That evening, as Riven slowly made his way back toward the brothel after a hard day of training, his thoughts remained focused entirely on the training grounds and the sensation of Aether flowing through his body, as even now, long after the warmth inside his Soul Vessel had been exhausted, he still found himself replaying the feeling over and over again.
"Oi! You slave boy!"
A voice suddenly shouted from somewhere behind him.
Riven frowned slightly before turning around, as he saw a boy dressed in slightly torn clothes limping toward him from further down the road.
The boy looked miserable.
His knuckles were split open.
One shoulder hung noticeably lower than the other, while his face remained pale from exhaustion.
Yet despite the injuries covering his body, there was something else in his eyes that immediately made Riven uncomfortable.
As the closer he approached, the more manic his look became.
"You managed to channel Aether today, didn’t you?"
The boy asked while wiping the snot off his nose.
"Teach me."
He demanded, as Riven studied him silently for a few seconds.
"Teach you what?"
Riven replied cautiously, as the boy snorted and said—
"How the fuck you managed it. There must be some trick to it no? Something I haven’t figured out?
So tell me what a slave boy like you knows that I don’t!"
The boy snapped, as Riven’s frown deepened.
"I’ve been trying so hard since yesterday and still can’t do it....."
He muttered while clutching his hair, before stepping closer and pointing towards Riven’s chest.
"But you figured it out. So tell me now."
He demanded yet again, as Riven remained silent once more.
Had the boy simply asked normally, Riven probably would have repeated the same advice Mary had given him yesterday.
Focus on the centre of your chest.
Search for the warmth.
That was all he knew.
However, something about the way the boy spoke rubbed him the wrong way.
Not because he was asking for help, but because he was demanding it, as though he believed he was entitled to it.
So without answering, Riven simply turned around and resumed walking.
"What the fuck?"
The boy muttered, as the moment Riven ignored him and continued walking away, his expression immediately darkened.
Then, before Riven had even taken three more steps, he suddenly felt a hand clamp down onto his shoulder from behind, forcing him to stop once again.
Slowly, Riven turned around and looked the boy directly in the eyes.
This time there was no awkwardness in his expression, no embarrassment, and none of the social discomfort that usually surfaced whenever he was forced into a conversation with strangers, as after the beating Mary and Stacy suffered yesterday, and after enduring Hagrid’s whipping last night, his patience for nonsense had become considerably thinner than usual.
"What? You won’t help me?" the boy asked, as although his voice initially carried surprise, it gradually became more hostile the longer Riven remained silent.
"Why? Because you think you’re better than me now that you managed to channel a bit of Aether? Is that it?" he continued, as he stepped forward aggressively.
"Listen here, slave. I’m a bastard, not some fucking servant. Unlike you, I can actually walk around this village without asking permission from some fat cunt who owns me. So don’t get ideas above your station just because you got lucky during training."
He threatened, as Riven continued staring at him without responding, the boy’s tone increasingly reminded him of Lydia and the others from yesterday.
His voice right now carried the same entitlement and arrogance, as though he genuinely believed that weakness only existed in this world to serve strength.
"You’ll teach me," the boy said eventually, as he squeezed Riven’s shoulder harder.
"And if you don’t, I’ll remember this.
Trust me when I say I hold grudges."
He warned again, as for several long seconds, neither of them moved.
Then finally, Riven broke the silence.
"Take your hand off me," Riven said, as although his voice remained calm, there was enough seriousness behind the words to cause the boy’s expression to stiffen slightly.
However, only for a moment.
Then the bastard laughed.
"Or what?" he asked mockingly. "You’ll cry to your master? Or maybe you’ll tell Garron?"
Riven held his gaze without blinking.
"Or I’ll use Aether and punch you in the stomach hard enough to spill your guts onto the road," Riven replied, as he spoke so matter-of-factly that the grin on the boy’s face immediately became strained.
Because there was no anger in Riven’s voice, no bravado, and no attempt to sound intimidating, as it sounded less like a threat and more like a simple statement of fact.
As though he had already pictured himself doing it.
For a brief moment, the two simply stared at one another, before eventually the boy removed his hand and took half a step back.
"Fine," he muttered bitterly. "But don’t think this ends here, slave."
He warned again, as Riven ignored him and turned to resume walking towards the brothel.
"You think Garron’s threat means anything? I’ve got cousins, friends, and people who actually give a shit about me. You have nobody. No family. No tribe. No protection."
He shouted after him, as there was now far more venom than confidence behind his words.
"My name’s Vlad! Remember it, because the moment I learn how to use Aether properly, I’m coming for you first. I’ll make sure you regret today for the rest of your miserable fucking life."
Riven never looked back.
As he simply continued walking toward the brothel while silently committing the name to memory.
Vlad.
A new name and a new potential threat.
That night, after returning home and sneakily cooking himself the first genuinely filling meal he had enjoyed in years, Riven quietly opened his diary and added the name ’Vlad’ beside the others already written within its pages.
To him, it was nothing more than another name to take care of when he had the strength for it.
However, while he quickly put the matter out of his mind after closing the diary and shifted his focus back toward tomorrow’s training, what he failed to realize was that Vlad had done no such thing.
As after being ignored, threatened, and dismissed by a slave during a period when his own mind was beginning to fray under the pressure of failure, Vlad found himself thinking about Riven far more than he cared to admit, as what had started as a brief roadside encounter had already begun transforming into an unhealthy obsession.