Page 33 of Gift from the Tree

She hums in what I assume is agreement. Maybe not. Maybe she’d prefer one of those blow-dryer things.

“But I’ve seen Corentin using a phone. We had those too. How do they work here?” She’s starting to ask more difficult questions that are going to make me look like an idiot.

“We call those communicators. How they work, well, that’s a question for Gaster, I’m afraid. I couldn’t explain the ins and outs if I wanted to. I’m the fun one out the bunch, not the brains by any means,” I tell her honestly.

I’m airheaded compared to the other guys. My upbringing was far from educational, unfortunately, so although I’m not completely fucking illiterate, I definitely don’t have a taste for learning shit. But so far, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one to make her laugh, so I’m still in first place for her favorite. I know it.

“Don’t say that about yourself. You’re plenty smart. You just taught me something I didn’t know and I’m pretty sure there’s plenty I’m going to learn from you,” she declares, reaching across the bar and squeezing my hand.

Elementra, we’re gonna make a gorgeous baby.

I have to force myself to let her go when she pulls her hand away. The guys, well, Corentin and Tillman, made me give my word I wouldn’t push her, scare her away, overload her with information, tell her anything, kiss her, or fuck her. Ugh, now that I think about it, they pretty much said we couldn’t have any fun at all. What buzzkills. Caspian told me to just stay the fuck away, but I wouldn’t be listening to him. I wouldn’t listen to the other two either, honestly, within reason.

“Whatcha want to do with the rest of your afternoon?” I’m sure I can find us something fun to do, without breaking any of the many rules I was given.

“Oh, I should probably get back to Gaster. He’s expecting me.”

Damn, I forgot about that. Old man is monopolizing her time.

“That’s right, I forgot. Care if I tag along? I’m a student, after all, so I might give you some tips.” Hopefully, she’ll take the little carrot I’m dangling in front of her. If not, I’m just going to watch her through Gaster’s window.

“Oh my goodness, that’s right, you are. Yes, that would be great. I haven’t been in school in so many years, I don’t know what to expect,” she agrees excitedly, clapping her hands, which again makes me hard.

Damn it, calm down.

Taking her plate and placing it in the sink, I make my way over to where she’s sitting at the bar and reach my hand out, hoping she’ll take it. “Let’s go learn some shit then.”

She laughs and shakes her head at me again like she knows I’m purposely putting my charm on for her, but I don’t care if she does know. I meant it when I told her I’m going to spend forever with her. Forever started yesterday when she called Tillman mine and then passed out, very gracefully, I might add.

None of the other stuff matters to me. I don’t care how her power held off for so long, how she got the Memoria stone, or anything else. All that matters is she’s mine and I’m hers. I’ve been waiting my whole life for her, and I’m not going to waste time worrying about shit I can’t control. She’s going to get all of me, from the jump. Well, as much as I can give her without betraying my brothers.

She pretty much confirms my feelings when she places her hand in mine and jumps down from the stool.

Yep, she’s mine and I’m definitely her favorite.

Ten

Willow

The afternoon with Gaster and Draken flew by, and my cheeks hurt from laughing so much.

Draken makes the seriousness of everything more bearable. He knows the difference between when to make me laugh and when Gaster’s saying something important that I need to hear.

I learned a pretty good bit overall. It was a huge information dump for my first full day, but everything we went over seems to soak in. Gaster assured me, for the most part, I’m referring to things correctly, and if I can’t think of a word to describe what I’m trying to say, I’m doing a good job explaining it enough for him to figure it out. Good thing there. I’m not completely ignorant or offensive.

Elementra isn’t as large as the nonmagical realm, which is probably one of the biggest reasons it flourishes so much more. The people who are here respect Elementra and she respects them back, according to Gaster. The land is broken up into four territories, all meeting at one point, called the Central.

There are no cars, no pollution, no waste, and no technology, nothing that harms the environment or the elements like in the nonmagical realm. How the communicators worked was driving me nuts, so finally in layman’s terms, Gaster explained each communicator has a specialized crystal embedded in its design that works as a conduct, and other enchanted material that could absorb and store elemental energy, then through the natural energy channels through Elementra, its power is transmitted. Confusing still, but I’ve seen them being used, so it works somehow.

I thought it was interesting that Elementra is a matriarchal society. Females tend to be on the stronger side of the power scale and are mentally stronger as well. That’s why females’ gifts usually emerged later between eighteen and twenty, whereas males are usually sixteen to seventeen, apart from these guys. Males need longer in school to adapt and grow with their gifts.

There are multiple levels of school. All children start out a lot like we did in the nonmagical realm, the normal reading, writing, math, Elementra history, all that, then they go on to magical academies once they emerge. Lower-level is freshly emerged, so from emergence until twenty-one, mid-level from twenty-one to twenty-five for males, females twenty-one until the season of their twenty-sixth birthday. At that point, they move on to the third and final level of magical academy, which takes roughly four years, give or take, to complete.

I got confused at the season of twenty-six for females, and Gaster explained that at that age, a female is ready to become a Primary or reveals as a true Primary of a Nexus. I tried to push the subject, seeing as I was a twenty-six-year-old female, but both he and Draken wouldn’t go into more detail and said that’s a more advanced discussion for later and I wouldn’t have to worry about that when I started classes.

I told them I didn’t appreciate being left out of the loop, so the only thing they’d explain was that a female would have a relationship with everyone in a Nexus. So I put two and two together that they meant one female would be with four men at once. No wonder they’re stronger, especially mentally. They’d need that strength.

“I believe that’s enough for today. It’s almost dinnertime. We’ve covered a great deal and I need to do some research before we meet tomorrow,” Gaster says as he starts closing books and picking up parchments.

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