Raven Chapter 33 Foundations and Frustrations 411 #2
When Enra calls for an end to the training, I make my way over to my water and find a fresh, covered plate on a bench—sliced roast beef, hearty bread, pickled vegetables. No note. Knowing the guys, it was either Dre, Anik, or a mixture of the two of them.
When the sandwich is gone, and my water is empty, I trudge back over to the center of the room and sit down in front of Numbra.
“Find your magic. It should feel like something that is always there. Reach for that, not the fire,” she says, and it helps a little, but also not at all.
Does she not realize my magic is the fire?
Still, I close my eyes. My muscles are still pulsing with the effort of this morning’s drills, my brain stuck on the rhythm of dodge, pivot, strike. Reaching for the bond with my familiars at the same time I reach for the magic and hold on to one of the roots, a faint warmth emanating from it.
But the second I try to “just listen” to it, my body rebels. My shoulder throbs where Enra had corrected my stance a dozen times, and my brain briefly reminds me of the frustration that particular move had caused me. And my magic—always the dramatic bitch—itches at the memory as well.
A spark fizzles on my palm.
“No,” Numbra says, calm and infuriating. “You’re forcing it. You can’t bully magic.”
“I’m not angry.” I grind out. Another spark, this one snapping like static. “Okay, maybe a little frustrated.”
“You’re treating it like something to be conquered. It’s not a knife to throw. It’s a current to ride.”
I take a deep breath. The bond trembles. A tendril of smoke curls from my fingertips.
Shit.
I yank back, severing the connection. The smoke vanishes, and the hum goes back to the background.
Numbra doesn’t scold. She just watches, her black eyes seeing too much. “Your body is still in fight mode. Your magic doesn’t know the session is over.”
I open my eyes, the frustration I feel glaring through with my words. “So what, I need to meditate before I can not set things on fire?”
“You need to transition ,” she says simply. “The mind follows the body. Shake out your limbs, breathe. Then try again.”
I stare at my hands, still curled into half-fists. Still ready to hit something. Still useless for anything but burning.
I have also come to the conclusion that transitions are hard.
Eventually, I'm able to do it, and following her advice to ride a current and not force it, I try to flow with the magic. It takes a few tries, but after about an hour, I'm able to hold a very tiny flame for a whole minute.
Numbra watches the flame flicker, her expression unreadable. "Good. But remember—control only gets you so far. If someone wanted to neutralize you, they wouldn't try to fight your magic head-on. They'd wall you off from it."
She taps her own wrist. "Null-cuffs. Rare, expensive, and the Council's favorite tool for dealing with problems they can't control. They suppress magical ability completely. Most supes go dark the second the cuffs lock."
I stare at the spot where the flame was. "So if someone put those on me..."
"You'd be powerless. Like a human. Vulnerable."
The thought should terrify me. Instead, all I can focus on is that I don't have to rely on this. The magic, the explosions, the constant fear of losing control.
It's actually a relief. I can finally scratch "find someone to kill me if I go nuclear" off my mental to-do list. I'll just have to track down some of those fancy cuffs instead.
"So keep that in mind," Numbra continues. "You can't rely on your magic solely. It's a tool, not the answer. The answer is always here and here." She taps her temple, then my sternum. "Adaptability and survival. Magic just gives you more options."
I nod, already mentally adding acquire null-cuffs to my ever-growing list of things to do. Right between try french fries and figure out how to get Forrest to admit he has feelings .
Numbra must see something shift in my expression because she gives a single, sharp nod. "Good. You're learning."
Dinner is a delicious thing called pizza, and I suspect it is also one of the ‘experience’ things the guys wanted to give me.
All of them watch me with rapt attention as I devour three slices in under five minutes.
Kieran’s grin is proud. Anik’s gaze is steady.
Emerson’s pen is moving. Dre looks… relieved, maybe?
Forrest just nods once, like I’ve passed a test I didn’t know I was taking.
I have no idea who chose this, but whoever did deserves some major brownie points and sexual favors.
The third day, I’m given a massive stack of pancakes by Forrest and decide it might be worth keeping him around. It’s worth throwing it all back up with how fluffy and delicious these things are.
Luckily, I don’t have to worry about throwing it up. Numbra informs me that we’ll be starting with magical training in the morning when my body is at its calmest, then moving to physical training, where I will be attempting to weave magic into my physical training.
I snort at that before turning to Em, who is sitting in a corner methodically sharpening a blade and obsessively watching me, per usual. How he’s finding the time to also read the book open next to him is beyond me.
“Does Miriam have an emotional attachment to this building?” I ask him.
He shakes his head. “She does not. We are the only ones who use this space.”
I nod because that’s good. Mixing physical activity with my magic seems like a recipe for disaster.
“Before we can test my assumption regarding Miriam’s emotional attachment to this building,” he says, hefting the familiar crushed-velvet-covered book. "Auras. We're going to review what you saw and cross-reference with the text."
I groan. “Can it wait? I feel like I’m about to embarrass myself enough without a public pop quiz.”
He shakes his head. “You’ve mapped out your connection but you still lack the fundamental understanding of a part of that connection that is used to see auras. This is magical training.”
Twenty minutes later I’m lying on the bench, head propped up on my hands, as he flips pages while pointing out color correspondences, layered meanings, the difference between static and flowing auras.
I barely retain half of it, but when he describes how trauma can leave instability in the outer layers, something clicks.
“Numbra’s aura,” I mumble. When Em just raises his brow I explain, “Hers is layered, like I told you, but I left out the movement part of it. The outer layer, the frosty blue-gray color, kept shifting like it was working to keep people out. The layer underneath, the velvety indigo, kept trying to reach through that outer layer but the frost kept pulling it back. Meanwhile her core was a small concentrated warm white color that was a constant. Almost like it was waiting for something.”
His eyebrow is still raised and I roll my eyes. “The outer layer shifts so much, is so unstable, because it’s not just keeping people out. It’s… protecting something.
The tapping of his pen stills for a moment and his eyebrow lowers, a gleam entering his eyes. “Good. You’re translating observation into analysis. Continue.”
He flips to the back of the book and pulls out sketches. Four of them and each showing a different aura pattern from the descriptions I gave yesterday. I set aside Numbra’s.
“Izzy’s is orderly. Geometric.” I sit up, no longer willing to lie here while my brain is clicking together so much at once. “That matches her job. She’s a leader, a strategist.” I’d also bet my left tit that Ro-ro has the same orderly and geometric quality. “But what are the silver strands?”
Emerson spins the book towards me and points to a section, explaining. “The silver strands you described indicate inherited purpose. Bloodline magic.”
“Makes sense,” I mumble as I pick up Enra’s—soft greens with that hidden amber core. “That colored core also makes sense. It’s like she’s taken all her fire and anger and channeled it into something that won’t burn everything down around it.”
Flare’s and Miriam’s go quickly after that and, by the time he’s done, I’ve forgotten all about my unwillingness to do this in the first place. He’s not just teaching me about auras—he's teaching me about people. How to read them. How to understand them.
I like to think I'm already pretty good at reading people without having to look behind the curtain at their auras. But this? This feels like I'm leveling up. If I were a Pokémon, I'd totally be evolving right now.
Would I evolve like Eevee? Based on what kind of training I was given? I can't remember the specifics—stones, friendship, standing near a weird rock? Something like that.
The point is—I'm leveling up.
I shake my head, suddenly aware that I spent way too much time watching humans walk around parks playing that one game when it came out. This moment really cements that fact.
I focus back up and onto the pen moving like liquid between Em’s fingers.
“Like Forrest. When I first started following you guys I thought his whole deal was control, walls, and that stick up his ass.” Em’s lips twitch.
“But as I kept watching him? I saw that his control was a weird form of love. Super distant and self-protecting but still love. He’s a hard-ass because he cares, not because he’s a dick.
His aura is probably all rigid lines on the outside and something super soft and squishy inside.
Something that probably hurts every time he flexes it and it gets poked and prodded by all the rigid scaffolding he’s put up around it. ”
The pen has slowed in it’s twirling but I’m still watching his hand as I continue in a sort of trance.