"So that's what mana feels like," Emily eventually sighs.

I sit up a bit, leaning on my elbows. It takes a moment to push my work getting Riko's well refilled to the back of my mind, letting the process become automatic so I can focus on the conversation. "You want me to try teaching you?" I offer. "I'm... not really sure if it'll work though."

"Why not?" she asks, her head lifting up a little to look at me.

"That's... a bit hard to explain. It has to do with your outer barrier. It didn't feel, like, soft and flexible..."

"Uhh?" She clearly has no idea what I'm talking about. Of course that wouldn't make sense to anyone but me.

"Ok, sorry, let me explain a little better..." I take some time covering what I figured out, the way the inner barrier around the mana well and outer barrier around... whatever's outside that. The whole person, I guess. How they sort of move in order to control mana and how it feels like different people have different barriers.

"Huh... and mine doesn't feel right? Like, for controlling mana?"

"Kind of, yeah..." I feel a bit guilty now. It feels like I stuck the possibility right in front of her, then snatched it away... "Want to try anyway?" I ask, a little too enthusiastically.

Emily smirks, I think she can see right through me... "Sure, no reason not to give it a try."

"Alright." We sit up fully again, and I nod, somewhat nervous. At least I don't need to worry anywhere near as much as I thought about doing things with souls. Whatever vague ideas I had about... I don't know, messing with what made people themselves, I have no idea how to do that, and it doesn't feel like I'm going to stumble into it accidentally after the way things went earlier. The whole thing is surprisingly intuitive.

I take a breath, then touch Emily's hand. It takes a few moments to set up the connection, my mana well to hers. "Alright, follow along with me," I instruct aloud. Then I begin to push the feelings, the methods across to her. But her barrier is completely different from mine. Riko's was a little closer, modified by Emily's soul maybe. I didn't take the time to check earlier, but I guess it takes the outer barrier longer to change, and that's why it was somewhere in between?

I don't know, but for now, I start from where Riko was, the way it worked for her. It doesn't do anything for Emily, so I start to tweak things. It's... difficult. It doesn't help that my mind is kind of tired from doing this so long earlier, but I push forward anyway.

But even without that, the process is much harder than last time. I can't even fully grasp what it is I'm changing.

It's like... like trying to wrap my head around moving my arms. The physical sensations of moving yourself with all of the motions of the muscles and joints, and the innate knowledge of where those limbs are all the time. How they bend and flex and the strain on any given muscle or bone. All of that information, all packed into such a natural feeling that it's hard to even pull the details out. To even think of which details there are to pull out.

But now, it's like trying to take my own knowledge of how to move my own arms, with skin and bones and multiple joints with hands and fingers, and modify that into a form and direction to get a giant slab of flesh to do the same with no joints and muscle made of stone.

I do my best to let my instincts guide me, continuously working over the sensation to change it over and over, trying to get something to work. Change and test, change and test. Keep feeling the effects after each, letting my innate knowledge guide me through further tweaks, as I try to get closer to a working method.

I think I end up stripping away most of the control, most of the minor adjustment, the feedback, and anything delicate. It reminds me of cutting down the vast knowledge I can't understand, entire sections falling away and out of mind. Maybe Emily's soul is the same in a way, unable to work with all of this information that goes into controlling mana, like I'm unable to work with all of... whatever that alien information contains.

So I reduce it all, cut back and press it down into a crude approximation that I think might work for her. The whole method slanted toward brute force, no finesse.

"Alright, how about now?" I ask yet again. I continue directing Emily through big, exaggerated swings with her mana in an attempt to get some control.

This time, it works. She swings one way, then the other, and some of her mana moves with it. The movements are simple and slow, but it works. There isn't really much more adjustment I can do to hone the method further, it's practically all brute force and willpower already.

"Yes, it's working," I smile at her.

"Really? I don't know, I still can't feel it," Emily says with a hint of a frown.

"Uhh, sorry, I don't think I can help you with that," I apologize, then admit, "I'm not totally sure how I feel mana and how that's different from controlling it. I mean, uhh, I sort of know, but I can't explain it..." I end up scratching my head, somewhat frustrated that I don't have a better way of explaining. "It's basically part of everything that goes into controlling mana, but I can't actually put it into words-"

"Aria," Emily stops me with a hand and an amused laugh. "I get it. I felt how I did it with Riko, and how I'm doing it myself. I know what you mean that it's not anything that can be explained in words."

"I just wish I could help more."

She waves it off. "Don't worry, it's fine. I can tell how..." she searches momentarily for a word before going on, "how reduced the feelings are, doing it myself. I get it, I'm not supposed to be able to do this." She pats my head, ruffling my hair a little. "You helped me do it anyway. Of course it's not going to be perfect. Like..." She holds her right arm out in front of her and awkwardly flails some mana into it. "I can't feel it myself, but that worked, right?" she asks.

I grin. "Yeah."

"See? No problem." We both just sit and enjoy the success for a bit, before I think of an issue.

"Oh, Emily. Just be careful, don't try to push mana into things, like metal or other people or anything. You don't have that much, and... I'm not actually sure how you would pull more from your well. It's a pretty delicate thing when I do it, I don't know if it would work for you. And doing it wrong is bad. Like, the last three weeks bad."

Emily grimaces at the last bit, before saying, "Yeah, I'll keep my mana to myself," with a stiff nod.

I sigh loudly and lie back once more. That was really hard and I feel tired now, so I just let my head rest and pet Riko for a while.

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

Eventually, the bells ring. That would be the eleventh, we've been at this for a while, mostly because teaching mana control took so long. I keep lying back for just a bit longer, before sitting up again. Even with the rest, my brain still feels pretty tired. Good tired, like I actually got a lot done for once.

I take a few deep breaths and shake myself a little to drive away the tired feeling somewhat. "Just one more thing to do," I say, starting to get sort of nervous.

"You're talking to Reena now?"

"Yeah." Emily nods and I close my eyes, taking just a moment to check with Chisa that no one around the gate or traveling along the wall, returning from the forest, is anywhere near us. Once that worry is out of the way, I take another breath to steady myself, before channeling mana to my mark.

Reena comes, or rather, it's her colorless mana that comes from the mark. It wavers, hesitating uncertainly before moving to connect to my barrier.

That's not good enough, I realize. I need to show her that I figured it out, that I know about manipulating souls. That I understand what she was doing and I'm sorry that I yelled at her and threatened her.

So I move. I'm not completely sure what I'm doing, but I have an idea. I draw some of the surrounding mana together and go to Reena's mark. That strange mix of shapes despite mana not having any real shape. Sitting attached by my outer barrier, despite mana not having any true location either. And that portion of my barrier aligning with a spot on my forehead, not far from my broken manastone. The spot Reena kissed my head in that dream, I realize.

Despite my barrier not actually aligning with places in my body.

It's all contradictory, but that's how it is.

I touch it, the outer surface of the non-shapes. Hard, the same feel as a mana structure, I think. Partway through the process of connecting to my barrier, Reena stops, her attention clearly moving to what I'm doing now.

The feel of the mark tells me I can push through it, so I do, into a new space. A space that is... strange.

Taking up a huge portion, almost the entire little bubble of space inside the mark, I find... the same shape that it had outside. The shape of Reena's mark. But as I stretch my mana across it, it's... like a giant thing of a billion little dots of mana. Like one of those solid mana structures, but instead of single connections from one point to the next, they all connect to their neighbors to form into a surface made of tiny dots of... light?

No, not quite light. I think it's something like light, embedded inside of each of the connected points of the structure. With all of those tiny points coming together to form Reena's mark. How does that even...

Wait, no, I'm getting distracted.

I shake my thoughts away from that incredibly strange thing I just found. Separate from the mark-thing, I continue to follow Reena's colorless mana to a point all the way inside. Here, I find something a little different. Familiar, but...

Huh? There's a solid structure here, just a tiny one. It's only made of two connected points. The first core piece, embedded in the outer wall of this space is my own colorless mana. How does that work?! Shouldn't that make it a mana well?

But it doesn't. I have no idea how, but having my colorless mana as the core of this space doesn't make it feel like my mana well. The only other piece connected to that is Reena's. Or... not quite. It actually feels like another, separate space, embedded inside of this one. I push through the structure, push through Reena's barrier inside the structure, and reach a mana well, where her colorless mana comes from.

That makes this... Reena's mana well, inside her space, inside the mark's space, inside of my body's space.

How many of these things can be tucked inside of each other? Is there a limit?

I mean, I know that they don't really occupy any physical space, but it still feels weird how they can all be nested one inside another, with no care for the sizes of each. It just... defies everything about how the physical world I'm used to works, so it's kind of hard to wrap my head around it.

But it's not the physical world, it's different. It has its own rules. I just have to accept that and go from there.

Pushing past my confusion over the mechanics of how all of this works, I've successfully reached Reena's mana well. It's... not actually that large. Well, I guess it's just what she put here inside me. It wouldn't be the whole thing that she has inside her own... body. Right, because the gods should have real bodies, somewhere.

I touch the barrier of her mana well. It's soft, energetic. That doesn't say all that much, the barrier of everyone's well is like that, even Emily's. It's the outer barrier where the big differences show up, even though this isn't her real body, does the outer wall of the space holding her mana well count? Since it only takes a moment, I take a quick look and... yeah, the outer wall of the space around her well is incredibly soft and energetic. Almost as much as the barrier in her well itself.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Then I get on track again.

Connecting to her soul, I run the other end of my connection to my own.

The movements of her soul are incredibly complex. It's difficult and takes me some time to actually figure them out enough to understand, but as soon as I get a handle on it, it's fine.

She's... smiling at me. That just makes me feel worse.

"I'm sorry," I start before anything else.

"No, I hurt you. It wasn't my intention and I was trying to help, but I still hurt you. I'm sorry too."

"W-well," I stutter, then grumble, "that's true." It actually is, I'd forgotten that. Yes, she was helping me, and yes, she was seriously bending the rules and scheming to introduce me to ideas she wasn't allowed to tell me about directly.

But she still tricked me. And it still hurt, a lot.

"Aria, I'm really sorry for hurting you," she says it again. "I know I said I wasn't doing anything wrong, but that's not true. Even if it was just a misunderstanding, tricking you and hurting you was wrong, and I sincerely apologize for that."

I smile a little and let out a breath. "I forgive you. And I'm sorry too. Even if I was angry and hurt, I shouldn't have threatened you like that. I'm sorry."

"I forgive you too, Aria," she responds softly. "Let's move past it, alright?"

"Sure."

"Oh, but," she suddenly adds, "I'll apologize in advance for the next time you... find out I'm tricking you about something."

"Because you already intend to trick me again?" I scoff a little. Ok sure, it was to help me, but she isn't already planning to do it again, is she? But from the feeling of her thoughts... Oh. "You're... already tricking me..." I grumble. About what? Of course she can't tell me. Even with a hand on her soul, she isn't thinking directly about whatever it is. "But... didn't you just say tricking me is wrong?"

She sighs, a soul deep sigh that's so strong it's surprising. "Yes, I did. Unfortunately, I don't have a choice. Even if it's wrong and I know it might hurt your feelings, I don't have any other option to help you..."

"Oh." I get it, I think. She's willing to do something wrong, something that will hurt me, because it'll also help. I don't know what to think about that...

I shake my head a little. "Ok, fine. I'll just believe that whatever it is, it's to help me. I'll try to remember that whenever I find out about... whatever it is."

Reena offers an awkward smile. "Thank you, Aria. Really. Now," I can feel her switching topics, "could you tell me about what you've learned? I am not disallowed from discussing many things with mortals that they already know about."

The way she says that makes me cringe a little. It reminds of what Claire talked about a while ago, how people have more rules, responsibilities, and restrictions to deal with as they get older. Does the same thing apply to the gods?

"Just... how old are you?" I find myself asking before I think better of it.

Her smile turns pained. She definitely felt the second question underneath. "Four thousand six hundred years old... give or take a few decades."

"That's..." I don't know. It seems like a long time, but... I had this weird impression that the gods were some unimaginably old beings.

"I'm also the youngest god," she reminds me. "The last four of us were created at pretty much the same time... by god's standards at least."

"Ok." I have absolutely no idea what to make of that... "Wait, did you say the last four? So not just you, Lila, and Baro? Rostor too?"

"Yes?" she clearly doesn't understand the question.

"Didn't Rostor introduce war to humanity? They've only been fighting for about four thousand six hundred years?"

"Ah, not quite. I said we were created close together by god's standards," she puts extra emphasis on it this time to make a point that I'm thinking on the wrong scale. From the bits of thought that come with it, I should be thinking in thousands or tens of thousands of years, just to start. Probably more.

"Alright..." I'll have to think about that more later. For now, it feels like the answer to 'how many restrictions does Reena have?' is 'a lot.' "You asked about what I learned. So let's see... to start, I learned about this, manipulating a soul to basically mind-speak."

"Mind-speak?" Reena thinks. I stop so she can go on. "I suppose you wouldn't know, but the term for that is 'telepathy.' It's a well known ability that a fair number of magical creatures have. Generally the... lesser form you already know about." So there is a term for it? And other creatures that can do it? I file the information away for now.

"Alright. So I learned that I can use it for better telepathy. I... haven't figured out exactly what you were doing the other time, how I might look at any of the other stuff that I'm kind of guessing are part of the soul. Like, personality and things, if that's part of it," I clarify. "But I did figure out that a person's ability to control mana is based on their soul, and I was able to teach Emily how to do it!" I claim. I'm actually... surprisingly proud of that. I didn't quite realize it until right now.

"You..." Reena fumbles for a moment. "You taught another mortal how to control mana? Haven't you been working on this for one day?"

"Yes? It was pretty hard, but not impossible or anything." She feels way more surprised than I think she should be...

"I'm afraid you may have a bit of an... affinity for this particular type of- of ability." I narrow my focus slightly after she stumbles a little, intentionally not thinking something that I assume she isn't allowed to say. A specific word I'm not allowed to know about?

"Is it a bad thing? You said that last time, that it's dangerous. Even if you can't tell me anything about it, can you explain what's dangerous about using it?" I ask.

"That is a bit difficult. Pretty much all related topics are off-limits..." she sighs. "Let's see, I think the best I can do is..." Her thoughts roll around for a bit, everything moving under the surface so I can't draw out any particular details. It's kind of dizzying actually, the amount of information contained in her soul compared to Emily's. I try to focus on it a little more and get that same stab of too-much-information that I've unfortunately become sort of accustomed to... I don't get much out of it either, just a mix of vague considerations she's making, all layered on top of one another.

Then she explains, "There are certain things that you can do with those abilities that will harm yourself. You already said you changed a number of animals. I can't tell you exactly what harm you can do to yourself, but I can say that it is very bad, especially for you. It would probably destroy you. And..." she hesitates, before saying, "it may be easier for you to... fall into doing it in a way that will cause that to happen."

"Oh." That is... terrifying. I've been converting animals for this long and if I 'do it wrong' it will destroy me? "What do you mean 'do it wrong?'"

"I can't say exactly," she thinks apologetically. "Just make sure that you don't do it for... the wrong reasons."

"Wrong reasons? What does that mean? Like for instance... Maven was an accident, Soma, Baan, and Kiara were to make them smarter so they could help better. Brom was to get more help, Chisa was to save Soma, Myra was to save everyone. Riko was for another set of eyes and ears. And Hilde, Gram, and Avara were to help Myra." I list them all off quickly. "None of those are the 'wrong' reasons, right?" I mean, they shouldn't be if doing wrong is supposed to kill me...

Reena pauses a moment, then asks, "Didn't you say you did it eight times?" That's her first question? But underneath it, I feel her wondering, 'she named them?'

Ignoring the bit about names, I answer her actual question. "Yeah, Hilde, Gram, and Avara are new since we last spoke," I explain.

"Oh... Well, none of those particular reasons were bad, I suppose... Just, please be careful?" She actually feels a bit weary and exasperated.

"Yeah, I am going to be careful," I agree immediately. "I'm still not sure what the right or wrong reasons are, but it should be fine as long as I only convert them willingly, right?"

"Willingly?" she asks.

"I mean, giving them a choice. If it's their decision, it should be fine, right?"

"I... well... Yes, I don't see why not," Reena answers slowly, obviously flustered by the idea. I sigh a little, glad to know I can avoid whatever horrible unknown dangers there are by just doing what I was already doing.

"What about the other part?" I ask. If anything, this is the one I'm more interested in. "You said that watching what happened when I changed hobins into other things was bad somehow. What did you mean by that?"

"That... is a little more difficult." She wavers a little, unsure how to go on. "There are things you shouldn't know, the knowledge from that could make you lose your mind if you think about it."

"Huh?" Now it's my turn to be confused. "Sure, it's alien and doesn't make any sense, but it's still been helpful. I can at least use pieces of it to help me understand other things. It helped me understand what a soul is, at least the basics."

Reena goes quiet for a long time, her thoughts shifting through everything from shock, to terror, joy, worry, and everything else in between. There are some mixed in there with so much complexity, I can't even figure out what they are. Eventually, she settles somewhere between terror and hope, I think. She says, "I don't know." She doesn't know what exactly? "I'll have to think about it more. Just, please be careful thinking about those things. They're supposed to be extremely harmful to mortal minds."

"Ok, I'll be careful," I assure her again. Then I try to get back on topic again. "So like I said, I learned to use... Is there a name for it? Messing with souls?" I ask because I still have no idea what to call it.

"There is, but..."

"It's secret?" I guess immediately when she trails off like that.

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine," I wave it off. "I guess I'll just come up with something myself for now. Anyway, I learned how to use it for telepathy and teaching mana control. Is there anything you can tell me about now that I already know those?"

Another pause, before Reena apologizes again. "I'm really sorry, there isn't actually much I can explain about that. Like you said, you already learned about those applications on your own."

"Yeah," I grumble. Of course there isn't anything else she can tell me...

"Well..." I can practically hear her grinning. "If I'm speaking about learning things in general, then I can of course tell you that gaining more understanding of what you are working with opens new opportunities, and that further experiments can create new options."

I grin right back. "Ok, thanks. I'll make sure to apply that to learning in general." So, try to learn and better understand the soul if I want to go any further. Not that I know if I want to. I don't really have any desire to mess with... I don't know, personalities or anything.

No, maybe I'm still looking at it wrong. Whatever more there is to souls, it might be something useful I've never even thought of, the same way I never thought of telepathy. I'll try to keep that in mind for later, when I have more time. But right now, I need to stop putting off thinking about my real problem. Surviving.

"Alright, one other thing. Is there anything you can think of to help me survive the next battle? Anything at all?"

Her response is immediate. "I'm sorry, but no. I've been thinking about it, but rail units are just too powerful. You haven't grown nearly enough to match them."

"Wait, what? Match them? Does that mean it's actually possible for me to- to beat them some day?" How could that be possible?

"Well, sort of," she reels back a little. "You have incredible potential, I believe you can do anything you put your mind to. That... could include growing stronger than a rail unit, but as I said, you need time. You are still so young."

"More time?" I ask. "Can't I practice more? Learn faster?"

"Well yes, but there's more to it than that. I..." Another thing she isn't allowed to talk about.

But wait, the way she said that. I need more time, in a way that working faster or harder won't get me around. So I just need to be older? And it finally clicks.

"I need more time for my mana to develop." I noticed it already, adults have more mana than children.

Reena smiles, both happy and sad. "I'm so glad I found you, that's exactly right." So, I need to get older to get more mana, because my current amount just isn't enough. I mean, I can't even hold enough to summon a divine armament, even if my gear wasn't useless.

"So I need to get older. But that's the whole problem. I'm not going to get older because I'm going to die in battle."

"Yes..." Reena agrees darkly. "That is why I tried to persuade you, but..." she gives a big mental shrug. "You are so set on this, there isn't much I can say, is there?" I try not to give a knee-jerk reaction to her bringing that up and just let the comment and the anger pass.

We remain quiet for a bit, I can't think of anything else to say. There's always more, an endless list of questions for her, but right now, none of them will come to mind. So finally, I thank her once more and draw away. I pull all the way back out. Out of her mana well, and the space containing it, the mark containing that, and finally let the mark fade.

"Haaa!" I exhale loudly and flop down on my back, which draws a small annoyed sound from Riko as she shifts in my lap.

"How'd it go?" Emily asks nervously. Which isn't that surprising, it feels like every time I turn around, I'm getting in a fight with Reena. I...

I actually hope we're past that. Even just hoping for something makes me cringe a little. It's a bad idea. I know it's a bad idea and it's just going to make it hurt worse when we fight again, but... I hope that I understand her enough, that I finally trust her enough, that I'll be able to understand the next time she pulls back the curtain on whatever she's tricking me about.

I'll just hold onto that tiny, dangerous hope until then.