08 ~ Nurtured Curiosity I

Once the sun rose Jason sprung from bed, his parents still dead asleep, he walked out into the main room. He grabbed an apple on his way by the kitchen, and sat on the floor by the fire, eating slowly. He wondered what he was going to do with Erog later today.

'They spoke a bit more about it after Erog said to bring me to his house but after they started talking about Malakcow. So I really don't know how or what Erog plans to teach me about reading, writing, or arithmetic as he said, I do know what writing my name means. Mom and Dad do that all the time so I know that one for sure, but "advanced mechanisms," "Malakcow Royal Military College," I have no idea.'

Tossing the apple into the fire he got up, went over to the rocking chair, pushed the rocking chair around to face the window out the front, and sitting down. Activating his normal light, he let it travel through the window and then let it spread throughout the farm, his attention wasn't on what he saw though.

'This new light won't react at all like the other, I can accumulate it until it feels like I run out of air but past that it won't do anything I want. I was hoping I could use the extra light too let me use my light longer.'

Hopes dashed, Jason played with his light, making it form many different shapes and things he'd seen humans use through the years. He would spin them around looking at them attentively, his light models could even move in the same ways as their seen counter parts.

Sometimes his eyes would go wide if he'd have figured out how that particle thing worked, one that stumped him for a while was a wavy see-through block set in a wooden box, his mom would rub all their clothes against it after they'd worn them.

She would take his clothing that had gained something along their journeys around the farm. Fill it with water, then rub a rough glossy yellow brick of what she told him was "soap" along the thick, wavy glass see-through glass bottom.

This wasn't even the interesting part, the magic happened when she would grab the clothes, when the clothes made contact against the rough surface of the board and the soap.

Watching this process unfold with his light let him see the soap in the water break apart, forming a wall around almost everything that wasn't the shirt itself. He saw many tiny little things reacting with one another; his mother performed this amazing act right in-front of him, yet she only showed discontent for it the entire time.

She would always do it because Damir apparently waited too long to do their clothes, ironically enough he would accumulate a huge pile of his dirty well worked clothes in the corner by the chest that sat next to the ceiling door. This only helped fuel Jason's amusement at Damir's hypocrisy, he was immensely conflictive but had a very set book of reasons for his actions that no one could seem to argue with. If Damir ever knew of this, he'd probably wouldn't refute it either.

Disregarding Irina and Damir's dramas and quirks surrounding who did the laundry, Jason, in his attempts to rationalize his magic realism-esque observations of soap, would recreate the entire process with his light, performing the interactions exactly as he saw them.

When rubbing against the glass the soap would break apart in the water forming small chains that would float around, sometimes able to bump into one another sealing air or water inside.

Adding the clothes into the mix, the soap would then latch onto anything it could from one specific side, at times it would even take very large pieces of dirt or such, breaking them apart as all the soap chains fought to attach to it, if it was weak enough.

The bigger things that the soap couldn't break apart, would get broken down or separated out from the clothes on contact with the rough texture of the glass. The wall formed from the soap chains opposite ends had the opposite effect from the side that attached, it would push on anything that got close rather than pull it. This let the contact from the rough glass easily shake away anything that wasn't apart of the shirt itself into the water.

When he saw this happen in-front of him each time it happened so fast he couldn't quite see the whole process unfold. But using his light to completely recreate the interaction he could create and observe the interaction as fast or slow as he wanted to. He couldn't make it happen in reality, but, in a way he had his own little world, where he was free to experiment, project, manipulate, and express whatever he desired too.

Today was mostly miscellaneous objects, based off what he knew about how these more basic things functioned like chairs, a thread and needle, these sort of things, he was able to assume why other things looked or worked as they did. Most of the time it was because a person would need an immense amount of time to do the same with just their hands. These actions are just unreasonable to do regularly, but would also be "impressive" if performed by anyone; Jason still didn't understand that word all too well.

Later he went to take note of how much light he had left, but there was a surprising exchange going on. The sight caught him by surprise upon seeing, 'The strands connected between the pathways of my mind, and the channels of my heart are beginning to exchange light, it's calming down and changing back into my normal light again. It happens whenever the amount of light grows too far apart, so there is a use for it other than a great rest!'

This new breakthrough provided him with a use for the new light, his excitement that had been building since the early morning only grew. Eventually his parents woke up, marking the beginning of their mornings they would always make breakfast together.

Lively as ever, Irina and Damir were prancing about cooking, Irina was singing with Damir piping in to hit the occasional note. Jason sat in the rocking chair watching the two play around, he felt like they were in their own little world at the moment, not sure of what he should do he was content to watch.

Once everything was ready they sat down to eat the singing came to an end, the meal was the same as always but he thought it unquestionably tasted better than normal. Irina spoke up looking at Jason as they continued to eat, "After we eat we'll get you cleaned up, then once your Father and I get done what we need, we'll take you over to Erog's house. Okay?"

"Okay Mom!" He replied with a smile, he really was thrilled, he might not know what Erog's going to teach him, but he did get that he could answer his questions.

Damir gave Irina a shallow grin and put his fork down, "Erog's house isn't far but we do have to pass through town, so what are our three rules again Jay?"

"Don't talk to others unless you're there."

"Mhmm, we'll add Erog to that too okay."

"If someone asks, or tries to touch me or my hair, say no and come to you."

"Yep, and?"

"Don't trust or believe what I see or hear other people say."

"Perfect, finish up your food now an' I'll go get to work so I can take you over to Erog"

These were the rules that Damir and Irina made well sure Jason knew for when they went into town after some incidents.

One incident happened when Irina took Jason into the general store since Damir was away. She was picking out what they needed when another child told Jason to come see a bug outside and Irina thought it would be nice for him to make some friends, so she didn't interrupt the exchange.

Once she came back outside she saw Jason standing there, she stopped on the dot alarmed by a red patch on his head. Looking closer and noticing it was bleeding, she swiftly put her basket down, running her hands across head frantically patting him down for anything else. Putting her hands on his cheeks she kissed him on the forehead.

His eyes were sort of wonderstruck the whole time but that changed as she took her warm hands away from his cheeks. The tears set in right away, Jason began to cry but it didn't look like he knew why.

He wasn't making any noise either he just let the tears roll down his face. When his mother finally got to hear what happened she just held him in her arms. Jason said when he had gone outside with the boy to look at the bug, they brought him around to the side where there was another boy. The boy had been crouched down looking at something and when he told Jason to come see, he leaned over him to see there wasn't any bug.

He then said he didn't know how, but he fell over the boy in front of him landing on his back. He told his mom then that the boy who brought him out there said "You are the bug silly." After they both reached down, one held him as the other grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled. It took a couple pulls, the hair didn't want to give as easy as the two boys thought, his hair gave way and the two boys placed it in a box with other bugs before running off laughing and giggling at their achievement. He couldn't stand up right away, but after he could he headed around to the front to see his mom come out.

As he told Irina, she held the face of a warm, caring mother, smiling softly from ear to ear. Yet as he spoke her face stayed the same as she caressed his head, but her eyes shook more with each word, and her tears fought their way out despite her best attempts.

She took him home right away after that and it became the driving factor behind their third rule specifically. The hard part about that rule though was teaching him what trust meant, for this Damir came up with a unique solution.

"I have an apple here right? If I say I'll give you this apple you know I can, because I have one right here. But if I put this apple behind me and you didn't see me do that how would you know I have an apple.

So now if I say, I'll give you an apple if you come to my house. How would you know if I have an apple if you never saw me with one Jason? If you think I have an apple at my house then you would be choosing to 'believe' me when I said I'd give you an apple.

And to do that would trusting me, because if you believe what someone says that means you trust them."

Surprisingly, he figured it all out in his first run through, Damir chalked it up to his great idea for presentation.

The family finished up their breakfast as normal, the rest of the morning was uneventful as always. After Irina got Jason ready they wouldn't let him outside, so he was forced to stay inside just to watch on at the two quickly running through each task they had set for themselves.

Just past early afternoon his parents finished up the last of what they needed to do together. Damir washed up outside with a bucket of water he effortlessly cranked from the well. Bringing Odin around to the front of the house and grabbing Jason as they set off through town, everyone gave them looks as they passed.

Howbeit, no one caused any issues or spoke with them either as they passed by they simply watched. Arriving at Erog's house Jason saw the home to be more than he was expecting but still smaller. The roof was topped with rows and columns of many green partially flattened half circles, laying on top of one another. Viewing it under his light, his best guess was that it was a stone.

Erog's home was shaped oddly like a '+' it came to a point in the middle. Using his light, the rest of the home wasn't made from anything distinguishable to him either, it was like the wooden blocks Damir made for him. Only these blocks also appeared to be a type stone, it was far denser than the ones that lined the roof though.

"Erog's always boasted about how he can run his whole farm alone despite his age. He always goes on, probably every time I'm here, about how 'he built this house in half a year, living out of the barn over there. But no one has ever been able to confirm if it's true or not, anything I've heard anyone ever say about it has just been that one day he just came into town with a wheel barrel of vegetables and fruits one day. Though now I'm starting to think after what he was telling us yesterday he might really have." Damir shook his head and sighed.

Riding Odin up to the front door, Damir brought Jason down off the horse's back and tied his reigns to a post. He took Jason's hand as they stepped up to the front door, Damir took a breath and knocked.