Mother of Learning:Volume 01 Chapter 042

Sum of Its Parts

Not far from the restaurant where he was supposed to meet Raynie, Zorian sat on a bench and waited. There was no sign of her yet, but that was in no way unusual – he had misjudged the amount of time it would take him to find the place, and was thus a little early. He didn't let it bother him, choosing instead to pass the time by experimenting with his mind sense on the passing crowds, tapping into the eyes of pigeons flying overhead and practicing his shaping skills on the handful of pebbles he had taken to carrying around on his person at all times.

Honestly, shaping exercises were kind of relaxing when he didn't have Xvim breathing down his neck and being a jerk. He should try finding one that was actually challenging – really challenging, but not Xvim's patented you-haven't-­really-­mastered­-this bullshit – and setting aside some time to… hm?

He drew the pebbles currently floating in front of him back to his palm and pocketed them, before leaning over a nearby ornamental bush where his mind senses had detected an extremely faint mental signature. Despite knowing exactly where to look, it took him two whole seconds to spot the mantis camouflaged against the leaves. He stared at the bug for a while, before an idea occurred to him…

He pointed his palm towards the insect and concentrated, trying to telekinetically draw it towards him without crushing it like a… well, bug. Something that was greatly complicated by the mantis holding on for dear life to the twig it was standing on. He had hoped to surprise it with this sudden maneuver, but its reactions were surprisingly fast for something that had been moving so slowly and ponderously just a second ago. Nonetheless, Zorian wasn't so easily deterred. Five minutes later, he had finally managed to detach the mantis from the twig without hurting it and was levitating it in front of him. The mantis twisted and flailed around in the air, clearly unhappy with its predicament, but Zorian had established too firm a hold on it for his telekinetic control to lapse just from that.

At least until the mantis decided it was finished with this annoyance, then suddenly unfurled its wings and flew off. Oh, right – mantises can fly if they need to… He totally forgot about that. Shrugging, he focused on his mind sense for a moment, checking if Raynie had arrived yet.

She had. She was still hidden by the nearby building from where he was standing, but her mental signature was unmistakable. He set off in the direction of the restaurant, and was soon back at the entrance, trying not to stare at the street corner he knew she was going to emerge from. When she did finally round the corner, however, she stopped in her tracks and just sort of stared at him in apprehension instead of coming over to meet him. Honestly, what was up with that? He already agreed with her that it wasn't a date, so what was she apprehensive about? He 'accidentally' turned in her direction, pretended he'd just noticed her and gave her a little wave.

She stopped stalling and came over to greet him properly.

"Sorry if I'm cutting it a little close," she said. "With most people I know, it's a miracle if they're only ten minutes late,so I've learned not to be too early to this sort of stuff. You didn't wait long, did you?"