for him to consume all on his own and not feel bad about it, so he decided to save it for an hour more, as a prize for work well done. And even though he had to start cultivating later than when he planned to, he managed to finish the hour successfully and, more importantly, efficiently.

  The cake was delicious. Sam thanked its makers again later that evening when they met at dinnertime. Sam, Sarah and Yvessa heading to the mess hall for theirs. And Felix and his family heading outside of the academy to dine outside. The three of them finished the evening back in Sam’s room, watching the documentary. Sam was against it, arguing that Sarah couldn’t fully enjoy herself if she was dropped in the middle of the story. But even though Yvessa seemed agreeable to his viewpoint, they were forced back by Sarah, who was adamant about getting to enjoy hanging out with them while still doing what they both “wanted to do.”