Renevere Mars: Part Three

Episode 22: Duren's Secret

Ren stood in the center of the training room, blindfolded. Her feet were square, her stance was ready. She listened, felt the air around her body. When the soft roar of ignited flame came towards her and she felt the first tickles of heat on her arms, she held out her hands like a conductor and spun around. Like gripping a piece of cloth in the wind and moving it as to never let it crumple to the floor. She shot it back with as much force as she could muster.

"Nice!" came Heath's voice from behind her, clapping.

Ren relaxed and lifted her blindfold to see Trish before her, looking mildly satisfied.

"I think it's safe to say, you've got it," he said, coming to stand beside her. His services hadn't been as necessary lately, since Ren was improving on her ability to not catch on fire. Still he had been invaluable to her.

"This blindfold idea was a good idea," Ren said, removing the cloth fully from her head.

"Thank Thuran for that one," he said. "Feel the element you're connected with," he added in a mocking tone.

Ren smirked. "Well, I'm not so sure I'd feel a damn thing if fire didn't happen to be hot, but if it works, it works."

"Before long people are just going to assume you're Year of the Wolf- from 10 years ago," Trish said, jutting a thumb behind her to symbolize the past.

That was a strange thought, though one that had at least partially occurred to Ren before. She certainly didn't look like the most recent batch of wolves. Every 10 years the animals assigned to denote the year you entered, your class, recycled. 10 years was plenty of time to separate the groups because most people only start at 10 years old. Ren, of course, was the anomaly.

"Yeah, that's true I guess," she said with a shrug, not sure how it mattered beyond having to correct misconceptions at parties and explain the same story over and over again. Late bloomer bla bla started late bla bla.

"Just something to be aware of," Trish continued. "You might run into issues at the registry."

"Why would I run into issues?"

"Ren, you understand what the years represent, don't you?"

Ren shrugged, "Your starting class, I know."

"Exactly. It's the way we communicate how long you've been a warrior. Did you know, for example, the fact sheets that Vertexia keeps on each warrior, don't even list age."

Ren made a face of mild surprise, because it was surprising, but it hardly seemed relevant.

"They just list entering class. Year of the Wolf, in your case. For most warriors, it's obvious how old they are in relation to that, you've got a little kid face attached to the label 'Year of the Wolf', now I know you've been training for over a year. That's more helpful that saying a kid is 11, because you could be 11 and have just got here, or you could be 11 and have been here for a year."

Ren had not thought about it this way, but it made sense. Because Testing Day was a fixed day in the spring, and a child always tests when they are 10 years old, they could be 10 years old that day, if Testing Day was their birthday. When she was a kid, everyone used to talk about having an early or late birthday based on Testing Day. If your birthday fell right before Testing Day you had an 'early' birthday, because that meant you would just barely be 10 when you took your test, as opposed to someone who was born after Testing Day who would be nearly 11 when they took theirs.

"I suppose it'll only matter for so long," Ren said with a shrug. "Eventually it must stop being obvious like that, or talked about."

"True enough," Trish agreed. "We don't really talk about our class year once you've been a Homalith for so long."