Chapter 21 - Helplessness

Arien had known people would be angry about Sari leaving. He had not expected the anger to spread to the rest of the family so quickly.
For the first few days after the festival, no one seemed able to believe she had left willingly. Terry went to the village before dawn and came back after dark, boots muddy, face closed, pipe unlit between his fingers. Wod disappeared for hours at a time. Once he returned with burrs on his trousers and blood on one knuckle, then said nothing when Mari asked where he had been.
Mari questioned everyone she could reach: girls who had danced near Sari, women who had seen the musicians’ wagons, local patrons, even travelling merchants. Arien heard most of it from the corner, pretending to play with Alia’s wooden animals while adults forgot how much a quiet child could understand. Nothing helped.
One woman claimed she had seen a blonde girl near the painted cart. Someone else remembered her laughing, while another insisted she had been crying.
By the end of the first week, people had stopped asking whether Sari was safe. At the well, women called her foolish and ungrateful. Men muttered that she had shamed Terry and made a mockery of Uther. Whenever Mari approached, the conversations abruptly changed.
Arien hated how quickly they had stopped talking about Sari as someone who might be frightened or in trouble. Now she was simply foolish, selfish, and shameless.
Sari had spent more time with him than anyone else. She had taught him words, names, roads, little rules of the village no one else thought to explain. More importantly, she had always spoken to him seriously, even when everyone else saw only a small child.
She had been his first friend in this world. Hearing people dismiss her as stupid or troublesome made Arien angrier every time.
Two weeks after the festival, Nessi came. Arien heard her before he saw her. Her voice cut through the yard sharp enough to make the chickens scatter.
“I want to hear it from you, Mari. From your own mouth.”
Mari stood by the well with a bucket in both hands. She had been drawing water. She stopped with the rope still taut.
“Nessi, not here.”
“Where, then? In the village? In front of everyone? Because everyone is already speaking of it.”
Arien sat near the doorway with Alia, pretending to untangle a piece of cord. He did not move.
Nessi strode into the yard. Mari set the bucket down very carefully. “What do you want me to say?”
“I want to know what you plan to do about the insult your daughter has given my son.”
Mari flinched, and Nessi noticed.
“My daughter is missing,” Mari said.
“Your daughter ran.”
Mari’s hands tightened on the rope. “We don’t know that.”
“She left with musicians before sunrise, carrying a bundle. What else would you call it?”
Alia leaned closer to Arien. He kept his face still. From inside the house, something scraped. Terry, probably. Or Wod. Neither came out.
Nessi took another step forward. “Do you know what they said at the well this morning? That there must be something wrong with Uther. That a girl would rather sleep under a wagon than enter his house. My son is being laughed at because your daughter could not keep her head straight for one season.”
Mari’s face went pale. “She is fourteen.”
“Old enough to shame two families.”
“She was frightened.”
“She was promised ten morgs and a husband who would not beat her, drink her dowry, or leave her hungry. Many girls would thank Mal for less.”
“Then find one of them for Uther.”
Mari stood rigid, her hands white around the rope.

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Nessi’s mouth tightened. “So that is how it is.”
“No. I feel sorry for Uther, and I know people are being cruel to him. But do not stand in my yard and speak as if Sari’s disappearance is only an inconvenience to your son.”
“Disappearance.” Nessi spat the word. “You still say it like she was taken by wolves.”
Mari did not answer.
“You should go to Father Varix,” she said. “Publicly. Ask forgiveness for the shame brought on both families. Make it clear she acted alone.”
“You want me to denounce my daughter in front of the village.”
“I want you to protect the daughters you still have.”
Alia’s fingers dug into Arien’s sleeve. Mari looked past Nessi toward the doorway, toward Alia, then toward Lisa, who stood half-hidden inside the house with her arms wrapped around herself.
Nessi lowered her voice.
“People remember these things, Mari. When Lisa is old enough. When Alia is old enough. Mothers talk. Fathers listen. You know they do.”
Terry appeared in the doorway at last, his unlit pipe in one hand. “That is enough. You’ve said what you came to say.”
Nessi turned toward him. “Your son is not the one being laughed at. You let your wife promise a match, then let your daughter spit on it, and now my son pays the price.”
Wod stepped out behind Terry. “Don’t talk about her like that.”
Nessi gave him a hard look. “Of course. She runs, Uther is humiliated, and somehow your family still acts as though she is the one who was wronged.”
Wod moved, but Terry’s arm shot out and stopped him. “Inside,” Terry said.
“Father—”
“Inside.”
Wod hesitated before finally turning back inside.
Nessi adjusted her shawl. “I came because we are kin, Mari. Because this can still be handled properly.”
Mari looked at her for a long time, she picked up the bucket. “Leave.”
Nessi’s eyes widened. “Mari—”
“Leave my yard.”
Nessi looked from Mari to Terry, then to the children watching from the doorway. Her gaze stopped on Alia and Lisa for just long enough to make both girls shrink. Then she turned and walked back to the road.
No one mentioned Sari that evening or the next morning. Before long, the whole family seemed to avoid her name.
The family still ate, cleaned, fed the animals, repaired tools, carried water, argued over chores, and prepared for the first frosts.
After the argument with Nessi, Arien stopped hearing Wod defend Sari. When Arien finally asked why no one was still looking, Wod looked at him without answering at first.
“Look where?”
Arien had no answer.
“The road is gone. The musicians are gone. She chose.”
“She could come back.”
“Maybe it’s better if she doesn’t. The village will never forget what she did. ”
Arien wanted to blast him with magic. Mana stirred beneath his skin before he realized he had reached for it.
He knew Wod was hurting too. He had seen enough of that over the past weeks. Right then, he didn’t care. Arien forced his hands still.
“I hate you,” he whispered.
Wod looked at him for a moment. Then his face twisted.
“Good.” He left before Arien could answer.
That night, while the others slept, Arien sat by the hearth and stared into the coals.
He wasn’t really trying to practice. He was still angry about every insult he had heard, every time the family avoided Sari’s name, and most of all about how little he could do.
As he watched the flames, he felt the same pull he had noticed when discovering other Aspects.
He remembered how long it had taken him to understand Water. He had watched the pond, tested what he felt, and slowly learned how the Aspect behaved. Fire needed none of that.
He watched the flames crawl across the wood, and the connection came almost immediately.

New Skill available to assign:
Fire Aspect (Uncommon): Fire purifies. Fire strengthens. Fire consumes. When assigned, increases understanding, control, and efficiency in the use of fire magic.

 
Arien stared at the words until they blurred. He still felt just as angry. Sari was still gone. For all the advantages he had been given in this world, none of them could tell him where Sari had gone.
As the days passed, Terry stopped leaving the house to search. At first, Arien assumed he had finally given up, or that shame and anger were keeping him home.
After a few evenings, he realized that wasn’t it. Terry was always listening for the road.
Every sound drew his attention. Once, when a cart rattled past the house, Terry was at the window before Arien even understood what he had heard. Another time, boots scraped outside the door, and he stood so fast his chair struck the wall.
“Sari?”
It was only Wod, coming back empty-handed. Terry sat down again without a word.
No news came, and by the time the first frost silvered the fields, Sari still had not returned.
Arien practiced with fire in stolen moments, shaping tiny flames until his head ached and his mana ran dry. The early Skill levels came quickly, giving him more control with every few days of practice. He learned to make a flame bend, shrink, and burn blue for the length of a breath.
Until then, Arien had treated getting stronger as the answer to almost every problem. More magic, more levels, more knowledge. Eventually, he had assumed that would be enough.
Sari was gone, and none of it helped him find her.