Chapter 32: Space Mages?
The boy was really excited and waited patiently what Myra would tell him to do next.
"Oh off you go, I still have to deal with all these other people who are looking for work. Bring your friends here. I will wait for you and once I'm done here we can discuss the details."
Aaron smiled at the boy who was running off before speaking with Myra quietly. "Now that one is going to make an exceptionally loyal follower when he gets older."
"Mhm, yes, well we do need good people, just a few years, won't take all that long for them to grow up." It's not as if Myra had no time for them to grow up. Not only was she still young herself, powerful mages and knights would be able to see centuries and still be alive and healthy.
"Will you really teach some of them to become space mages? Likely none of them have any magical affinity at all, let alone an affinity for dimensional magic. It will not be easy for them to improve a lot. I can understand teaching them smithing or alchemy, but magic is going to be hard."
Aaron was still not sure, why Myra would tell them about magic. It was one thing to do a good deed and make a school and a place to live for orphans and give them some education, but magic was a completely different beast. For people growing up in Luminos, magic was something you were born with. Without a certain amount of affinity, you would never be able to become a mage.
"Pff ... I could teach a monkey to become a mage, let alone those kids!"
"Seems like you have become quite confident in your abilities."
Myra frowned. "You think so? Maybe I have just been disillusioned with the skill of Luminos' mages. In the past I had no one to compare myself with and I was worried to cause trouble for my family. Once I learned about my power compared to the power of other mages here, I couldn't help but think about their abilities differently."
While the young boy quickly left the courtyard, Myra and Aaron still had to sort through all the other people and explain the jobs and what they required them to do.
It was a long day and Myra already looked forward to the next week. While other students would be happy about weekends as they could relax and enjoy themselves, for Myra weekends were always synonymous to work.
When they were finally done and all the people slowly left the area she turned her attention to the group of children who were standing or sitting patiently at the side.
Myra was surprised by the amount of kids who found their way here. There must be at least two dozen of them who now looked in her direction with expectant looks. None of them looked really healthy and the boy who was here before was probably sent here because he was one of the oldest and strongest looking of the group. Their ages ranged from 3 or 4 year old toddlers, who followed some of the older kids all the way to 8 or 9 year olds at the most.
She walked over to the kids, not really sure how to best talk to them. While Myra did her best earlier when it was just that single boy to appear confident and in charge, she was not used to talking with kids. When Aaron followed her, many of the kids took a few steps back and looked scared.
"Don't worry, he's just a big grumpy looking teddy bear." Myra did her best to poke and prod Aaron with her fingers to show them that he was just scary looking but harmless, making the kids grin and Aaron roll his eyes in the end. "I'm your boyfriend, not some punching bag or a ball of clay to knead."
"Alright, now that you're all here, why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself?" she looked at the kids who then slowly began to give her a little bit of an introduction. They told her their names and the older ones would also provide a little bit of background information. Clearly all of them were living in extremely poor conditions.
They had no proper homes, no adults to take care of them, other than some shopkeepers or strangers who would give them some alms from time to time. Their parent figures were mostly the older children, who would do odd jobs to earn a little bit of money just so that they would have something to eat.
All of them looked malnourished and when a young girl told Myra a few bits of information about herself the girl nearly fainted. It did not take long for Myra to pick up the child and use some healing magic. The fever and the minor illness that had troubled her for the past few days and didn't seem to get any better, mostly because her body was already weak, finally let go of her and she soon drifted off into a peaceful sleep.
When all of them had introduced themselves, Myra was picking up the sleeping girl still in her arms and then they looked for a proper inn. Myra had no place big enough for them to live, but she could at least book an inn for a while till she could change this situation.
Not a long time later, they had found a nice looking inn and the owner of the inn quickly helped them settle the kids into various rooms. Myra basically booked the whole inn for the next month, including meals for each of the kids.
When they finally left the inn, promising the kids that they would stop by the next day and go shopping with them and talk about their future education, everyone seemed to be in good spirits. Myra was happy too, she was even a little bit reluctant when she had to put the young girl who had been sleeping in her arms on the bed and then pulled the covers over her to keep her from getting cold.
"So you're building an orphanage." Aaron commented on their way, not at all unhappy with Myra's decision.
"It's a school, not an orphanage." Myra seemed to disagree with this term for some reason.
"Well, whatever it is, it's probably going to be a lot better for these kids than what they were used to. Say … where are we going to anyways?"
"The royal palace." – "Oh I see … wait, why are we heading for the royal palace?!"
"We go get an escort. Basically we borrow some guards." Myra smirked and gave Aaron a mischievous expression.
"Who are we conning this time?" Aaron had a feeling that this would end up getting him into a lot of trouble.
"Oh come on, I'm totally innocent. I'd never do anything like that." Myra tried to deny having any devious plans, but she shrugged soon after.
"Well, first of all, we need to be presentable. You know I dislike this whole mumbo jumbo about nobility but even I know that without looking like nobility you are treated very differently by certain groups and individuals."
"I see. Fair enough, so what are we after?"
"If you are powerful enough or skilled enough, becoming even more skilled and powerful is easily possible just by training. However for people who are not so lucky with their innate talents, we need some resources to help them a bit. Those adults who work for us, there's still some time. We want to see who will be loyal and stay with our company before taking action anyways."
Aaron didn't interrupt her, even though he still didn't know what this was all about.
"Well those kids are different. They are at an age where their bodies are still a lot more malleable compared to adults. If we help them now, it will be a lot easier for them to train their innate abilities and in the future they will reach further than those adults."
"So you want to help the kids by spoon-feeding them treasures? How does the royal family come into play?"
"You see, some materials and alchemical components that are not necessarily expensive, but limited, or dangerous in the hands of someone who doesn't know what to do with them, need a permission from the royal family to acquire. We're going to do just that, we act as the royal family circumventing the problem."
"Did you know that you have a habit of picking up random people from the street?"
"Do you disagree with my choices?" now Myra was a little worried. Aaron was very important to her. She didn't want him to be unhappy with her choices, but those kids really deserved a better life than the one they had lived so far.
"Silly girl, of course I don't disagree. It's adorable to see you getting all anxious around the kids. I'm sure you'd make a great mother." Aaron leaned over to Myra's side and kissed her on the forehead, making her blush furiously. She didn't say anything else on their way, happy and embarrassed at the same time.
--
Morwenna was doing her best, getting all the various visitor's to the palace settled in some way. It really came down to who to prioritize in the end. As the chamberlain she was used to sorting through various people's requests and quickly had to come to a decision if the people would get an audience earlier or later, or if they even required an audience with the emperor in the first place.
Many things could be handled by other nobles, many things could be handled by certain officials and for some requests, the palace would be the wrong place either way.
Not to mention she was tasked with all kinds of other things relating to the palace, the emperor and it seemed like everything that no one wanted to deal with also fell into her arms to resolve. In other words she was constantly busy, lacking sleep and even though she was one of Luminos' brightest minds, some might argue she was also a little crazy.
"Lady Chamberlain, there is a girl outside who requested an escort. She said her name is Myra."
Morwenna looked up from all the paperwork she had buried herself in and turned her gaze at the guard captain who had just interrupted her thought process.
"A girl wants an escort? Do you want me to deal with such simple things as well now? If she's some noble or visiting the palace it should be easy enough to find some guards to escort her back to whatever estate she is coming from right?"
"I'm sorry Lady Chamberlain, but the girl specifically asked for an escort made up of royal guards."
For a moment, Morwenna looked at the captain in confusion.
"Who would be so audacious to request an escort reserved for the royal family? What's the name of this girl? I guess her parents need a few words of advice to educate their daughter."
"She said her name is Myra."
"Oh, yes that sounds familiar … wait, Myra! Her highness Myra!? Why didn't you say so earlier?"
"But Lady Chamberlain … I did say so earlier … " the captain was depressed that the chamberlain would just listen to half of what he said, but before he could start to argue and tell her about his innocence she was already running out the door.
'I sometimes really wonder, how such a person can survive in such a political battlefield like the emperors court for such a long time. Maybe it takes a person who is a little bit crazy to do that. I heard the earlier chamberlain a half year ago angered his majesty and was dismissed after just two months and the one before didn't make it longer than three months. I guess this current one is doing reasonably well.'
He returned back to his post, curious what chamberlain Morweena would do about this situation.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Rynea
Rynea When I thought of the title for this chapter, I couldn't help thinking of Portal:
https://youtu.be/xeKMS62GrTI
Have a great day wherever you are!
~Rynea
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