Two Years Later
Winter of M.A. 1882
"Psst, psst, PSST! Your shoelaces are falling out again!"
Elwin brushed off the annoyances of his classmates behind him as he tried to focus on the question being posed at hand.
"Mr. Elwin Eramir, please come forward to solve this problem on the blackboard."
It was numeracy class, and Mr. Sadis, a tall lanky man with small glasses, always tended to single Elwin out for the hardest problem every lesson. In fact, him being picked on to take on the challenge was so routine that Elwin resorted to memorizing his father's books on arithmetic and even basic calculus to keep him from embarrassing himself.
Elwin walked to the front of the class without a word, and everyone giggled and laughed as if they knew a secret he did not. As he walked, something crunched on his back, and he realized someone must have posted a note on his back again. Elwin reached back and tore out the note stuck to his sweater – once his father's – and found the words, "Eloser" scrawled hastily in red ink.
How creative. Elwin crumpled the piece of paper in his hands without a word and turned to face the blackboard to face the problem.
Except the problem was like nothing he'd ever seen.
Written in neat strokes of chalk was a question with lines and symbols of which he only understood half – peering closer, Elwin realized quickly that this problem was beyond the scope of the curriculum for his age group, and quite possibly on an entire year level above his own – if such a year level existed at all, since his required schooling would conclude with this year, which was his eighth. This was a question for aspiring mathematicians and experimental philosophers in higher academies, not students of his age. However, Elwin was determined to try it still.
He took apart the equations to rearrange them in a way that made sense, and tried to define each symbol and each operation. Elwin attempted to gather what he knew of mathematics and numeracy to tackle the problem, but it simply wasn't something he knew. It's a foundation that Mr. Sadis did not teach, nor will he to anyone at his school in all honesty, and if Elwin's intuition was correct, Mr. Sadis had made up this specific question because Elwin kept correctly answering the questions he singled Elwin out for in the past.
Elwin turned to face Mr. Sadis.
"I'm afraid I don't have the skill to solve this, sir." He kept his head down.
"You don't have the skill to solve this despite what I taught you?" he interjected, crossing his arms and tapping his foot.
You didn't teach me this, liar, Elwin thought to himself.
A couple of his classmates broke into giggles that pierced the otherwise terse silence.
"Mr. Elwin, what did I say? Don't try to leech off of your family legacy and study hard for once."
That was not true. Elwin did study very hard, all the while working to support his mother at The Marlin.
"People, this is what happens when you don't have a father to teach you how to be a man," said Mr. Sadis. His words cut like daggers of ice, driving Elwin to clench his teeth. He would be digging his own grave if he retaliated in response, wondering as to why people spat venom at him, and only him.
"Yes, Mr. Sadis," was his classmates' response, all in such coordinated unison that Elwin wanted to punch a hole through the blackboard.
Mr. Sadis adjusted his glasses and spoke again.
"Lucian, would you come to the blackboard to show Elwin how this problem should be solved?"
"Thought you'd never ask," said Lucian, standing up as if he was waiting for this moment, striding to the blackboard.
"Out of my way," he muttered under his breath, snatching the chalk and shoving Elwin aside. He was half a head taller than Elwin side-by-side, even though they were both thirteen.
Ah, yes, Lucian. He was ranked number 1 out of everyone in their year, and his celestial grades, including those in all the classes of the Elemental Arts, made him a favorite among the teachers at their public school. But he was far from studious, or nerdy as the terms went around their age; he was haughty, proud, and abrasive, and knew exactly how to get what he wanted. Elwin couldn't understand why everyone followed and gathered around Lucian. Was it because he was loved? No, perhaps it was not so much that he was loved as he was feared, admired, and respected; those who were adept at their Maht at such a young age were considered blessed, and everyone followed Lucian hoping some of his blessing would rub off on them. Anyone who might have disagreed witnessed how he and his proclaimed 'elite' provided endless torment to Elwin, and threatened to do the same to anyone who didn't play by his demands. So they kept their mouths shut. After all, who wouldn't?
And so, despite Lucian's name meaning "Born of Light", he was anything but.
Lucian began scribbling a complex set of equations and numbers on the board and explained his steps meticulously and with punchable decorum, and gave Mr. Sadis the answer he wanted to see, making it obvious that the two had planned this act beforehand. Seriously? Elwin thought to himself.
"That, class, is how you solve a problem. You may return to your seat, Mr. Lucian. 10 Merits for you, specifically."
Lucian jabbed Elwin's chest with the chalk, smirking at an angle no one could see, and let it drop to the floor with a clack.
Every teacher and every student was, in some way, complicit in Lucian's abuse towards Elwin. The students were responsible for partaking in it, and most of the teachers for not taking any serious action, thinking it a problem relegated to the pupils' sphere, except some like Mr. Sadis who made it their life's purpose to drive Elwin down.
The world always seemed to single someone out to blame for their troubles, and such a need was replicated everywhere, Elwin thought. He was a convenient target with no one to defend him – his father was long gone, he was missing an eye and looked like a monster when he took his eyewrap off, and he couldn't control water as skillfully as his peers – so no one made friends with him for fear of being ostracized from the rest of the community. If not Elwin, who else? Some other poor kid? Elwin couldn't see a person to take on such a blame, and he was too soft-hearted to lay such attention to someone else.
"You see, Mr. Elwin, our Republics is founded upon hardworking people like Lucian, not upon those who run from their families to chase their dreams."
He didn't want Mr. Sadis to go there.
"Are you calling my father an irresponsible man, sir?"
"I am calling him irresponsible, yes. And judging from the looks of it, you have his character, which means you will ultimately not amount to anything in life."
"What did you just say – ?"
"I'm sorry, what was that?" questioned Mr. Sadis, his cane enveloping itself in hoarfrost.
"You see, your father not only doomed his expedition, but thirteen thousand souls who trusted him to follow in his journey. Can you look in the faces of those who lost their families because of him, like Miss Lune here?"
Lune. She was the only girl that didn't partake in the everyday ritual of ridicule. She looked away from Elwin, teary-eyed. Elwin felt sympathy for her.
"Grow up and learn your place in the world, Mr. Elwin Eramir. The sooner you realize that you should live a hardworking and steady life of an ant, no one has to suffer. Don't lead others to your crackpot dreams."
"No. I disagree," Elwin declared back, standing up taller. He would not stand for slander against his father. "Do you mean to tell me, sir, that this Republics was not founded upon men and women whose toil and courage led to great discoveries and advancements in experimental philosophy? For the betterment of civilization? Do you mean to tell me that no one should carry on my father's work, and what he tried so hard to achieve, meaning that all those who trusted and followed him would have died in vain? No, I don't think so, Mr. Sadis, and a world in which such heroes become nobodies and ants become consuls is not a world which I like to live in."
The class was stunned into silence.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Then came Mr. Sadis's reply.
"What discovery did your father want to make?"
"Terra Incognita, the lands beyond the sea, the lands beyond Jin and Avan."
"What did he want to find there that would help the world?"
Elwin didn't know. Elwin didn't have an answer.
"He did not tell me before he left," he answered.
"So my point still stands. Carl Eramir is a crackpot, and so are you."
And such was class for Elwin. Of course, Elwin was unaware that Mr. Sadis, unbeknownst to but a few, hid a secret: that he too lost his son on Carl's expedition, and Elwin was a perpetual reminder of the man who took his own son away. But what if it was the other way around?
Though his numeracy class would be over in a few minutes, it was only early morning – Elwin's torment of the day had only just begun.