Chapter 1028: Taming Chronology - 2 |
Ren was fighting back...
His father’s ’chivalrous’ advice, filtered through the logic of his age, the advice of his classmates, of dubious practical value but offered with great confidence and something that was his own, that had been waiting for the right moment to emerge... all of it combined to produce a version of Ren in those situations that each of the three girls, separately, found consistently unexpected in the most productive sense of the word.
But together they always found a way to return the favor, with the frequency and enthusiasm of people who had found a preferred hobby and had no intention of releasing it.
They could embarrass him indefinitely by referring to him collectively as funny exaggerated (or maybe not in their honest minds) things like: our gallant savior, king of the crystals, chivalrous knight of love, and so on... alluding to the promises made and the fact that they would catch him eventually. Always together, always at maximum volume, always coordinated.
But Ren had discovered, with some surprise, that the repetition of this stopped working the way embarrassment was supposed to work. Each day it gave him less redness and more determination. Each reminder was a pending Chapter on the list of things that needed to be completed before the list of things he actually wanted could begin.
Three reminders of things he wanted to achieve turned out to be a different kind of engine than any he had used before.
There were still minor obstacles in the castle and some within the Ashenway family that couldn’t significantly affect things for now, at least until the moment came to formalize everything. But to reach that moment, Ren had asked for time: he wanted first to give them everything they were missing, everything he could obtain with his maximum effort.
The girls, one by one, had been relatively easy prey for that argument.
Liora understood that for Larissa and Luna, having their parents present at the ceremony would mean something even bigger.
Ren was living a happy adolescence, but he had to master the crystals.
That was where both lists ended.
three months away.
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