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?"
"It was a bit of a wait," admitted Zorian. "But to be fair, I was rather early. Don't worry about it, I found things to amuse myself with."
"Oh?" she asked. "And what would that be, if you're willing to share?"
"Nothing too interesting. I was just doing some shaping exercises," said Zorian, retrieving the pebbles from his pocket and making them float in a rotating ring above his palm. "Silly, I know, but it passes the time."
Raynie stared at the rotating ring of pebbles for a second before shaking her head, mumbling something unintelligible and motioning for him to follow her into the restaurant. He returned the pebbles into his pocket and hurried after her.
The moment he stepped inside the dining hall of the restaurant, he understood the reason behind the restaurant's somewhat unusual name – 'Fearsome Catfish' indeed. Hanging from the ceiling of the dining room was a preserved body of massive catfish, big enough to swallow a grown man whole. An… interesting choice of ornamentation for a restaurant. Raynie seemed both amused and pleased that the taxidermically preserved trophy gave him pause for a moment, although he only knew that because of his empathy – she neither reacted nor said anything to him as she lead him to a nearby table where they took their seats.
He halfexpected Raynie to order a plate full of meat, what with her being a wolf shifter and all… but she actually ordered a grilled trout and a plate of vegetables. Huh. He supposed he shouldn't be so quick to assume… though speaking of assuming things, was he expected to pay for them both? His cynical side was saying yes, since her choice of meal was on the pricier side of things… but then again she was the daughter of a tribal chief. Maybe she had plenty of money and this was perfectly normal for her. Maybe she'd be offended that he's trying to pay for her share of the food and think he's trying to court her after all…
"It will take some time for the chefs to prepare the food," Raynie said. "Why don't you tell me about these cat shifters of yours while we wait?"
Zorian scanned the other tables in the dining hall for any eavesdroppers. They were by no means the only people in the restaurant, and Zorian kind of thought this was way too public of a location to be having this sort of conversation… but it was mostly Raynie's secrets that were at stake here, so if she felt this was fine, then it was. None of the other diners were paying any attention to them, so at least there was that.
He told her as much as he could without bringing up the invasion or information about Rea's background that he obviously shouldn't know about. Even so, he sincerely hoped that Raynie wouldn't want to speak with Rea after their talk, because he would almost certainly find himself in a bit of a hairy situation if that were to happen – he could scarcely explain how he came by some of his information without admitting he had spied upon the Sashal family in some fashion.
"I don't think they intend to harm you in any way," Raynie said once he was done. "They wouldn't be willing to leave you alone with their daughter like that if they did, nor would they let her get attached to your little sister if they meant to make you into a target. Most cat shifters are dishonorable, but they don't target their own neighbors, friends, contacts and the like. They never make trouble in their own territory."
Well. Zorian had already known that the various shifter groups are by no means united, but it seemed they weren't even on particularly good terms either. Or at least Raynie's group didn't seem to like cat shifters much.
"I'm guessing the cat and wolf shifters don't get along, then?" surmised Zorian.
