25
Author: Amata le Fay
Title: 25
Story: Ether Lands (RP)
Flavor(s): Cranberry (Tarot Bunnies) BINGE
Toppings/Extras: Whipped Cream, Pocky Chain
Rating: PG13 (trigger warning: parental death)
Word Count: 2,400
Notes: Each year of Josu Gaman's life before he became Asher Lang. Concrit very much welcome.
32 A.E. - Coins
The baby was born into plenty of money, as the only son of respected scholar Briar Gaman and his wife Evumeimei. The parents had named him ahead of time in order to have his scholar coin finished and ready upon birth; Evvy had feared for young Josu's health and wanted to transport him solely through etherless tunnels, and for that he needed a gold token.
Briar's colleagues had thrown a party when the couple returned from the hospital. Each gave a book as a present, ostensibly to read to Josu, though all knew Ether Mechanics wouldn't interest the baby much.
33 A.E. - The Fool
“Look at the little fella. Young, full of innocence... You know, they say it's the tabula rasa, the 'blank slate' of the young brain, not yet filled up with knowledge, that gives humanity our creativity. The sky's the limit for him, in a way. Nothing he can't do.” Briar took a sip of his tea as he watched the toddler zoom around in circles, arms spread like an airplane's.
Evvy laughed. “Oh, you're just saying that as justification for your bragging that he's a prodigy.”
“Does that mean it's not true?”
“What, the prodigy bit or the philosophical bit?”
“Both.”
34 A.E. - The Magician
“Two times eight is sixteen, two times nine is eighteen, and two times ten is-twenty!”
“Bravo!” Josu's mother clapped her hands. “Well done!”
“I just say what dada says.” The boy squirmed a little in his father's lap. “Next he'll show me how to do a magic trick! Shazam!” He jumped down from the chair and ran around the room.
Evvy beamed. “He already knows maths!”
“But not the connections between maths and real life.”
“He'll get that next year, no doubt.”
Briar put his hand on top of Evvy's. She pulled hers away. “Next year,” she repeated.
35 A.E. - The High Priestess
Minutes after Briar disappeared into Nai's temple, Evvy grabbed Josu's hand and headed toward the shrine of Tsain. “What is in store for my family?” she murmured, bowing her head reverently.
The priestess, skin adorned with swirling lines of red chalk dust, half-closed her eyelids. “That's Mol's domain, daughter. Young mothers are not of Tsain's concern.”
“Mol doesn't predict the future,” said Evvy imperiously. “What lies in the future for the family of Gaman?”
The older woman fully closed her eyes and hummed, then broke into a chant. Her head jerked back. “Truth,” she whispered. “The truth will kill.”
36 A.E. The Emperor
“I got promoted to head of the university.”
“What does that mean?” the four-year-old asked, looking up at the furrowed brows of his father.
“It means I did well at my job,” said Briar, “and that we'll be getting a lot of new nice things, and that I'll be working on bigger experiments.”
“And that he'll be working a lot later in the evenings,” Evvy added absently, from the other side of the room. “So you may not see him as much.”
Josu nodded solemnly. “Can you still come read to me? Even if it's later?”
“Of course, my boy.”
37 A.E. - The Empress
Josu's first teacher was kind, gentle, and always willing to help a student in need. And Josu hated her.
“She doesn't answer any of my questions!” he complained to Evvy as he dropped his backpack on the floor. “She's too busy helping Weishu with the alphabet, and he's mean. Why should she spend more time on him?”
“Josu,” his mother warned.
“She's just like Dad.”
“Josu,” said Evvy sharply. “Watch your tongue. We have a guest.” She gestured to the woman in gold behind him. The boy turned and bowed. “Sorry, milady.”
“It's fine,” said Oksana Dizhai, Lady of Inouye.
38 A.E. - Cups
Evvy and the lady drank many cups of tea that year, to the point where it was almost a daily ritual. Josu soon became used to her presence and was even allowed to call her “ma'am” instead of “milady”. Lady Oksana had explained that she was visiting the houses of all the promising young second-year scholars-Josu included-in order to see which children might study in the imperial courts one day, with her financial backing. Not that the Gamans needed money.
But if she was studying Josu, why did she spend so much time with his mother and not him?
39 A.E. - The Hierophant
Evvy had told Josu to stay with his father, but he had already seen Nai's temple time and time again, while the one his mother was going to was completely unknown to him. He went along with Briar for a minute, then, while his father was praying, snuck into the temple with the frieze of horned, one-eyed, bat-winged Noriel, goddess of truth and peace.
He heard his mother's sobs and ran towards the sound. “Please, please,” she was saying. “She said the truth will kill, I don't want anyone dead-”
“Choose, daughter,” he heard the priest say. “Truth or lies.”
40 A.E. - The Lovers
It was at eight years old that Josu learned his parents' marriage was an arranged one. They had both agreed to tell him, despite Evvy's paranoia that something terrible was to happen upon the release of that secret. The marriage wasn't loveless, just full of the wrong type of love.
On his own, Josu put two and two together about the Lady of Inouye's visits, and a greatly relieved Evvy was finally allowed to kiss her lover in her son's presence. The concept was a bit weird to Josu, but not uncomfortably so.
41 A.E. - The Chariot
One day, when Josu came home from school, his mother wasn't there. He searched the whole house for her, and no servant knew where she had gone. They told him that Lady Oksana hadn't stopped by either, as she customarily did in the afternoons. Then, some city guards escorted his father back to the house early. No one told the boy what was going on until Briar was there to break the news to his son: both Evvy and Lady Oksana had been run over by a chariot-style car driven by one of the lady's jealous suitors-they didn't know which.
42 A.E. - Strength
Ten-year-old Josu knew that strength wasn't being able to lift heavy things. It was being able to know everything, more than you wanted to know, and keep your head up.
43 A.E. - The Hermit
“Hey, Josu! Catch this!” A ball flew towards Josu's tree perch. The boy deflected it with Ether Mechanics and calmly continued reading.
“Jo, why don't you ever do anything fun with us?” Xiang asked. “Do you really have to study all the time? You're already top of the class!”
“I'm not studying, I'm reading this on my own, and this is fun,” Josu insisted. He pulled out another, slimmer volume from his coat and opened it up to examine. The other boys went back to playing kickball, with a determined effort to kick said ball into the tree again.
44 A.E. - The Wheel of Fortune
As if to make up for what had happened to Evvy Gaman and Lady Oksana, the gods gave the Gamans good fortune in the years after the murder. At twelve, Josu was chosen to study in the imperial court, funded by the most prestigious gentleman on the continent, Lord Hibiki, PhD. Briar headed a groundbreaking ether experiment that was published and sold worldwide. And then, in the same year as both of those, the chariot murderer was caught. The whole city held a celebration to Jveyl, the justice god, including the family.
All was as well as it could be.
45 A.E. - Justice
The standard execution method for upper-class murderers was to be dumped in one of the slums and be choked by the thick ether smog that only appeared in Level Seven zones, or robbed and killed by the poor upon the discovery of their fine clothing.
Josu thought it was a fitting way for his mother's killer to die. The bastard deserved it, after all. The young scholar asked Lord Hibiki if there was a way to make ether itself fatal. The lord's face turned gray and he had to sit down, horrified by the thought. Josu never asked again.
46 A.E. - Swords
The poor were organizing a rebellion, spies informed the scholars. More swords were being brought into the shrines of Izeth than were needed for the army recruits. After a few months of internal fighting, a plague wiped out most of the insurgents. Nothing was said out loud, but Briar had made Josu and all the students at the court get a new vaccine earlier in the year. By then Josu had learned not to ask questions about his father's work.
He took up reading Old World literature from the library to pass the time. To his surprise, ether was mentioned.
47 A.E. - Death
Josu rose from where he had been kneeling in front of the grave. He glanced back at the cluster of temples at the other end of the cemetery clearing. He could make out the portraits of the gods looking on. There was Noriel, with her bat wings and demonic eyes, staring at him. The truth will kill... but it hadn't been the truth, had it? It had been a man.
The truth gave my mother some of the happiest moments of her life.
The truth is knowing what nobody else knows.
I want to search for the truth, O Noriel.
48 A.E. - Temperance
“Just a sip?”
Josu shook his head. “I don't drink. My mom wouldn't have wanted me to. Besides, I have a paper to finish about the results of... wait. Wait a minute. What would happen if you injected ether into alcohol?”
Lin grinned wickedly. “In the name of Nai the Science Guy?”
“Dear gods, yes.” Josu started to chuckle, then stopped himself. “We don't want to kill any drinkers accidentally. I'll just run chemical tests. No ingestion.”
He uncorked his vial of the standard ether isotope and watched the golden gas swirl around under the amber liquid. It was beautiful.
49 A.E. - The Devil
“Josu... Josu!”
Strapping on his gas mask, Lin barged into the room, glancing at the ether-meter, which showed a dangerously high level of gas, Six or maybe even Seven. The ether was in different isotopes too, gold and green and purple and black, the color of ether that had started to burn. “Josu!” he screamed. “What the hell do you think you're doing? Get out of here!”
He came upon his fellow student sitting calmly at his desk, reading. “Hello. I'm immunizing myself.”
Lin blinked, then scowled. “Bastard. You could have died.”
“But instead I helped my future self live.”
50 A.E. - The Tower
Hibiki had given him a tower room all to himself, as none of the other students or teachers wanted to be caught up in the middle of his ether immunization program. Josu soon learned his friends were making side bets on how long he'd last before the building exploded.
51 A.E. - The Star
He found a cat, black but with a bright white spot on her chest, like a single star glowing in the midst of the night. The stars and the sky were sacred to Noriel, so he brought her to the tower, thinking she was an omen or something. To his surprise, the queen didn't run away at the touch of the ether floating about in the room. Instead, she remained rather indifferent. Typical.
Josu named her Tara, “star” in Old Sanskrit, and took her in. He had a tendency to speak in a silly, high-pitched voice when she was around.
52 A.E. - The Moon
Underneath the full moon, Tara gave birth to a litter of kittens. There were five in all; he named them Sassy, Jorality, Lusine, Kai, and Evvy. The kittens seemed to dislike the ether, so eventually he gave the first four up for adoption. Evvy, however, had climbed up the back of Josu's coat and clung to his head, refusing to let go. He let her stay with him.
About a month later, Tara choked on the ether and died. That was the only thing able to convince the scholar to ease up on the gas concentration inside his laboratory tower.
53 A.E. - Wands
Josu pressed down on the nozzle of the thin, long vial he held in front of him. It was his regular ethermeter, but modified for combat; if made right, it would spray an attacker with an incredibly dense stream of concentrated ether, knocking one out if the full supply of purple isotope-235 was deployed.
The nose of the spy who'd tried to break into his lab exploded with blood. While the intruder was still incapacitated with shock, Asher grabbed his arms and dragged him across the floor. “Never hurt my kitty,” he growled-the last words that man would ever hear.
54 A.E. - The Sun
In the heat of the day on the longest day of the year, Josu met with the highest imperial officials and scholars in the spherical council room known only as the Dome, a building whose walls contained more secrets than the rest of the continent's combined. Lord Hibiki spoke first. “Over the past year, there have been fifty break-ins at the top laboratories. As far as we can tell, all the intruders seem to have originated from Oceniana-our ally in this war.”
“There's snakes in the garden,” Josu added, rising. “And blood on the ground. We cannot simply wait anymore.”
55 A.E. - Judgment
Noriel, Truth and Peace, I seek you out for blessing of the mission before me. O Goddess, help me cut through this world of lies and land on what is real, for that is all that matters. Lend me your eye for falsehood and I shall make the earth a more honest place for it, and your consort Jveyl shall have a vast judgment to make of our neighboring continent. Bless me, as you blessed my mother in the last days of her life, and keep the demon Miqa's senseless war away from me as I search for your truth.
56 A.E. - The World
Josu Gaman set out under the name of Asher Lang on a ship to Oceniana the 1st January, at twenty-four years old, with kitten Blueberry, one of Evvy's latest litter, and as many books as he could store in his trunk. He thought he knew all the world had to offer him.
He was wrong.