The dawn of a fateful day

If Vel dreamed that night, he did not remember it. He certainly had no more visitors. He woke up feeling strange. It was hard to describe the feeling, it was a bit like how one felt before an important or momentous event. On the morning of his 18th, the day he officially became a man, he had felt similarly. But it wasn’t exactly the same. It was as if he could feel that something important was just around the corner. Today would change his life, he knew that for certain. How he knew, he didn’t know. Magic, he supposed. He lay in bed for a good 15 minutes just exploring the feeling before Adeline came to fetch him for breakfast.

Arriving at the table Vel noticed, to his immense relief, that the only people at the table were his mother, Chielynn and Viella. Viella greeted him with a big smile, but kind of blushed and looked away when he met her eyes and smiled back. He could imagine why. Chielynn, predictably, just kept her eyes on her food. “Good morning, Velas, Adeline.” Lady Rienne greeted them both in turn and refrained from commenting on them walking together this time. Vel was of course pleased that Luthor and Amordina weren’t present, but at this point he couldn’t help but grow curious. They’d not been present for any meals since yesterday’s breakfast. Initially he hadn’t cared why or where they were, simply being happy with their absence, but now he was wondering. This seemed like a good time to try feeling his mother’s mind. He’d ask her and, if he was unhappy with the answer or if his powers indicated deception, he’d finally have a reason to try probe.

Before he had a chance to ask though, his mother spoke up. “So, children of mine, what are your plans for the day?” Chielynn was the first to answer her mother's question “I have an appointment with cicerone Niana first thing after breakfast, and then I must look through some of the suitor letters father left me with.” For some reason, these words irked Vel. They really shouldn’t. A cicerone was a certain type of tutor, one that taught noble girls how to become noble women, how to be good wives and ladies, how to run an estate, and so on. Suitor letters were sort of profiles or dossiers about eligible noble men, their father had clearly left her with some that he thought might be good matches. Just thinking about it angered him. She was HIS. He wanted her, he should have her. These feelings were very real and undeniable, but he was completely surprised by them. Chielynn was beautiful, sure, but they had not been close in almost a decade. He didn’t love her like he did Adeline or even Viella. And it was perfectly reasonable for her to be married soon, she probably should have been already. And yet, he couldn’t shake this possessiveness he felt. He knew, in his blood and his bones, that anything he wanted should and would be his, and clearly that included Chielynn.

He was snapped out of his introspection when Viella took her turn answering their mother. “I have tutor appointments all day again, as you well know, Mother.” Vel felt for his little sister. He remembered being younger and having to spend most of his day inside with a tutor or three. Adeline again took it upon herself to answer for the both of them “Vel and I are going for a ride again, but probably a longer one this time, now that my roan and I are more comfortable with each other I want to test her endurance a little.” No one would question Vel and Adeline just going for a long ride together, it was a good excuse. Vel reached out and gave Adeline’s knee a grateful little squeeze under the table, she’d know what it meant.

With that bit of small talk out of the way, Vel thought it was time to ask about the whereabouts of Amordina and his father. He cautiously reached out for his mother’s mind, and to his great surprise, found it extremely well defended. There wasn’t a wall here as he had experienced with the beast, but the membrane around her mind was unlike those he had encountered so far. It felt thicker to him, and it was much opaquer. Trying to read her emotions was a bit like watching people through frosted glass. He could see they were there and that they were moving, but he couldn’t identify any of them. This was an unexpected difficulty. Had his mother had training to fortify her mind? It seemed extremely unlikely to Vel. Magic was rare to begin with, and until he had manifested these powers and gone looking, he had not even been aware that magic which affected minds was a possibility. Maybe she was simply particularly guarded or had a formidable mind by nature. Whatever the case, his plan to ask her and then gauge how truthful she was being wouldn’t work if he couldn’t identify her emotions. The time had finally come to try probe.

While his mother chatted with Chielynn about boring noble lady things, Vel focused and broke off a tiny little sliver of his mind. If he had expected this to be challenging, he was wrong, it came easy to him. He instructed this little piece of himself to look for information about the whereabouts of his father and Amordina in the last 24 hours and sent it towards his mother’s mind. The knowledge he had been left with about probe made him confident that this reinforced membrane would pose no problem and that his little mind sliver would find an opening. He had absolutely no idea how long this might take though.

Vel passed the time mostly by chatting with Adeline and Viella, and occasionally answering his mother. It really was quite a nice breakfast, but he was growing a bit nervous waiting for the return of the probe. It had been a full 5 minutes since he’d sent it. Another two minutes later, it made its terribly timed return. He was mid-sentence explaining some aspects of horse grooming to Viella when the piece of him returned, causing him to stutter and stop. “You okay, Da- Vel?” Viella looked a bit concerned, but he quickly caught himself and reassured her. After continuing where he’d left off and then redirecting Viella’s attention to Adeline, he examined what his little spy had found. Memories seen from his mother’s perspective showed his father chatting with their chamberlain, informing both him and mother that he and Amordina would spend the day in town. They were expecting to be very busy and would likely stay overnight at the family’s manor in town. After all, making plans for the arrival of the elven delegation would take a lot of work.