with your parents and go live your own life, but instead you've actually taken time to be with me. I can see now why everyone loves you so much. Really at first I thought it was just your looks and the magic, but it isn't. It's your heart and soul.”
Tor blushed and kissed her again to cover it. Get close enough to a person and they can't see what you’re doing and really, if there was closer than kissing, at least that he could do in public like this, he couldn't think of it at the moment. After about twenty minutes of cuddling someone, a young boy that seemed to be alone, came in with a broken arm. No tears, but he was pale and in shock. Ali used a device to fix it, and the kid howled while it happened, but as soon as the bone clicked back together the yelling stopped.
“Thank you.” He said and touched Alissa face gently, an odd move for someone so young, then he hopped of the table and ran out, his oversized leather half boots slapping against the floor. He'd been wearing dirty cloths, heavy canvas tan pants and a dun colored shirt that had seen better days as well. A lot of people were just making do, so Tor hadn't thought much of it really.
“He's one of the orphans I think. I…” Whatever she was going to say didn't come, Tor waited patiently, since a lot of things took time to work to the surface. Rushing them didn't help. It was better to wait and see what people had to say. Even if it did make him a little impatient.
Finally she blurted the words out all together, a long stream of them.
“I can't have children. Dad, he had us all sterilized. The girls. None of us can have kids. It was so… he wouldn't get us pregnant and have to explain it away.” She didn't start crying, she just looked down and waited.
“Oh, that's horrible! Well, that's not a problem for us, we can adopt. But we should wait until we're out of school at least.” Taking a breath Tor finished the whole thing, so that Ali wouldn't go around thinking it was all her fault they couldn't have kids.
“Besides, I probably won't be able to have children for a couple hundred years, if what Count Lairdgren said is true. Really I have no reason to doubt him yet. Well, other than that the whole story is clearly insane.”
Mouth going into and “o” shape she turned and smiled sadly.
“I'm going to get all old and die and you'll still be like this, won't you?”
Taking her into a hug he murmured the answer back to her softly.
“Well, in a couple of years I should be able to make myself look a little older, so at least it won't look like you robbed the cradled the whole time. Until then, yes. Just like this baring major hair disasters and disguises…” Which he could do, couldn't he? Make himself look older using magic? It was a complex field, at least as complex as the clothing one, but it would be doable.
Another thing he needed to figure out fast, before trying to break Denno Brown out of the Austran palace. A good disguise could be helpful. There was suddenly so much to do again. Relaxing Tor held his wife for about five minutes and didn't let go until someone else came for healing. As she moved off to help the older woman and her daughter Tor ran through what was really needed. Water, food, shelter and then the things for Austra, while keeping up with his marriage duties and schoolwork.
Chuckling softly under his breath he sighed and left to see to his own food, then figure out what to do for the rest of it.
Following his nose led him to one of the houses he'd made, one of the new ones, that had been converted into nothing more inside than a dining facility with kitchen and restroom. Whoever did the work didn't bother with wasteful decorations or fancy designs. The inside looked like stone, the outside looked like the same kind of stone and the roof looked like slate. Probably because having a cobble stone roof on a peaked slant would just look wrong. Several men and women were running things inside, and doing it with a quiet efficiency that spoke of professionalism. That and a grim feeling that was understandable, but didn't seem like the best plan. Being grim led to giving up and that never worked well in the long run. So… better to fake being happy in the moment, Tor guessed. Or at least confidence. It wasn't one of his best things yet, pretending or even feeling, confident at all, but that could be learned. He hoped.
A sad and stern older woman, wearing a worn blue skirt and gray button front shirt, the style here it seemed, both with rips in them pointed a ladle at him.
“Grab a bowl boy. Fish stew is all we have, but we've plenty. That and water to drink and you best be thankful for that. Flood like this the water outside will kill you to drink it. Took magic to get this for us. Countess begged help from the Wizard Tor. Give him this though, he got her quick enough. At first I thought she might have just been saying that to keep spirits up. Here.” Without ceremony a black focus stone bowl was filled to near the brim, a metal spoon popped in it and a cup handed to him. Then he was moved over to a table to eat. No one said anything else to him, but a few of the women stared at him for some reason, their eyes watching, but faces blank and drawn.
He didn't shrug and tried to smile back at them a little when he caught them looking, they obviously didn't recognize him and were just being careful he decided. That made sense. People, men in particular, could try to take advantage of women if they weren't, so it was probably that. They'd relax once they got a chance to get to know him.
Fish stew wasn't his favorite kind of food, but it was filling and didn't make him feel ill or anything, it wasn't poisoned or unclean, he knew that thanks to the testing he'd done via the device around his neck. No one seemed to realize what had been done there, since regular people generally didn’t need to worry about being poisoned, but the food was wholesome enough.
Listening to what other people were saying while he ate, Tor rapidly got what the major concerns were. The first was simple enough. No one knew how much of the collected vegetable harvest had been lost. Most of the food here was saved in jars of glass for the winter, so when they spoke of the food being lost, they actually meant lost, buried in the mud and scattered, not just spoiled. They weren't worried too much about not having food, that would come from the ocean if they did the work, no matter how cold it got. It was just nice and healthier to have fruit and vegetables put by as well.
The other concern was simply shelter. Nearly three thousand families had lost everything to the flood waters and wouldn't have time to rebuild, winter being right on top of them like it was for the region. Right. Well, that could be fixed, if people worked together. A combination of magical houses and focus stone construction. Those last would need temperature plates or at least fire places. Both? Yes. Tor sighed softly as he finished the gray broth in front of him, because there was only one group of people that could do that kind of focus stone work fast. The people that had kicked him out of his home.
Maybe he could request the ones that weren't jerks? Actually, in a way that would probably work, he needed the ones that made focus stone materials after all, not the guards or elite military stationed there. Then all he'd need was to grovel and apologize to a few hundred people for beating them up and it would all be good.
He returned the bowl to a table in front of a kitchen window, a pleasant looking girl inside took it and smiled at him.
“Want to help wash up? Everyone should take a turn…” She dimpled at him, her face a little round and warm enough looking, a light smattering of freckles over her nose and her hair holding soft curls and tied up in the back. A blond color that could easily be confused with brown or even light gray in the right light.
It was a good point, “I'll… not trying to dodge out, but maybe later if I get a chance? I have to see to some things first. In a few hours?”
The girl laughed and shook her head at him.
“Well, at least your bothering to make an excuse, most everyone else just says no and wonders off. Still, if you really can get free, come back? It isn't hard, but it's deadly dull in here alone.” The voice was half playful, half resigned.
“I'll do my best.” He promised.
Tor could make the emergency houses himself… but wasn't going to. The first thing he needed was the other builders from school. There turned out to be eight of them in all, including him, five first years, who could all do at least basic copy work, since you had to prove that just to get in the door, one third year boy named Mark and a sturdy looking sixth year girl called Sandra that had to have the darkest skin of anyone he'd ever met who wasn't from Afrak. She was tall enough he figured her for a noble of some kind, but she didn't stand on it, and had come when needed.
She was the one to find first, being in charge of the builders, based on her age and the fact that no instructors from their section had come along. That twice as many math and economics students came as builders
