My mother's family were obviously the ones with the most money. Where my father's people wore robust furs and leather clothing, as he did, they wore silken gowns and suits as if this were an evening affair. One couple from her side even had their son dressed in some multi-colored suit that had flared cuffs and collar.
The shininess of the material must of corresponded to wealth in some way because even the people from my father's family could not look at it with disdain. However, it soon became clear that neither side of the family really associated with each other.
Everyone in my generation was collected to fraternize under a large central pavilion where there was even a few wait staff in white livery making sure drinks were full and snacks were offered. However, my parents' families literally had their own pavilions where all the adults gathered together.
The friends of my parents from here in town actually had to travel from one side of the yard to the other to meet and greet with people. It was kind of sad, but at least none of the older kids who were here seemed to make a big deal of it. In fact, it seemed like the kids from opposing families had actually paired or grouped together.
They were doing what adults usually did, which was going around meeting and greeting Gryn's friends from town- I, obviously, had nobody my age who i could talk to.
However, the way these guys did it was in that weirdly competitive way where kids who do not really know the full picture but take it upon themselves to be petty. The kid in the thick suit of shiny quilted material- Jonavan- and my other cousin Malkrys were paired up and followed Gryn everywhere to represent their respective families.
If not for the fact that i was sitting in the middle of the pavilion pretending to be an only vaguely coherent giant baby, i would have probably spent much of my time being lectured by those two.
Wherever Gryn stopped to talk with a group of kids from town, eventually somebody would talk to either Jonavan or Malkrys. As soon as the door was cracked, they had their foot planted in it. Especially Jonavan, he was a little politician.
A returned greeting emphasized by a remark on some possession of the greeter triggers a likewise compliment which created a carefully casual conversation of 'my horse'.
Whenever Malkrys was the one brought into the conversation, it was one of two things. The other kid would be direct and ask about both his and my sizes or Malkrys would use something like a handshake to bring up their differences. Once his foot was in the door, it was usually a tactfully brief explanation of his- our- proud heritage.
For the simple reason that i actually got to learn things about myself from him, Malkrys had way more points in my book than Jonavan. Apparently our people come from the same mountains as the ice wolves, which were as close as a few days of heavy walking or a week of heavy riding away. And that was just getting to the base of the mountains.
The hill people, as they called themselves, were one of the backbones of the entire continent, their immense strength and far spread numbers gave our portion of 'the empire' much of its military strength and protection.
Of course, somebody of wealth and magic like Jonavan could not let such comments slide so easily. As it turned out, not only was my mother's entire family both aristocratic and military, but his own branch of the main tree oversaw much of the magical crafts and trade in the neighboring regions.
He even claimed that any blade he himself crafted in a day could overwhelm any weapon from a mundane master made with weeks of effort.
When things were made petty and personal, Malkrys would usually keep his cool and ask practical application questions about crafting weapons and armor. He himself was studying for an apprenticeship with a master magic craftsman. Jonavan slipped up the first few times, such as getting wrong the heating requirements for iron and steel.
It was usually around this time that Gryn would awkwardly move on to the next group.
After the first few slip ups and near rises in tempers, the two of them eventually decided to simply avoid the initial topics and started claiming their bragging rights in other fields. Malkrys was proficient in ranged weapons and polearms, Jonavan was a through-and-through fencer.
Malkrys could only use earthen and fire magics that allowed him to manipulate the ground around him which he used for luring and trapping his prey during hunts. As a kid among the hill people, he was allowed to go hunting. Jonavan could use multiple elemental magics and even some 'mystic arts' such as summoning- all of which he used in training for his future crafts and business.
I was honestly getting tired of hearing so much about these two, their conversations were so constant and scattered that nobody else really talked. At some point most of the female kids in this generation had congregated around my chair because Gryn was purposefully keeping the two away from me.
This was the only upside, but even it came with a downside. Instead of talking or gossiping or marveling over the hideously adorable giant baby, they were all just snacking and keeping an eye out for when Gryn would finally come this way.
Those two were starting to become a problem.
Eventually, though, either somebody from the wait staff forwarded a complaint or the adults just figured out what was going on because we soon moved on from the greetings to an actual event. This, from the different reactions of my different families, seemed to be one my father's side enjoyed.
In the back yard, a large rectangular area had been marked off with an ankle-height rope and the inside was sectioned off into four sets of three squares. Each square had short wooden pole or rod ending in a broad but shallow basket. Each loosely woven wicker basket and pole were only a little shorter than i was.
As everybody gathered around, everybody drew slips of papers from a bowl and each paper had a number. After everybody who wanted to play had draw, they were organized into random teams of six based on the numbers that they had drawn. Gryn had opted out of playing to come spend time with me since i 'could not' play.
He was probably just taking the opportunity to get the hell away from our cousins.
Somehow, as if the gods of this world themselves had drawn lots for them, Malkrys and Jonavan were on different teams. At first, i could only guess at what kind of game this was, but once the teams were divided and the order of play was decided things got interesting.
Everybody was given or short wooden club about the length of a child's- their- arms and three tightly wound leather balls were placed at the intersection of the inner six squares.
Soon, a child stood in each square hovering protectively around their baskets while the kids in those middle six squares faced off against each other. Of course, the first teams on the field were Malkrys and Jonavan, crouched at the ready in opposing squares. Malkrys looked proud and excited, Jonavan wore a grim but determined mask.
"The point of this game is to at least hit the other person's basket with a ball," Gryn takes it upon himself to explain to me uncertainly, probably wondering if i already knew of the game. "If any basket gets hit with a ball three times, the basket's guardian is out of the game. If the ball goes in and stays in, that's an out."
As the game was just starting to sound eerily similar to a brutal version of horseshoes, it actually started and became more like professional dodge ball. Both inner sets of kids ran to the middle as fast as they could to try and grab a ball, and whoever was slowest was at greatest risk. some even feinted swings of their clubs.
Neither Jonavan nor Malkrys played by dirty means, going so far as to hold their clubs out behind them as they one-handed raced and fought for the ball. This could easily be seen as keeping the ready to swing in some ways, but it did not match either's character to actually swing.
They openly and honestly did not like each other, but they were both still honest kids.
Once the first person with a ball returned to their basket, they immediately tossed, swung, and swerved it straight at the person across from them. That person, a hill kid of normal genes, was bravely standing in front of his basket so there was no one else to blame if he got struck. However, his bravery was not just for show.
Being more familiar with this game than the obvious city-folk types, the hill kid was ready and not only swatted the ball safely but instead of away he served the ball up and behind him. To the girl in his team's back row who happened to be a city-folk. She was caught unprepared but adapted quickly, rushing forward to swing but missing with her club and accidentally punching the ball.
"That's no good," Gryn remarks just before the boy who had tried for an assist swats the stray ball to the ground by hand and picks it up. "Sticks or Hits is the rule, reach means you can only use the stick or your actual body to touch the ball. Now he has to serve it to the other team's back row and hope a front row does not intercept the serve."
From horseshoe to dodge ball tennis and now volleyball. What the hell kind of game did these giants come up with?
"Name," i say softly, hoping nobody behind me was close enough to hear me.
"The game is called Top Defense," he replies quickly, suddenly smiling as if happy to share something with me. "Originally, this game was how disputes between the different mountain tribes were settled without death. There was still blood, but not killing- usually- and the fields are way bigger in the mountains.
Even though Jonavan and Malkrys were fighting their own personal war on the field, nobody had yet to be eliminated. Even though he was much smaller and weaker than Malkrys, Jonavan was playing just as daringly as his hill people counterpart. He never left the front of his basket and never stopped swinging, even when the person beside Malkrys tried to snake-eye a shot at his basket.
Honest as he may have been, Malkrys still honestly wanted to win and seemed to have no problems hammering the ball in at the same time. Jonavan blocked the side shot, but Malkrys' ball from dead on all but whistled through the air before striking Jonavan in his the hip.
Surprisingly, after having recieved such a blow to such an important and bony location, Jonavan simply grinned at Malkrys as all three balls found themselves on Jonavan's side of the field. At the start, Malkrys' side had all the balls, but now Jonavan was casually bending down to pick one up as if nothing ever happened.
Nodding his head as if this made perfect sense when i turned to look at him with an arched 'scolding brow', my older brother informs me, "Even for you, it would probably be hard to tell the difference. Jonavan is not just wearing shiny clothes, he's wearing a light armor of metal fabric.
"There are loads of creatures besides dragons who can consume and convert metals or minerals," He goes on quickly when my look becomes simply incredulous. "For instance, our grandfather gifted Jonavan a Golden Widow, which can eat metals to be spun as web, when his father announced he would inherit the head of their branch. They fed the spider alloys and from its web they loomed that outfit."
That explained both why the people who made a point to wear armored clothing respected this kid's outfit and why Jonavan could take such a solid hit so easily. I was only a one-year-old with adult human strength, Malkrys was years older and more developed. That's some hella armor!
The other two balls were already back in play, but Jonavan was holding onto his obvious free serve like it was his lifeline. He took a hit and nobody complained about his handling the ball, so it seemed like he had the 'table scratch' of this game. Now, he just needed an opportunity.
After only a few more moments, that opportunity arrived in the form of another snake-eyed shot. This time, however, it came from Jonavan's side of the fields and zoomed straight for Malkrys. Malkrys barely spared the ball a glance, registering only that it would not touch his basket before focusing on the ball from in front.
As if to prove a point, Malkrys did not defend at all but instead allowed the balls batted at him by two weaker city kids to simply bounce off of his pretty much magical body.
Armed with two balls, Malkrys immediately targeted the people to either side of Jonavan. The city kid who had cheap shotted him dove out of the way of the returned fire, allowing the ball to smash into the side of his wicker basket. Where it got stuck, which somehow counted as an elimination.
All the hill kids on the field, even on Jonavan's team, chorused by reflex, "All Stats Matter!" Apparently, this was a reference to the literal Luck of Malkrys' shot. The other ball, though, was met by the club of a hill kid and sent straight into the gut of a city kid on malkrys' side.
From that point forward, the game was suddenly played twice as hard by everybody until it was finally over about ten minutes later.
*