Everyone going to sleep was probably Lee's favorite moment of the day – he could finally meditate in peace. Fenax ant the rest of the squad members have long gotten used to his weird posture of sleeping – sitting cross legged with his back straight.
Of course, now, meditating at the side of two hundred lying bodies he was kind of standing out, but apart from the guarding instructors throwing occasional curious glances his way, no one really bothered him.
There was a good reason why Lee used every possible moment to focus on what went on in his abdomen.
While in Sunwell he could only observe the blue mist revolving within, and even after following Tess's teachings for a couple of years, there had never been any drastic changes.
But when he arrived to the fortress, or more exact – two months after he arrived, one night he witnessed the water spark emerging in his consciousness. It was like a blue volcano erupted within, but instead of devastation he felt peace and happiness. And a strange intimacy and closeness to it.
At first Lee was ecstatic – this was what he was supposed to go for and technically from now on he could effectively dip in the power of the spark and use the water element. Not that he intended to, but he could.
But after few nights spent in observation he realized there was a cloud of dirt revolving around it, as if trying to suppress or even devour the spark.
For a while he though it was only his imagination, but the more he meditated, the more he realized it was real. In fact, Lee's guess was that it was the filth of the world he was now in that was polluting his body and the spark was acting as a purifier.
After several tests of applying Tess's technique, he verified it effectively helped the process thus in the end began to spend most of his free time in meditation.
Now though, sitting next to the small army, no matter how Lee tried, he found it impossible to concentrate. It felt as if someone was bothering him, almost as if poking him with an invisible stick. Physically he was fine, but he couldn't shake off the feeling someone was messing with him on purpose.
'There!' Lee suddenly opened his eyes and closely looked in the direction where the disturbance came from.
He wasn't certain what he was supposed to notice.
There were a bunch of kids sleeping next to the small piles of their pieces of armor like everywhere else. Roganax with his only eye was lazily watching the snoring crowd along with another instructor – apparently it was their guard shift. But there had to be someone else.
Lee stared without blinking at the point he thought the disturbance was coming from, and it took a while, but only after thirty or so breaths one of the kids made an unhappy grimace, murmured something to himself and sat up, mimicking Lee's pose. Then he grinned at Lee, closed his eyes, and for the rest of the night remained unmoving – apparently in deep meditation.
From what it looked like, the guy thought Lee knew it was him staring earlier and decided it was unnecessary to continue with the hide and seek.
But it was confusing.
He was from the same race as one of the three guys Lee had to fight on the first day – the one with the big head whom Lee kicked ... well … in the armpit, the potato head. Lee was certain this was a different one though, and judging from where he sat, he definitely was from one of the strongest squads.
Everyone in the fortress had long forgotten the incident of Lee's first day there and it was highly unlikely the guy wanted to avenge his buddy. Besides, there was a dueling system and any two parties who had a disagreement, with the blessing of an instructor, using wooden sticks could smack each other unconscious as much as they wanted.
While duels were not an everyday occurrence, they happened on occasion, and to chicken out and refuse a challenge was strongly frowned upon by both instructors and the other kids. Thus, if anyone wanted to teach Lee a lesson that would've been the way to go, especially considering this guy was a tad older and bigger than him.
Unfortunately, thinking about it didn't bring him anywhere and after a while of brainstorming Lee went back to meditation. The guy stopped staring at him thus technically the situation was resolved – he was a weirdo, but at least not hostile.
***
Instructors woke up everyone before the blood moon rose and after a hearty prayer the two hundred wannabe soldiers departed.
Since everyone was wearing helmets, Lee couldn't find the potato head to ask what was his problem, but after marching the whole day once again, when they stopped at a blob farm, Lee had forgotten all about him.
Upon arrival Lee was happily surprised and wanted to look for Butalax, but the farm turned out to be a different one.
While the huts were similar, the children were shepherding the blobs right next to them. In addition, the place was definitely smaller, with only three grownups overseeing around seventy young slaves.
Without hiding envy and admiration, they watched the impressive parade of the kids not much older than them settling down and having dinner.
The ones dressed in armor lived to their expectations and haughtily ignored them, clearly showing their superior social standing.
Turns out the potato head hadn't forgotten about Lee.
When everyone's waterskin bags were filled with the regular stew, the guy leisurely walked over and without a word sat down next to Lee.
Fenax, along with the rest of the boys from Lee's squad, was displeased by the guest, but potato head's carefree attitude cooled the anger down. After all, he was a year or even two older, and the kids tried to not antagonized the upper classmates.
"Sigh … I guess this damn mush is the thing I hate most about this place …" After a longer period of silence, the potato head said.
Lee almost chocked at the words. In over six months he had spent in the fortress this was the first time anyone dared to criticize basically anything. The guy did say it quietly enough so that only Lee could clearly hear, but nevertheless it was a reckless and unnecessary move.
"There's no way around it." Lee diplomatically said, "The blobs are the only source of water around here. And by adding them to the stew allows anyone to digest this …"
"… watery stool?" The potato head finished Lee's sentence with a wide grin.
Lee gawked back at him, trying to figure out where the guy's bravery came from, but then continued with the diplomatic approach, "At least we aren't starving to death."
"True." To Lee's surprise the other party agreed, but then dropped another bomb, "But this thing makes everyone sterile, so I don't believe you want to eat it for much longer."
Seeing Lee's confused gaze, the gay grinned again, and said, "Why do you think they keep kidnapping children from the other worlds?"
After saying that, the potato head realized he let his lip slip, but then made sure no one overheard him, and continued, "I miss the real food so much! What does your race normally eat?"
Lee couldn't figure out whether this was some kind of a test or an outburst of someone with suicidal tendencies – he was pretty certain one could get chained up and transferred to work in mines for this kind of behavior.
Fortunately, the last part the guy asked was relatively normal, although not particularly proper. He also never heard of anyone's faith being tested this way thus most likely the guy was probably slowly going nuts.
Lee stared at the weirdo for a moment, and then said, "We eat pretty much everything, but also mostly cooked. We even make porridge and stews like this except ..."
"… except not as revolting." His companion helpedout. Then he slurped the contents from the waterskin bag without hiding the deep disgust on his face, and said, "Damn … how I miss kruntaff … it's a small furry animal we have back home. I used to roast them every day …"
Then he looked at the bag in his hands as if trying to figure out whether he should throw it away or continue to slurp the stew. Truth to be said, Lee often had similar thoughts, except he never allowed himself to say anything out loud. The guy was truly too daring. And as it turned out the fun part was yet to come.