As the source mages were coming into control over Springfield and
Splitsville, they came up with a lot of rules about how to keep the town
safe, from the monsters, and any other threat. Some of these rules were for
the people to follow, while others were internal. But these internal laws
were still devised in order to protect the citizens. There were certain
things the source mages would allow each other to do, and things that they
would not. For one, they would not let themselves become the leaders of some
kind of religious cult. There was a scientific explanation for their time
powers, whether anyone understood the science, or not. They were still just
people, and God should be left out of it. Furthermore, ruling power could
not be consolidated into one of the mages, or even all of them. It would
remain a fair and democratic society, even though a lot of their conventions
would feel very medieval. That was only because of their combination of
magic, and only enough technology to survive, rather than an actual feudal
system of government and justice. One thing they decided, in order to
prevent any abuse of their position over others, was to outlaw mage
children. This was especially important for the sources, but town mages
couldn’t conceive children either. This made the logistics of competition a
little difficult, but not impossible to overcome. Two mages could raise a
child, of course, but only if that child was born before either of
them had their powers. This meant that a twelve-year-old mage—that being the
minimum age at the time of the Selection Games—simply would not be able to
have kids. Unless they waited to be sourced their abilities. Like deferring
college enrollment, a winner could delay being given powers until after they
had however many kids they wanted. This delay was limited to ten years,
however, so if they didn’t think they could make it happen by then, it was
probably best for them to just wait the full twenty years before the next
competition. Again, this complicated matters, but the source mages didn’t
know what kind of power a legacy child would have, and they weren’t jazzed
about finding out. It just seemed like too much of a risk, except in one
case. Knowing which power a new mage received—and how powerful it was
exactly—could take too long if they just waited for them to figure out on
their own. The holistic diagnosticians belonged to a single bloodline of
people with the ability to understand a patient’s abilities just by
examining them. The Taggart family was the only exception to the no-child
policy. Breaking it was kind of a big deal.
Out of all of the source mages, only Valda Ramsey and Lubomir Resnik were in
a relationship. It wasn’t technically disallowed, but the others did
discourage it, because it could lead to a breach of their other internal
rules. None of the others took any romantic interest in anyone else. They
were absolutely not asexual, and they didn’t think of themselves as elitist,
but they certainly had trouble relating to other people. In 2077, Valda and
Lubomir took their relationship to the next level by having unprotected sex
with each other. They weren’t trying to get pregnant, but they
weren’t trying not to either. A part of them wasn’t thinking about
the consequences, or how upset the others would be for it. They were just in
love, and caught up in the moment. Another part of them, however, was
terribly curious what the child of two source mages would be able to do.
Nine months later, Valda delivered a little baby girl. Fortunately, the
source mages saw time move differently, and fully expected to live forever,
so the fact that they didn’t see Valda for seven months didn’t seem strange
to them. Most of them didn’t even notice she wasn’t just busy in the other
room. They named the baby Jayde, even though they knew they couldn’t keep
her. If she developed powerful abilities, she would have to do it somewhere
else. No one could know that she was the offspring of two source mages. They
searched through the census, and found a nice couple to raise their daughter
for them. The Kovacs had been wanting a child of their own, and Valda and
Lubomir knew that they would take care of her, and also not tell anyone that
Sadie never carried a pregnancy. Jayde would grow up to change everything
about life on Durus, but for now, she was just an infant, and she didn’t
deserve to be treated differently because of her unique origins. Valda and
Lubomir regretted letting her go, but they would see her again one day, and
they would never regret having her.
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