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The World Walkers: Athare: Riordan: The Lifetime of a World
Written for LJ user Elizabeth Barrette’s prompt. The story ended up going differently to the way I planned and I do want to write another for this prompt, probably about the two worlds that Aubrie created.
Riordan bit his lip. He was alone, staring at the ball of energy that was meant to become a world, and feeling thankful that no one else was in the room. Every time he was looked to as the expert on how to create worlds he knew he could never live up to their expectations. They seemed to think that going from creating a town in a box to making a whole world was simple. Sighing, he waited, because that was all he could do, trying to deal with the conflicting thoughts that kept taking his concentration. Failure really wasn’t an option. So many people looked at the creation of worlds as their saviour. At the same time all he could think was that everything they were doing was wrong.
In the other rooms the only two family members Riordan trusted were also experimenting. He’d done the only thing he could do, after a long conversation with Bronwen about his worries, and talked to Piaras. There had been no doubt in either Bronwen or Riordan’s minds that Piaras wouldn’t be chosen as a world creator, purely because of how talented he was. Riordan wasn’t quite sure how Piaras was related to him, the family trees were convoluted and more than a little confusing, but that didn’t matter as they’d been friends ever since the day they started magic classes, which had always meant more to both of them than family connections. Piaras had listened before offering to help, as well as suggesting they talk to one other person.
The suggestion made sense, even though Riordan wasn’t sure about admitting his failings to another person, and eventually he’d talked to Aubrie about everything. It made him feel like he was ten again, when he’d talked to his older sister about everything because she was the only one in their close family who ever bothered to listen to him, but at the end of it all he felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders, especially as she offered to help too. Having the three people he cared about most at his side was more than he’d ever expected when he admitted he didn’t really know what he was doing.
Unfortunately time was of the essence. The Yellow family were working on new races for Athare, which gave them a bit of leeway, and all Riordan could do was hope that they’d manage to work out the right way of making a world. Every night the three of them got together to share their findings, which weren’t good. Aubrie’d had the most luck, creating two almost viable worlds, but there had been problems with both of them, while Piaras’ had failed the same way Riordan’s had. The world in front of him would be the sixth he’d created, using Aubrie’s instructions for the first time, which gave him a bit more hope than he’d had before, even though he still believed they were making a huge mistake. Untested magic wasn’t the way to keep the fae safe.
None of them knew what happened to the failed worlds. Riordan hoped that the magic used to create them went back into Athare, because every time a world failed it was a waste of however much magic they needed to use, and then there were Aubrie’s worlds. They didn’t know what to do with them, how long they’d last, if they might evolve to become viable worlds, and Riordan hated not knowing. Unfortunately there was nothing they could do to find out the answers to those questions, even though they all wanted to, because they had to focus on getting the magic right instead of finding out exactly how the magic worked.
Still the ball of energy floated in mid-air. Riordan shook his head. The conversion from ball of energy to world took time, giving him too much time to think. He shook his head at himself before sitting at the desk, because the very least he could do was write down his findings for later, for when he had more time to work out exactly what they’d done. With one hand he pulled his notebook closer to him and picked up his quill with the other, glancing at the ball of energy once more before starting to write about what he’d done.
‘World Test 19. Day 1. The ball of energy was created to Aubrie’s specifications and it will take at least another three hours before I know if it’s worked any better than the previous tests.’ Riordan looked at the shelf where he’d placed the balls of energy that hadn’t become worlds or exploded. ‘World Test 6. Day 40. Still no change. World Test 8. Day 34. Still no change. World Test 11. Day 25. Still no change. World Test 16. Day 10. Still no change.
‘I don’t know what’s happening to those balls of energy, any more than I know what’s happening to the new one. There’s every possibility it could be a success, because Aubrie’s had a couple of partial successes, but right now we still seem miles away from having a viable world. Aubrie’s keeping a close eye on what’s happening to those two partial successes, as there’s every chance they might become full successes with time.’ Riordan sighed, running a hand through his hair. ‘We still have more questions that answers 55 days into our experiments. The Queen and the Elders want to add more creators, but we can’t do that until we actually know what we’re doing. Stalling is our only option and hoping we create a viable world soon, so we have something to show them.
‘Soon I need to talk to Bronwen about what she’s doing to see how well the race creation is going. They have about as much information as we do, because so much was left behind when we had to leave Kalinia. We’re all rebuilding the knowledge we lost and that makes things a hundred times harder for both families.’
Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.
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That should say either "creator of worlds as their saviour" or "creation of worlds as their salvation."
>>‘We still have more questions that answers<<
That should say "than answers" above.
Ouch, poor Riordan.