Arav

A new student at the India branch, around seventeen, born of one of India's oldest 'Seeing' bloodlines. For him, seeing those things isn't a gift but an inborn part of daily life—his mother, his grandmother, his grandmother's mother, every generation could see.

His family has traveled the whole world, recording every 'one who can see'; he grew up hearing several languages, because the work of recording must cross many borders.

Recording has been done in his family for many generations, and it comes with a whole apparatus of rules: when to record, which fields to record, which matters may only be written on particular paper. He memorized those rules as a child, more thoroughly than he ever memorized the mantra-wheel.

Switching languages costs him nothing, accent included. He is precise about which language carries which kind of speech—one for asking directions, another for asking about a person.

He is cheerful and quick to laugh, the first of the new students to be on speaking terms with people from every branch. In his family tradition that counts as a skill too: to record someone, you must first get them willing to stand in front of you.

He carries a notebook trimmed narrow, exactly the width to slide into an inside jacket pocket. He does not hide it while writing, and if someone leans over to look, he does not cover it either.

The day he walked into the main courtyard, the flame-tips of the brazier stretched out for no reason. He went straight to Lan Yingchen to introduce himself, and hearing that Lan Yingchen had only been seeing for 8 days, he smiled faintly and said one line: I've recorded you.

In his family's tradition, someone who walks into Myriad Academy after only 8 days is an anomaly that must be recorded and traced.

He changes language without friction, accent following. This is not a gift but an inheritance of a family that has travelled the world—records must be taken in a form the local can follow, and the wrong language collects nothing.

Which language carries which kind of talk, he distinguishes finely. One for family matters, another for academy matters, another again for joking. His own comparison is changing clothes.

His Chinese is good enough that classmates sometimes forget he came from the India branch. Only on certain words does he pause half a beat—those are the words with no counterpart in his family's way of saying things.

He does not keep a diary. What he needs recorded, he records elsewhere.

The family's rules for recording are hard: when to record, which fields, and which matters may only be written on certain paper. He learned them young, better than he learned the mantra-wheels.

The fields are fixed: time of meeting, place, the first thing the person saw, how long they had been seeing, and whether anyone had ever explained it to them. The last field is left blank, for whoever comes after to fill in.

Three kinds of paper are used. Ordinary records take ordinary paper; anything touching bloodline takes a heavier stock with an uneven edge; the third kind he has used exactly once.

When he says he has recorded something, he has recorded it. It is not a courtesy.