Elevation of Mana Chapter 179 Snacks and Thinking Rocks

Adia

I crept from room to room, looking, watching. Mommy was somewhere, and if I was going to get to the kitchens and get any snacks I'd need to keep her from seeing me. She didn't like it when I got snacks in the middle of the day.

Daddy was helping too, with all the noise and trouble he was making, breaking whole walls while people tried to pull out... big long things, and take them out of the house. He was silly, always doing things like that.

I wanted to move around his mess to get what I wanted, using all the people being busy to escape, but Uncle Chien was over there and he told me not to get near. Daddy might be silly but Uncle Chien was always looking out for me, seeing me around corners and behind things. He watched the auras, the little lights everyone had and used them to pick me out. If he said I wasn't allowed and he found me he'd definitely hand me over to mommy should he see me sneaking about.

So I worked my way around the big mess, letting the noise cover me, slinking across the floor like a shadow, I was a shadow, still and quiet, nobody paying attention. A few of the workers here passed, smiling, but they didn't see me, their eyes going over me like I wasn't here as they snickered to each other.

“Have you seen Isha around?” One of them asked loudly in front of the box I was hiding behind.

“Oh, I'm sure she's around here somewhere. She'll probably be going to miss Adia's room in a bit to make sure she's studying like she should,” his coworker told him, also so loud, everyone would hear them.

“Okay, well let's be off then.”

They left, and I poked my head out from behind the box, smiling as they'd missed me before I continued on. Hall by hall I moved, past workshops and offices, it was fun, fun to be out, and fun to hide like this.

Soon enough I made it to the kitchen, pressed against the wall as I looked in. A small bowl of sweet fruit sat on a counter there, ripe and ready. Abandoning my hiding place I ran forward, hopping first on a char, and then close enough on the counter to reach out and wrap my fingers around one.

“Got you,” came a voice as I was snatched from behind, right as my fingers wrapped around my prize.

“No!” I called, pulling the snack up to my face and munching down.

“Sincerely Adia?” mommy asked. “You're just as much a mess as your father.”

“That's not true, daddy's way more silly than I am,” I declared as I continued to eat, dodging left and right as she reached for the food I was shoving in my mouth.

“Hard to argue with that, but if you were hungry you could have just asked,” she said as she gave up taking my prize and hauling me off.

“You would've said no, and you've been all busy.” I could only talk between bites, but she seemed to understand.

“I would've said no if you asked right after breakfast, since you need to eat at mealtimes and I'm sorry for that.”

As I finished swallowing mommy hummed a tune and all the juice disappeared from my hands and face. I couldn't do that yet, but she kept telling me I'd be able to do magic one day. That was a fun one too, always being clean, much easier to sneak around.

“What are all those papers for anyway?” I asked her, knowing she'd been looking at them for days.

“Something your daddy gave me that doesn't work like it should.”

“Why?” I asked.

“He doesn't know.”

“Do you know?”

“I have some thoughts, but I'm not sure.”

“What is it then? Is he doing it wrong?” I squirmed in her grasp as she shifted me around.

“Mmm, I think he's built it right, but there's something else going on.”

“Oh... what's it do?”

“It's a kind of special rock that thinks, and he wants it to do magic.”

“Rocks don't think,” I pointed out to her. “At least I don't think they do...”

“They don't, at least not any I've ever seen. That might be the problem too, but not sure how to make a rock think.”

“They don't think then, how do you make them think?”

“Only living things think Adia, not non-living things like rocks or dirt.”

“Then make it live?” I suggested.

“That's not easy to do sweetie. I can't just make living things.”

“You made me though.”

Mommy stopped, not moving at all as she stared down at me and moved me back onto her hip. For a full count of sixty, which daddy insisted was important for some reason, she looked at me.

“That's... not quite the same sweetheart, but you're sort of right aren't you.”

“Daddy helped,” I told her, what they'd told me when I'd asked about where I came from.

She blushed a bit, giggling. “Yes he did, and I suppose he's already helped a lot here too. I'll think about it.”

“Thinking is good.”

“Yes it is. You're pretty smart too Adia, a lot like your father.”

“I'm not as silly,” I replied, puffing out my cheeks.

“No, not nearly as silly. You've yet to knock holes in our home.”

“Mmm.” I nodded, seeing she had started to laugh again, it was a good day today.