What Might Have Been
As he walked in the direction of his dorm, which just so happened to be the opposite way Alessandra went, he tallied the remainder of his coins.
'I spent seventy-one gold, seventy for the room and another one for the food. Now I have… seventeen thousand, one hundred and sixty-five Lights left,' he thought after a count. The heels of his boots clacked against the wooden floor, providing a backdrop to his thoughts.
He had paid the Mage that fueled the chamber before he left, the grizzled older man he found quite cranky that he had to stay up so late for this. That grouchiness vanished when he was paid, and he saw Fate off with a smile. 'I've still got over half of that food left. It's amazing how cheap it is in the capital.
'That's about two months' worth of food and water.'
Probably the most annoying thing about his time in the dilation chamber was the bathroom breaks. The room didn't have a bathroom, so he had to leave and visit the one down the hall. Being an Apprentice had its perks, however, and he only had to do so once every week, which was an hour outside.
That still cut off anywhere from five to ten minutes out of each hour, or a day inside. Unfortunately for his wallet, he still had to pay for the full hour.
He went inside the chamber with a ring crammed full of dehydrated fruit and flash-frozen meat, quite a lot of bread that could fill a Prodigy like him with one loaf (Alessandra called it 'Big Bread,' despite a loaf being the size of a palm), and a 'pond vial,' which could hold several hundred gallons of water in a vial the size of Fate's finger thanks to Space enchantments.
The latter was quite useful, and also could be stored within his ring. That feature made it quite expensive, taking eighty Lights out of his one hundred Light budget. But it did come with a free water filling, which he was grateful for. Thanks to Hetforn's massive industrialization, he managed to obtain the four months' worth of food he got for another twenty Lights.
This fact made him quite bitter once more about his lot in Brergan. In Brergan, a single month of food and water for a mortal cost eighty Lights. Before Fate's raise, he had to ration his food in between paydays, with failure to do so resulting in starving. Or in the case of the last time that happened, lashes from a Guard.
Even after his raise, that left only twenty Lights a month of leeway. Barely enough to afford a new change of clothes to replace the tattered remains from the previous month. If the treatment he received for being a slumbering Mage in a town of mortals wasn't enough to make him angry, being poor simply because of where he lived definitely did the job.
'Why would the Empress allow that to happen?' he couldn't help but wonder. 'She's a kind person, known for her benevolence. It's the biggest defining quality she has. So why would she allow her subjects to starve like that?'
At first, he thought it was because she didn't know, but he dismissed that idea swiftly. The Guards would report a thing such as poverty if she genuinely cared. Wait, the Guards…
Suddenly it made sense to Fate. He actively avoided the Guards, even before his lashing. He was afraid that the strange effect he had on everyone else in town, which propelled them into a blind rage or caused them to view Fate with contempt, would infect these powerful men and women. Despite his bluster, he wouldn't stand a chance against a fully-trained Mage.
Now that he knew it was all because of his Facet coloring his eyes, he could only ruefully shake his head. The Guards would've been just fine. They wouldn't have lopped off his head in anger; in fact, they probably would have recognized him for what he was. The Guard that did the lashing might've even told him about what he truly was if the two hadn't met under such conditions.
Of course the Empress wouldn't know. How could she, if the Guards didn't? And none of the villagers in Brergan would ever give enough of a shit to go out of their way to report his situation.
Old Man Travis hadn't even known about his poverty until after the lashing, having assumed that all of that money was going to things like toys and knives. How could he have known that Fate's father didn't feed and clothe him, that Fate was entirely responsible for himself?
He couldn't, and Fate never bothered to point it out. And when it came to Brergan's 'dire straits,' Fate was the only one in town in such a desperate situation. Everyone else was more than capable of feeding and clothing themselves and their families.
The forest around Brergan was rampant with fauna, and the rats that infested the town could be cured of diseases and cooked by those with the know-how. The Guards that patrolled the village would have found nothing wrong.
By now, Fate had made it to his dorm room. He sighed as he opened the door, closing the door as he shunted these thoughts out of his mind. 'Just goes to show I should've communicated more.'
He slumped onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling, not even bothering to take off his clothes as his mind raced about how to avoid situations like this in the future. But when the gentle lull of sleep started to tug at the edge of his mind, he had no choice but to give in, his dreams colored with flashes of lightning in the dark and the terrible feeling of the whip striking his back.
He awoke to the blaring of his alarm clock, his eyes snapping open just as the whip was about to descend once more. With a groan, he rolled over, shutting the alarm off with a slap. Heaving himself out of bed, he started to change into his robes. Today, he went back to class.