Chapter 7 #2
“They wouldn’t. A sage understands their power more intimately and intuitively than anyone else and will always be more powerful using it for themselves. As long as we were under the Order’s aegis, they gained more power by our managing ourselves.”
“Still controlling,” Nomi points out.
“I promise you I am exceedingly aware of that.”
She huffs. “Fair enough. Can you suppress Teren’s power, then?”
Teren tenses but doesn’t object outright.
Gods, he must be terrified.
Of the Order, but also of himself.
I meet his gaze. “I could, but I’m not going to. It’s a thing you only do to someone who is incapable of controlling themselves.”
“I can’t,” Teren says softly.
“You don’t know how,” I correct vehemently. “That’s not the same at all. You’re an adult and clearly sound of mind. You deserve to have the tools to manage your own life without needing to answer to anyone. This is what I can teach you, if you are willing.”
Teren is caught on the edge of hope and doubt. “You don’t know that it will work, though. I already told you meditation doesn’t help—”
“You said you were sitting still,” I interrupt.
“Of course that doesn’t work. You need to move, physically, in order to move the excess of emotion from your body, or else it simply builds inside you and compounds.
Sitting still is literally the last thing you should be doing.
If you have ever had success at flushing your emotions without moving then you are far and away more advanced than most sages beginning training. ”
Teren blinks. Blinks again. “Really?”
I am going to burn the Order to the ground, I think darkly.
The thought brings me up sharply. I thought I’d be happy never seeing a priest again.
I guess technically murdering every priest would also result in never seeing them again, but is leaning into that side of my nature not playing into their hands after all? Or is it simply who I am?
My anger at their newfound shittiness, at least, is clear enough.
“Really,” I say, trying to keep the growl out of my voice. Looking at Zan I ask, “Surely you know what a damn kata looks like.”
Okay, maybe it’s not exactly a question, and there’s the growl after all.
For the first time, Zan actually cringes, which draws me up short.
“I didn’t pay enough attention to the specific movements and what they meant.
” His voice is rough. “Sages who came to the Quiet used to leave notes about their katas, but by the time I realized later sages would no longer be able to understand them, it was too late.” He looks away and adds bitterly, “I never pay attention to what matters at the right time.”
Well that’s a spellfield I just walked into, yikes.
“Stop that,” Nomi snaps at him. “You have done more to help sages than anyone else living or dead. It isn’t your sole responsibility to change an entire system.”
I look up at her sharply.
No, indeed.
That’s the kind of thing sage power is for.
It’s arguably why sages even exist.
But that’s a much bigger thing to consider, and right now, there is a problem before me that I actually can solve, without murdering anyone.
“May Teren and I have some privacy, please?” I ask her. “He doesn’t need an audience while learning.”
Nomi gives me a long, considering look before nodding. “Right. Zan, you took stock of the cottage, I assume? Come into the kitchen and tell me what you need.”
Zan gets up and leaves without a backwards glance, which also pisses me off even though he’s clearly attempting to respect the new boundary I’ve drawn between us.
I didn’t want there to be a boundary between us.
“You should give him the benefit of the doubt,” Teren says abruptly.
My gaze moves from where it had been following Zan’s departure to my new student.
Me, Wrath, trusted to teach.
What a world.
“I did, and it turns out that was an error,” I tell him. “And my relationship with Zan is not your concern. I am also an adult and will handle it myself.”
“You’re an adult who hasn’t been allowed to handle relationships by yourself, unless I’m misunderstanding your history,” Teren points out.
“I’m just suggesting you consider actually talking to him about why he did what he did, and why you’re feeling what you’re feeling, before you write him off completely. ”
“I haven’t written him off completely.”
“You have gone from being completely comfortable around him to attempting to withdraw completely from your emotional attachment immediately, which might be a little bit of an extreme reaction to what he actually did.”
Manipulating my choice after I trusted him is pretty bad, actually.
Zan was right that I needed to know about this—about the reality of sages, and about Teren’s situation. But I don’t know why he couldn’t have just told me, rather than springing it on me—
Then again, he recognized that I needed to take action, to break the habit of thinking.
Is manipulation of my trust for my own good forgivable, or simply patronizing?
To Teren I explain, “It is a deliberate technique. The distance prevents me from lashing out at him directly, which is my wont.”
“Have you considered he might prefer the direct approach, too?”
I blink.
Habits indeed.
Even in this way, I hide myself.
Even in this way, I hold myself still rather than moving.
When moving is where I find my power.
This new sage, this new era, might have as much to teach me as I have to teach them.
“Maybe I should just punch him,” I muse.
Direct and a method of conflict resolution I have more experience with than talking. I like it.
Teren’s eyebrows shoot up. “That is not what I said.”
I flash a sharp grin at him.
His eyes widen for a second before he sighs. “You were joking.”
“Ehhh, maybe a little.” Still not sure it isn’t a good idea, honestly. “But your point is taken, and now it’s my turn.”
I stand up and motion him to join me.
“Will one of your... katas even work for me?” Teren asks.
“Not all of them. But we’ll start with a fairly general one. It won’t be a perfect match for your power, but once you’ve learned a few and gotten practice with them you’ll begin to feel how to modify them.”
“Can you make sense of the sages’ notes?” Teren asks.
“They still exist?”
He nods. “Oh yeah. There’s a great big tome at the cottage, full of knowledge that sages wanted to pass down. Nomi will show you.”
“In that case, I might even be able to find one that’s a better match for you.”
“Was there a Sage of Comfort in your time?”
I shake my head. “No. But some of our katas are more similar than others. Do you know what a kata is?”
“A pattern of movement, right?”
“Yes. This is a kata for focus. I believe it will be easier for you to start with, given your prior efforts at meditation. Mirror my movements, first.”
Facing Teren so I can watch him, I shift into the reverse of a form. This would actually unfocus me, so I make a concerted effort to not flow my magic through the form.
His form is atrocious. I grit my teeth and move slowly to the next form.
“Follow as closely as you can,” I tell him.
“That bad, huh?” Teren says lightly.
Okay, direct approach it is. “What do you even do to condition your body?”
“Nothing?”
My eyes glow a little as I move into the next form.
Deep breaths, Yora.
“That’s going to have to change,” I tell him. “Moving at all is better for you.”
“I’m a knitter.”
“Learn to knit while you walk,” I growl. “This is ridiculous.”
Teren huffs in amusement. At least my comments aren’t hurting his feelings. “I am not the kind of person who can bulk muscle.”
“Nor am I, but I possess body awareness. You can see the difference between our poses, yes? You are used to following patterns?”
“Yeah. I don’t think I can do it, though. This is a basic kata? I don’t know if this will work for me.”
His worry is creeping back in.
“It will work,” I tell him. “Even a poorly performed kata is better than what you’ve been doing. It will simply be more effective the closer you can match the form.”
“I don’t feel any different.”
“That’s because I haven’t talked to you about magic yet. You’re getting ahead of yourself.”
“Are you sure this will work? It sounds like I don’t even have the foundation—”
“Teren,” I cut him off in exasperation, “I learned this when I was a child. Are you an adult or aren’t you? Stop whining about why it won’t work for you and make it work.”
He closes his mouth with a clack.
“We will make this work,” I tell him fiercely. “I am sure. I am not going to abandon you. And I am not leaving this house until you can perform your first kata well enough to matter.”
And Teren, finally, relaxes; his magic settles back into his skin.
Finally, I think he might be listening to me.
“Your eyes are glowing,” he says softly.
Yeah. “Clarity,” I tell him, “of mind, and of purpose, is a huge component of many sage powers, including Wrath. And also, I suspect, Comfort. To understand what a person needs so that you can offer it to them.”
Teren tilts his head. “That makes sense. I admit I never thought they had anything in common. Comfort and Wrath seem diametrically opposed.”
“But your magic doesn’t bristle when I come into a room, does it?”
He considers that thoughtfully. “No, it doesn’t, now that you mention it.”
“It’s a common misconception among layfolk,” I explain.
“People like to think of emotions as good or bad, as active or passive, as all or nothing, as existing on linear axes for ease of modeling. But it’s a false dichotomy.
Emotions aren’t black or white, good or bad in and of themselves: it’s what we do with them.
“Anger is my base emotional state, and that isn’t a problem.
It isn’t a thing about myself that needs to change or be suppressed; it’s part of me, and I’m comfortable with it.
But it doesn’t decide my actions for me.
And it doesn’t have to be the only thing I feel, you see?
While it shapes me, even defines me, it doesn’t control me. I am the master of myself.
“And so too can you be. If you want it.”
What can I do with my wrath besides destroy?
That is the question, isn’t it?
Teren nods slowly. “Okay. Let’s try this again.”
And we do.
I show him the kata until he has the basics memorized.
Then we go through each form and with his permission I move his body to mimic it more closely. He can’t hold all of those positions yet, but feeling what we’re working toward will still help him improve.
Only once he can move through the kata on his own after that—and it takes even longer this time, after the corrections, to get him moving smoothly again rather than thinking too hard—do I talk him through running his magic through it.
This is the part I expected to be difficult, because he’s spent so much of his life trying to not use his power, but it’s the opposite—because he doesn’t have any actual skills to hold it back, his power is eager to be channeled.
Even this basic, imperfect kata is so much more effective than what he’s done before that after running through it only a few times Teren is dazed.
Fierce pleasure burgeons in me.
I did this.
We did this.
We finish by deciding on an exercise program that Teren is actually cautiously optimistic about, which is a relief—maybe he will actually do it, if he believes he can. Because based on my assessment of his skill, this is only the beginning of the muscles and awareness he needs to develop.
And I realize that his education is something I need to commit to, too, to do right by him.
And I am. Committed.
A thing in this new world that I can do, that I finally feel sure about—
Though I’d felt sure of Zan, too.
Teren brings us into the kitchen to get a drink of water, and I find Zan and Nomi with two enormous stuffed backpacks.
My eyes narrow. I heft one, and look a challenge at Zan.
His eyebrows lift.
He takes the other.
Nomi says, “No need for that, I can carry that up the mountain—”
“I can carry my own weight,” I tell her, eyes never leaving Zan’s.
He doesn’t disagree.
Teren mutters in amusement, “She really can. Who knew sages were such fitness junkies? You were probably running laps in your sleep.”
And Zan’s gaze never leaves mine as he also tells Nomi, “I’ll show Yora what she needs to know. You can stay here to be on hand if the fall of the Quiet begins to change things.”
I practically feel Nomi’s eyebrows shoot through the roof at that pronouncement.
Zan doesn’t take such an active role with most sages, I’m pretty sure.
Finally she says, “You’re both sure?”
Teren snorts. “Please take your personal tension outside and do something about it.”
I finally break my gaze on Zan to shoot Teren a sly look.
He points at me. “No.”
“No promises,” I murmur, and he sighs exaggeratedly as I smile slightly.
But he’s right: Zan and I do have things to resolve between us. I turn back to him and this time it’s my turn to ask, “Are you ready?”
I hold the bow out to him.
He steps in close to gently fix it back in my hair, and his eyes are gleaming as he says, “Always.”