Sunday in the Verne house didn't smell like school books or imperial ink; it smelled of damp earth and fresh flour. In our house, "Practical" training—the kind involving weapons, speed, or destructive force—was strictly off-limits. But Theory? Theory was my domain. And in the Verne household, Theory was mandatory.
The morning started with the "Geometry of the Pancake."
"Observe the air bubbles, Arin," I said, pointing my fork at his plate. "They represent the pore space in volcanic soil. If you pour the syrup too fast, you create a surface-tension flood. But if you pour it slowly..."
Arin watched, a bit of syrup hanging from his lip, as I drizzled a golden stream with the precision of a master architect. "It... it just disappears into the bread, Father."
"Exactly! Seepage!" I beamed. "The syrup is still there—the energy is contained within the structure—but to the casual observer, it is just a plain, uninteresting pancake. This is how a wise man lives. He hides his sweetness within his crust."
Avaris walked past, ruffling Arin's hair. She caught my eye and gave a small, knowing nod. I didn't see the way she squeezed Arin's shoulder—a silent signal that meant Listen to him, he's telling you how to hide your power.
"Enough breakfast talk," I announced, dusting flour from my vest. "To the basement! The 'Great Silt Experiment' awaits. Arin, grab the buckets. Lysa, the stopwatch."
The basement was my cathedral. It was filled with jars of categorized dirt, stacks of local topographic maps, and a very large, wooden trough I had built for "Flow Analysis."
For the next three hours, the outside world ceased to exist. There were no Grey Cloaks. There was no "Remedial Class." There was only the Verne family, gathered around a wooden box filled with three layers of different-colored sand.
"Now, Arin," I said, handing him a heavy bucket of water. "I want you to pour this. But here is the challenge: You must pour it so steadily that the top layer of fine white sand is never disturbed. If I see a single grain move, the 'infiltration' has failed."
Arin took the bucket. I watched his arms. They were thick for a boy his age, but he held the weight with a trembling, fake effort that usually made me worry about his joints. He was trying to act weak, but he was failing—his muscles were too efficient.
"Steady, son," I urged. "Don't fight the bucket. Become the bucket. Let the weight flow through you into the floor, and just... be the rain."
Arin closed his eyes. I saw his breathing change. He wasn't "tripping" or "wobbling" now. He was focused. He began to pour. The water fell in a thread-like stream, hitting the sand with such perfect, controlled gentleness that not a single white grain shifted. The water simply... vanished into the earth.
"Look at that!" I whispered, mesmerized. "Total absorption. No surface runoff. No evidence of the volume. Lysa, the time?"
"Three minutes, twelve seconds," Lysa said, her voice filled with a strange kind of pride. "The water has already reached the bottom layer. The surface is still bone-dry."
"Remarkable," I breathed. "You have a natural gift for Infiltration Theory, Arin. If you can move water that quietly, you could hide a literal river right under someone's feet and they'd never know why their boots felt cold."
Avaris stood in the shadows of the basement stairs, watching her son. She knew that Arin wasn't just learning about water. He was learning how to channel his terrifying kinetic energy into a "slow pour." He was learning the one thing a "Power" type usually lacks: Precision Control.
"My turn," Lysa said. She stepped up to the trough. Her task was different. She had to identify, by sound alone, exactly when the water hit the middle layer of clay.
She closed her eyes, tilting her head. The basement was silent, save for the faint, rhythmic drip-soak-drip inside the box.
"Now," she whispered.
I checked the glass side of the trough. She was right to the millisecond.
"How did you know?" I asked, genuinely baffled. "I couldn't even see the transition!"
"The vibration changed, Father," Lysa said, opening her eyes. "The clay is denser. The sound is... flatter. If you listen to the ground, it tells you exactly what's hiding inside it."
I clapped my hands together, the sound echoing in the small stone room. "My children! Scholars of the hidden! You see? This is the Verne legacy. We aren't the mountain—mountains get climbed and conquered. We are the Soil. Everyone walks on us, but no one knows how deep we go."
By the time we emerged from the basement, the sun was beginning to set. We were covered in sand, our eyes were tired, and we hadn't done a single "exciting" thing all day.
As we sat in the living room, Avaris brought out tea and honey cakes. I felt a profound sense of peace. My children weren't out getting into trouble; they were here, safe, learning the quiet truths of the earth.
"I think," Arin said, leaning back in his chair and looking at his hands, which were steady for the first time in weeks, "that Sunday is my favorite day. No one is watching us here."
"Because there's nothing to see, Arin," I said, patting his knee. "Just a man and his children, talking about dirt. And that, my boy, is the greatest secret of all."
Avaris sat down beside me, resting her head on my shoulder. She looked at the children, her expression a mix of relief and a heavy, lingering sadness. She knew that Monday would come. She knew the Empire was still counting. But for today, under the roof of the Master of Irrigation, the Verne family was exactly what they claimed to be:
Perfectly, safely, and powerfully