TALENT BEYOND LIMIT: Stacking Many Talents

The road to Green Hollow opened properly in early spring.

Simon sent the wedding letter the same morning.

Then spent the next twelve days pretending he was not worried about it.

“The courier knows Green Hollow.”

“I know.”

“He has traveled there before.”

“I know.”

“The road is dry enough.”

“I know.”

Joe looked up from his medicine notes.

Simon was standing at the window again.

“You have said all three things four times.”

Simon turned.

“The river crossing could still be bad.”

“Then saying the road is dry a fifth time won’t repair it.”

Simon frowned.

Joe returned to his notes.

Marriage had done something unusual to his brother.

It had made waiting harder than fighting.

--------

The Green Hollow wagon arrived three weeks later.

Joe recognized Mike first.

His father sat beside the driver; one hand braced against the wagon rail as it rolled through Blackwood’s western gate. He looked older than when Joe had last seen him properly, broader through the shoulders from a lifetime of farm work but with more gray beginning around his temples.

Lily sat behind him.

Pam and Joseph were packed among the luggage beneath a canvas shade, while Mary leaned so far over the side that Lily had one hand hooked through the back of her coat.

Simon stopped walking.

Joe did too.

For all the letters sent between Blackwood and Green Hollow, seeing almost the entire house of his childhood arrive together made the years suddenly easier to measure.

Simon reached the wagon first.

Lily barely had both feet on the ground before he hugged her.

“You took forever.”

She slapped his arm.

“We came from Green Hollow, not the next street.”

Then hugged him again.

Mike climbed down more slowly.

Simon straightened.

For a moment, neither said anything.

Mike looked at the guard clothes, Simon’s stronger frame and the city behind him.

“You grew.”

Simon stared.

“I’ve been gone years.”

“I noticed.”

Mike pulled him into a brief embrace and slapped his back.

Mary descended next without waiting for help.

She had changed enough that Joe needed a second moment to reconcile her with the little girl who once tried introducing sticks to beehives.

She ran directly at Simon.

Then Joe.

“You look old.”

Joe looked at her.

“You too.”

“I am not old.”

“Then neither am I.”

Mary considered that and accepted it.

Pam needed help down from the wagon.

The moment she saw Joe, she looked him over carefully.

“Too thin.”

Joe closed his eyes.

“I am not thin.”

Simon began laughing.

Joe pointed toward him.

“He eats less than I do.”

Pam ignored this irrelevant evidence and touched Joe’s arm.

“Still thin.”

Joseph came last.

He stood beside the wagon for several seconds, looking up at Blackwood’s walls.

“Big place.”

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Mike said, “You said that when we came through the gate.”

Joseph frowned.

“I know.”

Pam shook her head.

Joe smiled.

Some things had not changed at all.

----------

Not everyone from Green Hollow had come.

That would have been impossible.

Spring work had already begun, animals still needed feeding, and few farming households could abandon their land for more than a day simply because someone else’s son was marrying in Blackwood.

Even Joe’s family needed planning.

Two neighboring households had agreed to watch the animals, check the house and keep an eye on the field boundaries while Mike was away. In return, Mike would owe labor once he returned.

A wedding in Blackwood might be important.

It did not stop planting season.

Simon did not seem disappointed.

The people he had wanted most were here.

----------

Lily inspected the future house before she properly inspected Mira.

Joe found that revealing.

The house stood several streets from Edwin’s residence in the eastern district.

Two bedrooms.

A main room.

Kitchen.

Storage.

Small courtyard with an old plum tree against one wall.

Lily walked through it once.

Then again.

She opened the kitchen storage.

Checked the roof from the courtyard.

Asked where water came from.

Asked what winter fuel cost.

Simon endured all of it.

Mira appeared halfway through the inspection.

Lily turned.

The change was immediate.

Mira had met Simon’s family only through letters and stories.

Now Simon’s mother was standing in what would soon become her daughter’s household.

For several seconds both women seemed uncertain.

Mira bowed politely.

“Mrs.—”

Lily hugged her.

Simon stared.

Mira froze.

Then laughed and hugged her back.

Pam looked at Joe.

“She’ll tell everyone Mira is too thin.”

Lily released Mira and said, “You need to eat more.”

Pam nodded.

“See?”

Joe almost laughed.

---------

Mike cared about something else.

“This is yours?”

Simon looked at Mira.

“Ours.”

“Paid?”

That sounded more like Mike.

“Edwin owns part of it through Mira. I’ll be contributing.”

Mike nodded.

No judgment.

Just calculation.

“Better.”

Simon looked surprised.

“I thought you’d tell me to buy my own.”

“With what?”

“My savings.”

“And then have no savings?”

Simon paused.

Mike looked around the courtyard.

“You need money after marriage more than before it.”

Joe glanced toward him.

That was essentially the same conclusion Joe had reached about his own savings.

Different scale.

Same principle.

Six strips of farmland had taught Mike financial caution long before Joe ever learned the word liquidity.

-------------

The wedding took place six days later.

The Black family did not treat it as a major clan marriage.

Mira belonged to Edwin’s side branch, and Simon remained an outsider without a martial family behind him.

Still, compared with Green Hollow weddings, it was enormous.

Black relatives filled Edwin’s courtyard.

Guard officers attended.

Daren came with his wife.

Cole arrived wearing formal clothes so different from his normal appearance that Mary asked Simon who he was.

Theodere came.

Alex and Elise came.

Renford appeared briefly.

Mike became noticeably quieter when Joe explained that the man speaking with Edwin was a true Martial Artist.

Lily elbowed him.

“Stop staring.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were.”

Joseph stared openly.

Nobody corrected him.

Renford eventually approached Simon.

“Take care of her.”

Simon nodded.

“I will.”

Renford looked toward Mira.

“And make sure he does.”

Mira smiled.

“That part will be easy.”

Simon frowned.

Joe decided married life was beginning appropriately.

---------

The ceremony itself was simple.

Promises before both families.

Witnesses.

Names entered into family records.

Gifts exchanged.

A meal large enough that Pam spent half of it determining what everything had cost.

At one point Joe found Joseph sitting beside Mike, both looking across the courtyard toward Simon and Mira.

Joseph spoke first.

“Six strips.”

Mike glanced at him.

“What?”

“We had six strips.”

Mike understood.

So did Joe.

Joseph looked around at the Black relatives, guard officers, medicine merchants and servants moving food between tables.

“One boy has a house in Blackwood.”

Mike smiled faintly.

“Two boys got out.”

Joe looked away before either noticed him listening.

That sentence stayed.

-----------

The cultivation matter happened the following morning.

Privately.

Simon disappeared into Edwin’s study for almost an hour.

When he emerged, he carried a sealed wooden case and a fresh contract mark.

Joe waited in the courtyard.

“Bone?”

Simon checked instinctively that nobody else was close.

Then nodded.

“Bone.”

For Joe, Bone was already something he had passed through several times.

For Simon, the case represented a barrier he had spent years assuming might stop him.

He turned it over carefully.

“I can’t open the restricted sections until I meet the conditions.”

“Muscle Completion?”

“And family authorization.”

“Distribution restrictions?”

Simon nodded.

“Can’t teach it. Can’t copy it. Can’t deliberately guide someone around the restricted material.”

Reasonable.

Edwin stepped out behind him.

“And before he begins imagining the rest of the family library belongs to him—”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were about to.”

Simon closed his mouth.

Edwin continued.

“Bone is something I can justify giving a son-in-law tied permanently to my branch.”

His expression became more serious.

“Internal Organs is not.”

Simon nodded.

Edwin continued anyway.

“You should understand that now. The family’s true Internal Organ methods are controlled by the central line and senior branches. Even many blood descendants in side branches never receive them.”

Simon looked at the case in his hands.

“Bone is already more than I expected.”

Edwin studied him.

Apparently satisfied, he nodded.

Joe was too.

Simon had been given a road.

Not every road.

There was a difference.

-----------

That afternoon, Mike raised the subject Simon had clearly been waiting for.

“You expect us to stay now?”

Simon tried to sound casual.

“You could.”

Lily looked toward him.

“All of us?”

“There are houses nearby.”

Mike laughed once.

“And who farms the land?”

Simon stopped.

There it was.

Green Hollow was not merely somewhere they happened to live.

Six strips.

The house.

Animals.

Tools.

Years of improvements.

Debts owed and favors owed back.

Joseph and Pam had spent most of their lives there.

Moving a family was not the same as changing rooms.

Simon sat beside his father beneath the plum tree.

“Not now.”

Mike waited.

“Eventually.”

That changed the conversation.

Simon continued.

“If I advance in the guard, and Mira and I settle properly here, I could find you a place nearby. Mary could find work. Joe already earns here.”

Mary called from the doorway, “I can find my own work.”

Simon looked over.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t.”

“You sounded like it.”

Lily said, “Mary.”

Mary disappeared inside while still muttering.

Pam smiled.

“Blackwood has better healers.”

Joseph looked at her.

“You planning to need one?”

“My knees already do.”

That was one vote.

Mike looked toward Lily.

Lily’s expression was harder to read.

“Our land isn’t nothing.”

“No,” Simon said.

“I know.”

That answer mattered.

He was not asking them to abandon Green Hollow because he was ashamed of it.

He was offering another future when they were ready.

Mike finally nodded.

“Then build that future first.”

Simon did.

“Then ask again.”

Simon smiled.

“I will.”

---------

The family returned to Green Hollow four days later.

All of them.

Mary complained.

Pam complained about Mary complaining.

Joseph asked twice whether the wagon had enough blankets.

Lily carried enough food for the trip to feed twice their number.

Mike checked the harness himself.

Simon stood beside the wagon longer than necessary.

His marriage had not immediately moved Green Hollow into Blackwood.

It had made that move possible someday.

That was better.

Joe watched the wagon disappear through the western gate.

Behind him waited Simon’s new house.

Mira.

The guard.

A Bone inheritance still sealed behind future conditions.

Ahead of Simon was a life increasingly rooted in Blackwood.

Joe’s own Bone V was progressing quietly.

His savings were growing.

Edwin would soon leave for the state capital.

The difference between the brothers’ roads had become impossible to miss.

Simon was building enough here that one day the rest of their family could follow him.

Joe was building enough that, when the time came, he could leave without asking any of them to follow.