Cystella was sitting next to me with a small worn notebook in her hand as she wrote. It had to have been her that spoke, but I was still a bit surprised. I had never heard her speak before. Every time someone was speaking to her she either nodded her head or shook it.

“Thank you,” I responded politely.

She nodded without looking at me, continuing to write in her notebook.

Most of the students in our grade stayed away from her out of a mix of fear and morbid curiosity. I had some hesitation, the same kind that I had with any unfamiliar person, but I was mostly filled with curiosity. If I had my way I would sit down with her like an interrogation and ask her so many questions I would lose my voice.

I looked at the notebook, it looked old and worn, but not stained like you might see in someone else our age. The binding was slightly frayed and I could see the slight scratches that would come with being jostled in a pocket regularly. Her fingers were calloused and scarred, reminding me of Heidi. Unlike most of her skin the tips of her fingers were slightly yellowed and I wondered if her toes were like that too. From how close we were I could tell how much thicker her hair was than humans. I was curious how it could be that thick without being coarse like a bears.

“Why are you not crafting in your Dreamscape?”

“I have completed a good amount for the day. Now I am brainstorming for future abilities.”

I accepted that and decided to close my eyes to rest for a bit. Professor Pure had left to help the rest of the class with their visualization training. We both stayed silent for several minutes before she spoke again.

“I understand wanting to complete the creation of something in your Dreamscape, however overexerting yourself to the point of getting a headache is counterproductive. Also if you have an incomplete thing it will give you something to work on next time and you’ll be able to tell the way things fade in a Dreamscape by remaking them. I recommend going until your breathing gets rough then work on more visualization training, just having a Dreamscape open doesn’t mean you should ignore the basics.”

That was good advice, when I had been creating the watch I had pushed myself because I would be constantly annoyed if I only had it half completed and went about my day, but now I felt like doing nothing but lying in bed for the rest of the day. Which like she had just said, was counterproductive.

Hopefully the thought of it being better training would keep the constant need to finish the project at bay enough for me to go about my day.

“Thank you for the advice.”

She nodded.

I saw that she had flipped to a new page further down her notebook and was now drawing patterns with equations and formulas on the sides.

“What is that Stygoscript for?” I asked, I found it odd to ask an obvious question such as “Is that Stygoscript?”

“Gyroscopes.”

“I see.”

I could tell at a glance that her understanding of Stygoscript exceeded mine by a large margin, which meant it was a great learning opportunity. I watched her complete a formula on the side then flip to the previous page where there was another Stygoscript pattern.

For a moment I thought that she had started working on something else, but I noticed the ways that some ends of the patterns disappeared as if there was supposed to be another part but she had yet to draw it. It was a continuation of the other page, but based on the design the two patterns should overlap, which would ruin the whole thing.

“Layered patterns?” I asked, a bit of wonder in my voice.

Layered patterns weren’t anything too special on their own, the Forged Order had several layers of Stygoscript for each plate of armor, but for a gyroscope it would obviously be much more than static plated metal.

“Yes.”

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I continued to watch her work in silence for several minutes. Once it got too complicated for me to understand without asking more questions I moved onto visualization training. I would form in my mind and image of an object. This time I chose a dresser, and I imagined opening and closing it. The patterns on the doors and drawers. The feel of the metal knobs and the smooth slightly inconsistent texture of the wood. Even the bottom where the small legs were.

Once I was satisfied with that I imagined putting clothes inside. Stacking them one after another or hanging them up. It became hard to visualize the several different sets of clothes at the same time as I tried to focus on a single one.

After that I went back to my open Dreamscape, and instead of trying to form another object I instead harnessed my Intent. I only pulled a small amount, I didn’t want to run my body ragged like I had yesterday. A white haze began to flow upwards like steam. Like I had with Heidi a few weeks prior I tried to feel it. It was cool, not cold, but similar to how the metal from my watch’s face typically felt.

Heidi’s had felt like warm sunlight on a cold windy day, meaning that the Intent’s latent properties were individualistic as well.

I tried to smell it next, but I couldn’t tell the difference between it and normal air. Then I took a mouthful of it, but it didn’t taste like anything, instead it was as if I took too deep of a breath and needed to expel it.

“There are ways to make your Intent smell or have flavor,” Cystella said from beside me.

She was smiling softly as she watched me.

“How?”

“Training.”

I tried to prod at her for more information about it but she only gave me a soft mocking smile and said training.

—

At lunch that same day Elina came to sit with me. We had talked quite a few times in the past month, but I still didn’t know if we could be called friends.

I had no idea of the distinction that would bridge acquaintance and friend. Was it time spent together? Words exchanged? Number of laughs? Some threshold should be met for two people to consider one another friends.

“Helloooo? Monty you there?” Elina asked.

“Yes?”

“So, what's it like to open up your Dreamscape?”

“It was… unexpected. At the time I was not thinking about opening it up, instead I was thinking about…” I was about to say dismantling Brax’s face like a piece of machinery, but I didn’t want to scare her.

“Beating the shit out of Brax? By the time you joined us after lunch yesterday pretty much everybody knew what happened.”

That was scary in itself, a few people had seen Brax grab me but only Brax, his goons and Professor Pure had seen me when my Dreamscaped had opened. It was most likely one of the goons, but had he announced it to the whole grade? Brax wouldn’t have been happy with that so I doubted it.

Still for the information to spread that quickly was a testament to the word of mouth. I didn’t answer and she seemed to sense my hesitation.

“If it's not something you want to talk about, that's alright. Don’t think I’m only talking to you because I want something.”

I wouldn’t have blamed her for wanting some guidance on how to open her Dreamscape up. I would do the same had she opened hers.

“It’s okay. For me it was a combination of frustration and curiosity. I wanted to know and understand why Brax was acting like that from more than just a being bullied perspective. It was as though I was seeking something rather than facing Brax.”

“Hmm.”

“By the way, Professor Pure informed me that the grade will be going on a field trip soon. For those that have yet to open their Dreamscape they will go somewhere that he said was dangerous but should hopefully help.”

She frowned as she thought.

“If it’s dangerous then it probably has to due with the fight or flight way to open up the Dreamscape. I think based on what you said yours wasn’t fight or flight like I had thought earlier but was instead Enlightenment. So they must believe that soon we will have done enough visualization training to open in dangerous situations with a relative amount of frequency.”

I looked her up and down. She was wearing a neckerchief and stockings with stripes in them. Her hair was done up in a bun with wisps hanging down and her nails were painted a vivid pink.

“You don’t look like the kind of person who can analyze in such a way,” I said.

She raised an eyebrow.

“Is that suppose to be an insult or a compliment?”

“An observation.”

“A compliment then, thank you.”

It took me a moment to realize she was making a joke. She rolled her eyes with a smile seeing that I didn’t get it right away.

“Well Monty you don’t look like the kind of person that would stab another kid with a pen.”

So that had also gotten out.

“I had been planning to do it with a knife, I believe that would have been more effective in dissuading him from bothering me any more.”

Elina chuckled, then fell silent as she saw I hadn’t shown any sign of joking.

“Really?”

I nodded.

“Honestly, sounds pretty effective. You only need to stab a guy once for him to know that you wont take any shit.”

“That was my same line of thought.”