"Alright, let's go over this," Emily starts. "You found two new foods that cause problems?"

"Yeah," I answer quietly. As always, she's working on my hair while we talk a bit. Even though our roommates are still asleep before the first bell, we don't mention mana directly.

"The first one was called ceeat. It made me all... jumpy, I guess. Too excited and jumping around. The other was this meal we ate. It was amazing," I recall, before reminding myself to get to the point. "But some part of it just kind of... made things hard to control. Like I just couldn't make myself do what I wanted."

"Hmm..."

"But here's the weird thing. The food did it really slowly. I made it halfway through my plate before I realized what was happening. I was kind of lucky with that though." Connecting through her hands in my hair, I whisper a thought to her since I can't say it out loud. "If I'd lost control of my mana, the special fire mana from the hobin would have shot out everywhere and burned down her house."

"A-ahh..." Emily answers vaguely. I can hear the edge of panic in her voice when she hears about what could have happened. "Well, did everything else go well?" She quickly changes the topic.

"Actually, yeah. Playing with Thelia was really fun. I even got to play cards with Kathy."

Just sitting and playing was great...

Emily finishes up with my hair and we sit on my bed briefly. I take the opportunity to make some more water mana to replace what I lost yesterday. I've gotten too used to being able to hear everything around me, it actually feels kind of weird without it. Then I get some more earth since I've basically always had some recently.

While I'm at it, I grab the manastone and put the special fire mana inside. Just in case. It's just barely enough to hold the fire, ending up completely full. I add the manastone to my bag of ingots.

Once I'm done, it makes me wonder, what about Emily? She's had quite a bit of fire mana for what, a month? And about half as much lightning for most of that time too. Plus a little earth and water on and off... Having any significant amount of colored mana makes me an emotional wreck, but she's so stable, it's amazing how she can maintain that. Once I've gotten what I need, we head downstairs since we can't really talk here, even if everyone else is asleep now.

Once we're seated at the dining room table like yesterday, I ask her about the mana. "So how do you feel with all that mana? Have you had any problems or anything?"

"Mm, no, everything seems fine."

"What about your injuries? How do they feel?" It's been about a full day since Mister Fredricson beat her. With the small amount of earth mana I gave her, she should be fine, I think.

"No problem, they've basically healed," she reports.

"Good," I smile a little. I take a moment to check my own. The burns are mostly healed, I can probably remove the bandages tomorrow. Getting back on topic... "Do you want to keep the earth or get rid of it? Oh, also, what about the lightning? You seemed to be mostly sleeping fine with it last night, have your nightmares from the monster attack gotten better?"

"Yeah," Emily suddenly giggles. "All I have to do is imagine you with me and the monster isn't scary anymore." Is that... supposed to be a compliment...?

"Ok, that's good," I say stiffly anyway.

"So, for the mana..." She thinks for a bit. "I have... what now, exactly?"

"Uhh, let's see..." I take some time to check her, reaching in and sifting through all the mana floating around. "About thirty percent fire, twenty percent lightning, twenty percent earth, ten percent water, and twenty percent colorless." I list them off one by one as I look through them. At this point, the only one she isn't using is air.

"Hmm..." Emily continues considering things for a while. "Well, I guess that's fine," she eventually decides. "Things have been going well so far. Air mostly helps with flexibility which isn't all that important. I'm fine without that one. Besides, I don't want to turn into a cat." She shoots me a grin to show that she still remembers how weird and silly the air mana made me. "The rest of them I've been using are helpful, so I'll keep them. Sound good?"

"Of course," I agree immediately. Even if she can't sense mana, how much of it she wants and how she uses it is entirely up to her. "Umm..." I hesitate before asking the next thing on my mind.

Emily raises an eyebrow. "What is it?" She's obviously curious at my hesitation.

I push myself forward and ask. "Could I... check your mana well?" Just asking makes me blush furiously. Just the thought feels like a huge intrusion, a massive invasion of her privacy. I'm basically asking to look at her soul. "I want to make sure everything looks fine since I don't have any idea what might happen with lots of different mana types inside of someone, especially a human," I add, trying to explain myself.

For her part, Emily only flushes a little, even though she understands exactly what I'm asking. "Sure. I don't want to be careless and mess it up or something," she answers seriously.

"Alright." I nod. I take a moment to grab some nickel for absolute mana. That reminds me about how I got more than I expected last night. I take a moment to make a mana field with the mollite in my wrist, and yeah, I get a substantial amount of absolute mana back. There must be something different about how it works compared to the others. It does eventually destroy the nickel ingot after all. I'll keep that in mind for later.

With the absolute mana ready, I gulp nervously. Even Emily seems a bit nervous as I reach inside, using the absolute mana since I'm going to her well. Even after the monster attack, I didn't really inspect it too closely while she was unconscious.

Now with her permission, I go closer, checking around it. Nothing looks wrong, it's just like all of the animals I've looked into before. I carefully push below the surface, my absolute mana safe from being converted away. As expected, it's very shallow, just a small amount of mana in her well. Stretching all along the structure, everything feels fine. Honestly, I'm not even sure what I would be looking for, unless it was something obvious, like that terrifying dark thing I found in the monster. Of course, there's nothing like that inside Emily.

Reaching down to her core, I feel the spot where her single piece of colorless mana rests, the piece that makes Emily... Emily. I smile a little. Everything feels exactly like it should be. I pull away. With a big smile, I tell her, "No signs of any problems from the mana. At least nothing I can find." Then I give her a big thumbs up. "Everything looks good."

She sighs with relief. "Good, thank you for looking." I'm glad I checked, leaving it completely unknown would be awful. What if there were some terrible long-term effects and I never bothered to check? In fact, I probably should have looked earlier, leaving it for a month could have been far too long. So I'm really, really glad that everything is fine. We just sit for a bit, until I move onto my next task.

"Ok, next up. I have a few questions for Reena, and I'm going to practice, uhh..." I stop. "I need a good word for it..." I mutter. I need to name a lot of these things. Or maybe I can ask if there's already a word I can use?

"That thing where you sit and kind of clear your mind?"

"Yeah."

"Mm... Clear, calm, focus..." she rattles off some words related to it, but none of it really sounds right.

"Well, I'll ask if there's a word for it today. Maybe Eryk or Claire will know." She nods in agreement, and joins me. It feels awkward trying to kneel in our chairs, so we just sit normally for now, even though that also feels weird now that I'm used to doing it the other way. We still have a little time before the first bell, and I have water mana again, so I don't need to worry about anyone coming in without me noticing.

So I close my eyes and focus my mind. I'm pretty used to this now, so it's easy to do when I'm just sitting and resting. Once my mind feels clear and peaceful, I give it a little time before channeling my mark. Reena comes forward, expectantly waiting. I have two things to discuss with her, but I'm not entirely sure if I have time for the important one, so I just go with the other.

It's a little hard to express the question through feelings, but I do my best. I send her the different experiences of feeling different people's barriers, asking why Eryk's was so different, and why he was able to think back to me, whether it was related to his barrier or not. The question all comes out a bit jumbled as I try to express it all through to her, but I think she understands.

Unfortunately, her reply is not helpful. And... concerning. She isn't allowed to tell me about it.

Why not...?

Reena immediately apologizes. Then she tells me why. I get the same sinking feeling she sends me. 'Arcanas commanded me not to discuss it with mortals.'

...What?

Arcanas herself told Reena she can't talk about this? Why not? What could it possibly be? Is speaking through minds super secret or something? Reena had a kind of weird reaction when she saw I figured it out after talking with her some, so maybe? Whatever the case, I'm not going to get any information about this from her. I respectfully thank her for at least trying and tell her it's fine. She can't help it if Arcanas told her not to. Maybe I should ask Arcanas?

Oh, right. As soon as I think about that, I remember the other, sort of small thing I wanted to ask Reena about. "Is being your, uh, angel something important?" The words I wind up thinking in my head actually don't end up expressing the question correctly.

Thankfully, her getting my underlying feelings asking whether angels are important to their god and if they can have more than one at a time, actually comes through where my words fail. I still try to elaborate though. "If I'm supposed to be an important follower you chose for a task, should I introduce myself to the other gods?"

No no no no no no no no no no no.

It's so sudden and surprising it actually breaks my concentration and I end up blinking at the wall for a few long moments. Then I shake myself a little and focus again.

"Umm, explain?" I think toward her with a hefty amount of concern.

A surprisingly mixed up rush of emotions comes from Reena. They range from embarrassment at her reaction, to relief that I asked, and worry. Lots of worry. And terror.

And then she finally clarifies.

The other gods can't know I exist.

Oh.

A knock at the front door draws me from my conversation with Reena. I make sure to tell her sternly that we are going to talk about this later before releasing my mark as I head toward the door with Emily. We open it to John, as usual. With a hug and a wave, Emily sends me off, and John carries me to work. I try to push away my worry about my conversation with Reena, and just keep testing different methods of mental communication with John. Or... on John, I guess.

By the time we've made it to the refinery, he's sweating and cringing. Still no luck... Today I managed to try stretching and shrinking the connection while speaking, having the mana inside it move around in different patterns like swirling in a circle and cycling up and down the length of the string. I tried connecting to multiple places at once, and just doing one connection in a whole bunch of different spots along his barrier. Then there were the tests of connections made of mixed mana types, or multiple individual mana types all wrapped together into a single string or separately like a rope.

No real changes overall. Most of them, like the mixed-mana tests, tended to garble my thoughts too much to understand, so those are out. Stretching and shrinking the connection seemed to have some sort of effect though. John couldn't explain it very well, but from the way he described it kind of doing up and down or something like that, I might have a lead. I'll look into that.

While John stands against the wall and recovers again, I take my usual seat at the table in Eryk's office. He waves for me to eat while he's working on writing something. I nod and just start eating. I guess we'll talk after, before Claire gets here.

I try to strike a balance between eating quickly, and being polite and eating slowly. Which just turns into me eating at a kind of average pace. Well, I still remember to sit up straight and I'm careful not to get any of the food on my clothes, so that's something.

Once I finish, Eryk looks up from his paperwork. He just gestures for me to explain, and I get into it. "So, last night I found two new foods that mess with my mana. The first was the ceeat, which made it get really excited and hard to keep in control."

"Ok..." he mutters as I speak.

"The second was some part of dinner. It was just a little at a time instead of all at once like lele fruit and ceeat, but it made my mana stop responding to my will."

"Hmm..."

I wait briefly as he thinks, but he gestures for me to go on when he sees I'm not done yet. "So the reason I couldn't finish eating was because I had a special type of fire mana inside me. If I lost control of it, I would have burned Kathy's house down. You noticed how I could hardly think through speaking last night, right? Between it being over-excited from the ceeat, and my mana hardly responding to my will from the dinner, I could hardly focus on anything else, or I would have lost control of it." Finished explaining the circumstances, I let Eryk think on it for a while.

He finally sit up straighter. He grins and says, "Thank you for not burning down my sister's home."

"You're welcome," I reply jokingly.

"But seriously, good job keeping in control despite the circumstances. I'll try to explain things in a way to help her understand and smooth things over." I nod slightly in thanks. "Now then, what is this about a special type of fire mana? Is it something new?"

"I've kind of been calling it 'special fire' or 'living fire,' I haven't come up with an exact term for it yet. It's fire mana that I can send out of my body, like I showed you with absolute."

"Oh, that's certainly interesting," he comments. "Where does it come from?"

I immediately shake my head. "I don't want to talk about it." Messing with souls is the part of mana I won't talk about freely with Eryk. I don't even want to think about it. He takes a moment to consider the unexpected response.

"Alright... Could I see some then?"

I think about it briefly. As long as it isn't running out of control like last night, I could just show him a little bit. "Sure." I go through my bag until I find the small manastone tucked in with my ingots. It's bright red now, like it's glowing with the light of the fire inside it.

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"What's that?" Eryk asks as soon as he sees it.

"Uhh..." That one I'm not sure how to explain. "This is..." I have to remind myself that normal people don't know about manastones. Even though this isn't one of those, I wound up using the same word, which could be an issue... "Well..." He already looks very curious because I'm delaying. "Don't mention this to anyone, alright?"

"Ok..."

"The name isn't exactly right, but for now, I've been calling it a manastone," I explain, still hedging a little.

"The name isn't right?" he questions. It brings Reena's warning to mind again. Be careful of names and labels...

"Uhh..." It takes a few moments to form a good response to explain it properly. "It has to do with issues with the internal structure, and how it functions. You don't really have to worry about that though."

Though he doesn't immediately respond, Eryk looks strangely... impressed for some reason? I'm not sure why, so I just finish explaining. "All that really matters is that it can hold mana. That's why I'm calling it a manastone, at least until I can come up with something better."

"It can hold mana?" he wonders aloud.

"Yeah, I put the fire inside after what happened last night so I don't need to worry about something like that again." I pull the tiniest little bit of fire out that I can so I can show it to Eryk. Since I know the fire is really hot, even if I'm controlling it, I generate a good deal of normal fire mana so it won't burn me. Then I move to the middle of Eryk's office, away from everything else just in case. I really don't want to burn anything in here, so I have to be extra careful. Bad things happen when I just try things without preparing enough.

I feel like I'm being paranoid, but when I think of what might have happened to Kathy's house, I don't hesitate to go back and get some lightning and air mana too. Assuming things do go wrong, they'll help me react and try to fix the problem. Then I move back into my position while Eryk watches very closely.

I take the tiny speck of special fire mana and push it out of my finger, fighting to keep it under control. Like my other attempts holding mana outside my body, it immediately feels like it's in a raging storm, being blown around every which way and I have to devote all of my focus to keeping it under control. The bright red fire is burning hot where it dances in the air just barely off the tip of my finger. It flickers, swelling and pulsing like a beating heart as I hold it.

It's not much larger than the tip of my finger holding it in place, but I can feel an incredible amount of heat coming off of it, definitely enough to burn me badly without so much fire mana. There's also a powerful pressure, like it wants to expand larger. I have to force it down and clamp it into its present size, gritting my teeth with the effort. Both John and Eryk watch closely as I hold the fire.

Before I can lose control or anything else can go wrong, I close my other hand over the flickering spot of fire. Once it is safely back inside me, I exhale slowly, panting a little. I release the tension in my shoulders. Nothing went wrong for once.

"That's what it looks like," I say while heading back over to the table. I grab the manastone and put the bit of fire back inside with the rest.

"Impressive," Eryk notes, moving around his desk, back toward his chair again. John also takes the chance to grab my bowl of food and head out. "So what about that manastone? A tool like that might be useful for our project, what do you think?"

He wants to use manastones to make metal?!

"No!" I snap at him, fingers digging into the table before I stop myself short. I squeeze my eyes shut as I force down the burst of anger. Too much fire mana. I clear it out and immediately calm down again. I convert the air and lightning while I'm at it. I make myself sit, shake my head clear, then open my eyes again. "Sorry, fire mana," I apologize, then take a deep breath. I answer evenly. "I'm not making any more manastones."

Eryk clears his throat a little before responding. "Alright." And he drops it. "Now, about yesterday, what Kathy said," he starts. "About Fredricson selling you to a noble... I didn't realize it at the time, but Fredricson probably thinks you're a foreigner," he points out. "That might be enough to get a noble interested in you."

"Hmm..." I mumble. That makes sense, everyone seems to think that before I tell them I'm not. "Really? Just being a foreigner would make a noble want to buy me?" I ask. It's still kind of unnerving talking about being bought and sold like an object, but I ignore it. "I don't really know anything about nobles, would that really make them interested in me?"

"Well..." He scratches his head. "I don't know either. I'd have a hard time believing it from just that, but the price he gave me makes me think that must be it."

"Umm?" I only sort of get his meaning, so he elaborates.

"I mean that he said three gold for you. From what I know about Fredricson, he's greedy. It seems a lot more likely that the price he gave me was a real price that would beat out what a noble offered for you, rather than an attempt to insult me. That just wouldn't fit his character as far as I can tell."

"Oh..." When he says it that way, it makes sense. All Mister Fredricson ever cared about was money, but... "Wait, are you saying that if you had actually pulled together enough money to pay, he really would have let you buy me instead of a noble? I thought we weren't supposed to mess with them. Wouldn't that make the noble like, really, really angry at him?"

"Yeah, he'd probably end up executed for a stunt like that, but I figure he felt safe offering since he knew I didn't have the money." Eryk shrugs a little.

"So... he intends to sell me to a noble at some point..." I mutter. I don't really know what to think about that. "Hmm, would that be better or worse than the orphanage?" I wonder aloud.

"Huh?" He blinks at me a few times. "What do you mean?"

"Well, nobles have a lot of money and stuff, right? What would the living conditions actually be like? I mean..." I try to put it another way. "You have servants at your house. Don't they make enough money working for you to live comfortable lives? Would it be something like that?"

He shakes his head. "I have no idea, a noble could want anything from you, there's no way to say. But no matter what they want you for, there's no way it can be good. You'd probably end up living like a slave." When I ask what a slave is, he clarifies, "slaves are people who have been bought as property. They are not given their basic human rights. It basically means they're treated like things instead of people."

"Huh?" That sounds way too familiar, just like rail units. I hesitate before asking because I don't even want to bring up the topic with Eryk, but it's really relevant here, so I push forward. "They're treated like things? Kind of like rail units or something?"

"No," he answers simply. "Slaves are people who are deprived of their human rights. Rail units were never human in the first place." He thinks for a moment before trying to make it a little more clear. "You can think of it this way. Slaves are treated like things. Rail units are things."

"Oh..." I respond slowly. So that's the difference. No matter how slaves are treated, no one would look at them and think they aren't actually human. But for rail units, it's opposite. Like Emily, how she treats me like a human even though she knows I'm not. "I think I get it. So I'd end up like a slave? Wouldn't that be bad?" I ask.

"Yes, very bad. I don't know if there's any way of getting out of it though. Nobles are really powerful, and we don't even know who it is that wants to buy you."

When he says that, I realize something that should have been really obvious. "Why hasn't he sold me already?"

"I... might have a guess," Eryk replies with a deep frown. "But I'm going to keep it to myself for now. It wouldn't be particularly... appropriate to talk about it at the moment." I don't really know how to take that. I wonder why he doesn't want to talk about it?

"In any case, from what I'm thinking, you probably have a few years at least, before he actually sells you. You should try to change your circumstances in that time. Working, making money, and getting an education will all help with that. I'll see if I can dig up any information on which noble Fredricson might be selling you to. Then I might be able to figure out how long you have."

"Ok, thanks." I nod slightly. Years? Isn't it far more likely that I'll be dead by then anyway? No, I should probably treat this like it's going to happen. If I die before then, I won't have to worry about it anyway. If I survive, then I have to be prepared. "I'll do what I can until then."

"Yeah, a lot can change in a few years." We hit a lull in the conversation while I consider things. Won't it be an issue if I end up as a slave to a noble? Would I still be able to go into battle? What if they didn't let me leave? If that happened, wouldn't the handlers in the rail unit program go after the noble or something? Keeping me captive like that would be like stealing me from the program. Or maybe they wouldn't care because I'm not actually that useful in battle? I have no idea, and I'd rather not find out...

----------------------------------------

Claire arrives shortly before the second bell. I'm eager to push these thoughts off for another time and focus on my lessons again. Once more, we spend the morning doing reading and writing practice. I guess she really is leaving all the other subjects until I'm able to at least read. Everything is going smoothly, except I'm still not happy with my writing. I've been practicing every night just like she told me, but it feels like I haven't gotten that much better yet. Is writing supposed to be this hard?

Even Claire seems to notice, because she starts giving me more instructions on the right way to hold my chalk and move my hand while writing. My letters are still coming out kind of awkward and sloppy though. I guess I really need a lot more practice before this comes naturally...

I do remember to ask about that word I wanted to know. After my general description, Claire tells me that what I'm talking about is generally called 'meditation.' So there is already a word for it... When I ask her a little more information, she explains further.

"Meditation is an old practice. People have been known to do it for all sorts of reasons, in all different countries and ages. The exact goals and effects, if any, are not very well known." Claire shrugs slightly. "It may very well differ from person to person. One thing it is known to do is help relieve stress."

She mentions that there is more to it than that, from old historical stories about it, to theories about spiritual enlightenment, but it's all pretty out there and isn't really relevant, so she doesn't get into any of that. I'm just glad I finally have something to call it. We finish up my morning lessons a little while later.

Once more, I can't eat a lot at lunch. With this pattern going for a few days in a row now, it really makes me wonder. Can I really not eat as much just because it hasn't been that long? Compared to how much I've had until now, something just seems off here, but I can't figure out what.

Once more, I finish up eating and go to sit in the back room. I have some time before my afternoon lessons, and I'm alone.

"Haa..." I breath out slowly. "Time to talk to Reena," I mutter. Time to find out what is going on and why I have to stay secret. No matter how I think about it, that's really weird. I can't believe that there would be a good reason for a god's angel to normally stay hidden from all the other gods, it's way to strange.

I kneel on the soft blankets. Meditation. I say the word to myself. It sounds kind of interesting. I wonder who came up with all of these different words... My wandering thoughts fall away as I focus. I spend some time breathing and letting my mind rest.

Claire was right, even ignoring the changes with focusing on my mana, just doing this has has really helped with my stress over the last few days. I'm glad Reena recommended... while not exactly meditation, focusing on my mana in a way that led directly to me figuring out meditation.

I actually feel at peace when I do this. Even after that last beating Reena helped me though, the last couple days, especially just playing with Thelia, have done so much for my peace of mind. While I may not be entirely stable yet, I feel... I don't know. In control of myself again, I guess? I don't feel like my emotions are going to break me now. Even just knowing that Reena will be there if things get too bad makes me feel safe. It's a really nice feeling.

I sit for a while, letting the good feelings wash away my bits of thought that pop up from time to time. When I feel like I've leveled out, I channel my mark. Reena comes forward. I don't even have to ask, she knows what she needs to tell me.

The explanation comes as a somewhat jumbled tumble of emotions, with embarrassment, guilt, numerous apologies, and a sense of pleading for me to understand. The way it comes across is, 'I have something to do that no one can know about.' I can feel her putting a lot of emphasis on how important this is to her. 'I marked you to help with my plan, but it has to remain a secret, so none of the other gods can know about you.'

She keeps going, the explanations coming bit by bit. This mysterious plan is why she tried to do things indirectly before. It's why she tried pushing me with the minimum of interaction she could. At least, until she couldn't get me to give up fighting in the war. So instead, she made her choice and decided to really support me. She quickly explains how interacting with me will leave a sort of trace on me that the other gods would pick up, which is why she stayed back for so long.

Then she hesitates for a while. She's so worried, her thoughts come across like a muddled wave of anxiety and fear. It actually takes some work to pick out what she's actually trying to express out from her overpowering... I think the word for it would be trepidation...

When I do figure out what she's saying, I understand completely. 'Your mark is not normal.' She expresses that other gods would clearly see her mark on me, visible or not, if I ever came in contact with them. But the mark she gave me is... different somehow. She doesn't explain exactly how, being evasive about the specifics. But she makes it clear, if the other gods see me with the mark she gave me, they will immediately know that she's up to something.

"But why? Why would you give me a mark like this if it's just going to make things harder for you?" I ask. It doesn't make any sense. Even if she gave me a normal mark instead, then at least it wouldn't put her in danger of the other gods finding out about her plan. Why would she go out of her way to do something that could just come back to hurt her later?

Her answer... 'I did it for you.' For me... how? Her explanation is simple. Marking me normally would have been... very bad. Unfortunately, her reasoning is totally unclear.

She still doesn't explain why, but she guarantees that it would have gone against everything she believes in. She starts to go on, her emotions rolling in strongly, expressing disgust and revulsion while saying that it would be a complete betrayal of the trust she hopes to build between us, and undermine not only me, but her own plans as well.

But then she cuts herself off, apologizing and saying that she shouldn't talk about it too much more. Instead, she just lets me know that she had to mark me the way she did in order to help me properly, in ways a normal mark wouldn't allow.

I'm kind of stunned briefly after the twists and turns of powerful emotions and difficult explanations, but after I manage to hone it down and get a somewhat better understanding, I ask a question that it all brings to mind, which I was already wondering about before.

"Do normal marks allow the god to talk their..." I hesitate for a moment, not wanting to call myself her servant. "...angel?" I can't say I'm fond of that term either, it also feels kind of off for some reason...

Even as she works up a response, I feel a few other bits and pieces of her emotions, apparently reacting to my hesitation. It's kind of vague, but she definitely doesn't like either of those terms as well, seemingly stronger than I do, which makes me wonder about her reasoning. I'll ask her about that later.

After her own long period of hesitation to consider things, Reena answers that normal marks... usually aren't... quite like mine when it comes to communicating...

So, that's a no, right? I figure if it was normal, she would just say so, being so evasive just means that my guess was right. A mark doesn't normally work for communication...

I consider that for a while. On that point alone, I can see why Reena did her mark differently. She said she would support me. We've been using it to talk, and she's explained things, and we've worked through a lot of problems from before. If she couldn't even talk to me, how could she ever have helped me back when I called for her at home?

I don't know what other differences there might be based on what little she's told me, but that one change alone makes a world of difference. I can't say anything about her beliefs or goals since I don't know her well enough, but marking me without the ability to talk to each other would have seriously undermined most of what I've used it for so far.

I don't know if that's all there is to it or if there's more, but I guess I can understand Reena not wanting to mark me normally just based on that. But... something about the way she did it would make it a problem if the other gods find out about me? Just what did she do differently exactly? I don't know if it's even that important for me to know the specifics of something like that. It's not like rail units need to know how the divine gear works, as long as it does. So maybe I can just let the mark do what it does?

I... don't like that idea. Even as I think about it, just ignoring how it works kind of bothers me. I never know where I might be able to draw inspiration from. I figured out how to speak with my mind by paying attention to how Reena did it. Who knows what I might learn if I just try looking at things...?

While I'm thinking things through, Reena waits. She can clearly hear all of the thoughts and considerations I ramble through, but she remains patiently quiet. Though I do still pick up a bit of happiness from her when I decide not to just ignore how things like my mark work. Should I take that as permission to examine it...?

She finally laughs a little as she gives permission, along with a warning that I should be careful not to change anything... unless I want to, she reluctantly adds.

I can feel how her desire for me not to do anything to it because it could cause serious problems, battles with her unwillingness to restrict me from my own experimentation and learning. Despite all the possible downsides, her desire not to restrict me clearly wins out. Even when it comes to the mark that allows us to communicate, apparently...

I smile a little and answer that I will be very careful, and may ask her about how some parts of it work, though it's pretty unclear whether she can give me straight answers to things like that or if it would fall under 'interfering.' She's immediately grateful and very, very relieved.

As always, I still have more to talk to her about, but I'm running out of time, so I decide to end things here for now, thanking her for going out of her way to mark me in a way that would help me, even if it could be a problem for her if the other gods find out.

Just before I'm about to let the mark fade, Reena suddenly speaks up again. She's incredibly embarrassed as she explains that she... sort of overreacted earlier. While the gods finding out about me is really dangerous, there are a few that should be safe. Or at the very least, not quite as dangerous as the others. Baro, Lila, and Shana should be alright, at least as long as they don't tell anyone else.

"I'll... keep that in mind," I answer slowly. Then I stop channeling and open my eyes. I sigh a little. What in the world is Reena up to? She's wrapped up in so many secrets it's a wonder she hasn't strangled herself yet. And why those three gods? If it was just Baro and Lila, I'd think that the lower gods that have more to do with people are the safe ones. But then there's Shana, how does she fit into all of this?

What's really going on?

I have nothing to go on here. I'll think about it more if it ever comes up, I guess. For now, I roll onto my side on the blankets. My legs fell asleep again from kneeling like that for so long.

I endure the badly named pins and needles sensation for a little while as I lie still. It isn't as unbearable as when John messed with me last time, but it does take a lot longer for the feeling to go away. Whatever the case, after it's gone, I drift into a light nap for the last bit of lunch, until Claire returns for my afternoon lessons.