††† Siegfried †††

Siegfried felt a bit elated after Ryden confirmed their hope. That he really did have the potential to become strong once more. Alas, one glance at Haylee and his elation gave way to guilt and shame. But if guilt dominated his subconsciousness, he would just use that guilt as his motivation to work even harder.

"So… how do we go about that?" he asked Haylee. "I don't even know where to start."

"You mean your ability?" the cat-girl asked, tilting her head to the side. "Why would you want to start with that now? We have the most amazing healer I've ever heard of with us, and I'm sure he would be inclined to help with—"

"No, Ryden should save his energy," Sieg interjected. "I can heal myself, even if it takes a bit longer. And also, I… just have to do this now," he stated with a tone of finality.

Haylee shot Siegfried a concerned glance. She clearly wanted to argue but understood his need to act and let out a defeated sigh. "Fine, but we should move a bit away. I doubt you'll be able to keep your voice down if anything goes wrong." A quick shudder rocked Haylee's body, likely in memory of her first transformations.

Sieg felt his stomach drop. It had to be a horrible experience for the lethal young shapeshifter to be stirred up like that, but he didn't press her for details. Instead, he quietly snuck into the cave once more to retrieve their rucksack.

The sun was still rising when they left the plateau in search of a suitable training area. Not far from their cave, they spotted a broad ring of dense bushes in the shadow of a large, jagged stone pillar. Upon breaching the natural privacy shield, a shallow pond revealed itself, surrounded by a bed of lush grass and yellow flowers.

"It's beautiful," Haylee breathed.

Movement on the far side of the pond attracted their attention. A pack of dog-sized, furry rodents rushed through the grass out of sight.

"I've never seen a rat that big," Siegfried exclaimed in wonder.

"Those are capybaras, Siegfried, not rats!” Haylee chuckled. “They are harmless. In fact, they are even friendly with most other animals."

"Well, at least the dense bushes should keep us out of sight and don't let the sound travel too far. I can also still see the plateau from here, so we should be fine," Sieg stated. He sat down cross-legged and looked to Haylee for guidance.

Her smile turned into a grimace, but she sat down beside him, clearing her throat. "Learning to shapeshift only partially was a bit like building muscle memory for me. My body already knew how to change fully into a big cat, and I went from there. In your case, you instinctively know how to revert your body to its pristine form and conjure those bone blades. The first step is to conjure that same blade elsewhere instead of your hand."

"I get what you are saying," Sieg mused. "But I never paid much attention to what was happening at that moment. I just will it to appear, and it does. I don't feel physically doing anything special."

“Hmm,” Haylee exhaled, tapping her lips with a finger. "You're blinking countless times every day, but you're hardly ever aware that you are just moving your eyelids, right?" she tried a different approach. "But when you consciously observe yourself while it happens, you know which muscles are moving. You can feel it. And that's why you can also do it on purpose. Same thing on a different scale."

Sieg nodded, comprehending the theory. In practice, it was still not that easy. Whenever he willed the blade to appear, it jutted out of his palm in the blink of an eye. There was not much time to feel anything. Retracting was a different feeling — that was all he could tell at first.

Nearly an hour of frustrating attempts went by before he thought to have sensed something. Alas, his irritation just grew when he still couldn’t grasp it.

"That's infuriating," Siegfried growled, punching the dirt beneath him.

Haylee left her post near the bushes, where she had monitored the open clearing. She cocked an elegant eyebrow in question.

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"I can feel something there," Sieg explained. "But the process is just too quick to get ahold of that feeling. It's too complex."

Haylee crossed her arms and tilted her head slightly to the side — an indication that she was thinking hard, as Siegfried knew by now.

"That does make sense from my point of view," the cat-girl intoned calmly. "I can see even less than you might feel, but it looks like you punch through your skin and flesh while instantly healing it again and then harden the skin around it. That would be three different kinds of… motivity if you want. You could try focusing only on the first sensation as you can do the healing consciously afterwards."

Siegfried didn't miss the uneasiness in her voice when Haylee proposed this approach. Nevertheless, his mind was set up. The visual description certainly helped him, and the different sensations grew more distinct with every try. He couldn't perceive how his bone changed or grew, but there was a new feeling. As if he used a new, strange kind of muscle, just like Haylee told him.

"I think I'm ready," Siegfried said, holding out his forearm and focusing on the upper side, but nothing happened.

"Try with the blade from your palm again and right afterwards somewhere else. Better if the feeling is still fresh in your mind," Haylee suggested. The cat-girl watched with sharp attention as the blade from Siegfried's palm shot out and retracted. Nothing else happened. It shot out and retracted once more.

The instant afterwards, a spike of bone shot out vertically from Siegfried's forearm. It was covered in blood. The pain registered a second later, but he bit the escaping scream down to a grunt.

"Now heal it!" Haylee shouted, hopping in place and waving her hands frantically.

Sieg tried to work through the pain. To revert back his flesh and skin while simultaneously keeping the finger-long spike outside. It was like trying to stand up and remain seated simultaneously. He was sweating profusely from pain and exertion by the time he managed to isolate both. A jolt of electrifying agony that nearly robbed him of his consciousness was his reward.

"Stop it, Siegfried!" Haylee panicked. "Change it back," she tried again, but Sieg couldn’t focus on anything but the pain. Haylee lifted his head with both hands to face her, trying to get his attention. "Picture your arm as it always was," she urged him. "Like it was just an hour before. There is no spike, no hole, no blemish on your skin. Picture it!"

No spike, no hole. The words registered slowly in Sieg’s jumbled mind. He averted his gaze from the ruined arm and concentrated on his good one. No spike, no hole. No pain.

His body was still shaking uncontrollably, but the spike retracted, making way for flesh and sinew to join once more.

Sieg was still breathing heavily and sweating all over, but his gaze was clear. "Okay," he panted when he saw the tearful expression on Haylee's face. "I'm okay."

"I'm sorry, Siegfried," the agitated young woman apologised. "I wish Eurydike was here. She would have known better than—"

"It's not your fault!" he interrupted firmly. "It was my decision. And it still stands," he added while trying to take deep, slow breaths. "It was just the first try. It didn't work, so we find out what went wrong and try again—”

“You’re unbelievable!” Haylee shouted, throwing her hands up in surrender.

Sieg wanted to shout back, but Haylee’s watering eyes caught him in his tracks.

“You nearly passed out from the pain,” she continued.

“ I promise to stop immediately when I feel something goes wrong," Siegfried pleaded. “I need you, Haylee. Bolverk and my friends are counting on me, and I can't do it without you. Please.”

Haylee crossed her arms with a huff and turned away from Sieg. He could almost see the war of emotions within her until she faced him again, her posture slowly relaxing.

With a helpless sigh, Haylee relented, "okay, but if you try to push through the pain like that again, I'll knock you out. Is that clear?" She narrowed her eyes.

"Yes, ma'am," he chuckled wearily.

"I mean it, Siegfried. If you feel like having to punish yourself or something equally stupid, you can do it without me. I was honestly worried just now!" The accusing tone of her voice was still laden with shock.

"Okay, I'm sorry, Haylee. I really am. And I didn't have any ulterior motives — I just wanted it to work. Wanted to get stronger," Sieg explained. "But I get now that I can't force my way through like I did with physical training."

Haylee helplessly shook her head. "Fine. Then let's try to figure out what was different. What exactly did you try to do, or envision, when the pain started to get worse?"

Siegfried explained the process in detail, watching Haylee furrow her brows, contemplating. Until she palmed her face with an annoyed grunt.

"Of course it didn't work like that," she exclaimed. "I just told Ryden the same thing… you don't heal yourself — you shapeshift and try to return your body to a scatheless state. Your muscles and nerves tried to grow together, but the bone already occupied the space between them. You constantly tried to shift the nerves against the bone… that's like applying constant pressure on an open wound," Haylee concluded slowly, her voice growing faint at the idea. "Do you feel any pain when using the blade from your palm?"

"No, not even for an instant," Sieg answered.

"Then my best guess is that you, somehow, shift your muscles and nerves aside before the bone grows out. The nerves would never be cut that way. Maybe if you understand how it works now, you could get a better feeling on the whole process?" she asked, hopefully.

"Yeah… back to stabbing empty air," Sieg muttered but got to it right away. Haylee nodded with a smile and went for her lookout post again, leaving him to his own devices.