It took another month before I got it. I had been focusing my efforts on the secrets of the Whisper—the DMs of telepathy. The methodology was simple, I would try to contact just one parent whenever I needed something. This was a relatively safe series of experiments. The only consequence if I failed was both parents would be alerted, which was the norm. For a while, this was a blind and fruitless endeavor, until one day, it suddenly clicked. It was like a sudden realization that once known, seemed only natural. And it didn't take long for my parents to realize I could do this. They seemed almost disappointed like some of my infant charm had come off.

"Wow Indigo," Mother praised, while lacking the usual more empathic joy that usually accompanied it. "You already learned how to do that?" I gave just a curt affirmation, as she appeared kind of sad. "Did you learn how to use telekinesis too?" This was an interesting question.

"No... I haven't been able to figure that out..."

"Ah... Well, I suppose it won't be long now..." She stroked my head gently, that same sense of sadness permeated this gesture as well, almost as if this was the last time she would see me before being sent off to war. Was I missing something? I hoped I wasn't missing something. The GM of the universe did like to pull fast ones after all.

Father also seemed a bit dejected, but much less so than mother. Plus he had genuine pride for his son as well. "I guess it's no surprise that you would be this far ahead. I'll have to get quality time with you, while I still can." Yep, something was definitely up.

Turns out she was right, it wasn't long after the Whisper, that I got my first taste of telekinesis. The principle of intention was crucial, but not primary. It was like the guidance system, while the payload had to come from elsewhere. But once I understood intention, it was only a matter of time before I got results, though a bit feeble. My first success was just being able to ruffle the bedding a little. A completely useless feat, for sure, but I couldn't help but squirm with delight as I balled up my infantile fists in triumph.

I was tempted to share the news with my parents, but seeing their reaction to my last breakthrough, I thought I should just keep it to myself for the time being. I did like sharing things with them, as they were the only people in my world. It occurred to me then that the world of an infant is rather small, even though my previous life had a much smaller cast of characters than was the norm, I was a total socialite compared to an infant.

At any rate, now that I had the principal down, I needed to figure it out, well pretty much everything else. At present, I could just cause random movement in loose tuffs of fabric. How to control the movement, how to narrow the focus, and how to create stronger effects, still needed much investigation. On that later item, I'm sure some kind of psychic conditioning would be needed; it was already taxing just creating the trivial fluttering that I was producing. I eagerly began my clandestine studies.

Or I tried to. Turns out, I was quickly busted. I guess I hadn't given Mother enough credit, she was sharp. She had caught on by day two. "How did you know?"

"You were a bit noisy, Indigo." A bit noisy?

"What do you mean, Mother?"

"Your telekinesis isn't focused." She had taken off her mask, something I found her and Father doing less often with me these days. She had a gentle smile on her face. "Enough of your intention leaked out for me to sense." So that was how it worked. Apparently, my focus needed work too. She picked me up, and I expected her to cradle me in her arms like she usually did, but she surprised me and carried me off to the lounging nook. She seated me on her lap as she took a seat on a floor cushion, with the morning sun shining through the window and bathing us in its radiance.

"Okay, Indigo. Let me show you." What followed was something I will cherish forever. Despite having reservations about me growing up too quickly, something I would only realize later, she began to show me how to control and understand our abilities. She had rebuffed me back then, I guess that was only several months ago... But that is still half a lifetime to an infant. But now she was aiding my understanding in all earnest. Well, it is true, that the instruction she was now giving me would have probably been mostly incomprehensible without the breakthrough. She still guided me, even though it meant I would be moving on with my life faster than she would have wanted. She would have loved for nothing more than to keep her young kite in the nest, to hold onto her dear Indigo just a bit longer. But she didn't let these desires cause her to stymie my growth, to the contrary, she actively facilitated it, though it meant I would be leaving the den sooner. She was willing to suffer for my well-being. Though I didn't consciously realize all this at that moment, it was on this day that I realized I truly did love my mother. A day that I will forever hold dear in my heart.

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With my mother's tutelage, I quickly got a hold of the fundamentals of psychokinesis. That's not to say that I was good at them, but I now understood them and what would be required to become more proficient. Generally speaking, you could divide the art into five primary aspects: force, endurance, control, focus, and proprioception. In many ways, it was the same as using your hands to manipulate your environment, except more versatile.

Force: This was equivalent to strength, and affected how much mass you could manipulate, as well as things like acceleration. This was also the measure of how much raw output you could generate, or how much energy you could expend at one time.

Endurance: Simply put, how big your gas tank is, or how much energy you could expend before you were depleted. In practice, I don’t think you ever actually “ran out,” you would pass out first. It seemed whatever energy we were using for telekinesis drew from the same source as our life force drew from.

Control: The measure of how precise you can manipulate matter. It would be equivalent to dexterity. Interestingly, using greater amounts of force could be used to achieve similar effects. By creating counterforces, you could use excessive energy to help stabilize various actions, far from ideal, but usually how one starts when learning something new, kind of like holding your pencil in a death grip when first learning to write, but having a loose grip once you are proficient.

Focus: The degree to which you could narrow your intentions on an item of interest. That's not to say you had to completely block out the outside world, but your intention for manipulation had to be cleanly on the object. This might have been the hardest aspect, as you really had to have a disciplined mind, a mind that as an American expat, I hadn't cultivated much. Interestingly, it became exponentially more difficult to focus with distance. This led to a pretty strong limitation on the effective range. This could be compensated for to some extent by expending more force.

Proprioception: Kind of related to Focus. This is sensing an object and you can draw a pretty strong analogue to physical touch. This is your ability to perceive an object with your psychic senses. When you reach out with your intentions, this is what you are reaching out with. In short, if you can't "feel" the object, you can't manipulate it... Well you can, but it would be equivalent to trying to manipulate something without any feeling in your arm whatsoever. This was basically what I was doing when I ruffled the bedding.

Mother spent about a week helping me get a feel for these basics, though she didn't place them into these categories, and I had acquired a base level in each area. If I were to give a metric to them, my stats would be:

Force: Feeble, able to lift objects of negligible weight.

Endurance: Winded after about a minute of telekinesis

Control: Could lift an object and hold it stable.

Focus: Power range: 6 inches, effective range: 1 foot.

Proprioception: I could tell you the general shape of an object with my eyes closed.

Though I didn't find these stats at all worthy of any kind of acknowledgment, Mother was quite impressed, but especially so with my proprioception. "With that level of sensitivity Indigo, I think you might be destined to be a great healer." She had a big toothy grin that brimmed with pride, the kind she always wore when she was particularly pleased. It would seem that being a healer was a role that demanded respect. I hadn't thought about it much, but I could now see that your particular affinities could have a strong determination on what role you would go on to play. It was worth considering, though I didn't know all the career paths available, or even if I would want to stay in this village. Staying seemed like the norm, but I was anything but normal.

I decided I should have a baseline for what I should consider standard levels of proficiency. This should be the initial goal, and I could decide how I wanted to develop this gift after that. There were still a lot of unknowns, so besides gaining proficiency, I would also learn generally how it worked and its limitations. So, for now, I needed a standard to use as the baseline. Seeing as my mother was the one teaching me, I decided to use her to establish a standard.

Mother's Stats:

Force: Able to lift large cauldron-like cooking pots filled with food.

Endurance: Guessing, but she could probably move the cauldron-like cooking pot several times before needing a break

Control: Can move multiple items in a precise and controlled pattern.

Focus: Power range: 5 feet, effective range 12 feet.

Proprioception: Could tell you the surface marking of an object.

Except for control, these seemed pretty reasonable. Her control was incredible, and perhaps why she made fine tools that were sure to require great control for working the finer details. So I would use mothers' stats as a baseline, except for control. I think that might be her primary stat and shouldn't be used as a guideline.

And so with Mother's help, I began my journey as a psychokinetisist.