I stared down at the diminutive figure, my gaze crossing her many wounds. Once-wounds, as many were completely healed and mere discolorations of the skin rather than injuries. I watched as she began to pale, blood fleeing from her face-

“None of that again, please.”

My comment seemed to startle her out of her growing paranoia spiral, her face locking onto my own again.

“How do you speak Jolari?” The question was barely a whisper, my ears only picking it up due to our relative proximity – plus my oddly enhanced senses.

“What’s Jolari?”

“But you’re…”

I shrugged. Whatever I was speaking was something I knew, not something I learned. I was using it to communicate and speak, sure, but I didn’t really get how I was accomplishing that.

“I’ve gained much strange knowledge in the time since my transformation, little one. This barely cracks the top half of that list.”

A red began to tint her cheeks. What was wrong? I barely caught another angry whisper as she plastered a smile onto her face, her eyes containing a film of annoyance and anger.

“…just because…taller than a house…not little!”

Ah, height sensitivity? After reconsideration, her height did seem unusual in comparison to my own. Were her people naturally shorter and sensitive about it? Best to leave that alone then.

“I apologize, but what are you called? I wish to avoid causing you discomfort again.”

Her head cocked to one side, gaze looking up into my eyes. What did she find so fascinating about my eyes?

“I am Amiri, Sir Touched,” she replied, her follow-up shutting my mouth. “Do not ask what a Touched is. You ARE one, that is all you need to know. For the Nine’s sake, even looking at your mana hurts my eyes!”

I instinctively drew my mana within me, slowing its eddies and swirls in an effort to not… wait, she said eyes? She can see mana?

“You can see it?” I dropped to her height, gazing into her faintly glowing amber eyes. Yes, I felt something from within them, some call and response between her mana and my own. “Fascinating. It is as if your eyes are lined with mana, serving as a net to catch it through your eyesight.”

Does eyesight interact with mana uniquely, or is just a quirk of chance? Could someone gain other mana senses – mana touch? Mana smell? Mana hearing?

I barely noticed as she flinched back at my motion, the corner of my mind idly noting it. I didn’t move particularly fast, so that seemed… odd to me. Maybe she was still afraid of me due to my nature as, what, a ‘Touched’? It was simple enough to figure out what a ‘Touched’ was – someone who can manipulate mana. But then was she not Touched, as well?

“Why am I a Touched and you aren’t?”

She seemed confused at my question, as if the very idea didn’t make sense. “The Touched are affected by the Dark Mana and changed by the experience – usually. You seem flush with the mana of life, but no simple Wielder could make this fortress.”

That didn’t really help, but alright. So apparently she – or people with mana in a more limited capacity – were Wielders, not Touched. What did I have that she didn’t? What made the distinction so important? I gazed hard at her, my stranger senses roaring to the forefront at my behest. I traced the routes of her body, the tiny droplets of mana that floated errantly throughout her form, lacking in focus and direction. The routes were there, the same ones I used faintly present in her flesh, yet nothing ran through them. I traced them all the way to what I knew as her Core, the crux of all mana and where my three spinning cores of mana sat.

What I found was a dying grassland of worldly power.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Thin roots crawled across the wrinkled surface of her Seed, the tiny flow of mana completely unable to combat the natural drain of the body. Where my Seeds had become glorious cores of self-sufficient power, hers lacked the spark of ignition, laying in disrepair due to a lack of fuel. What was left without that ignition was a slowly dying Seed, the slow death of dehydration shown in its cracked surface and desolate surroundings.

I pulled back, a righteous frown on my face. This felt wrong, like there was something being wasted instead of nurtured. The instincts, interestingly, did not come from my mana, the cores silent on the issue – except from the faint resonance emerging from my blood core. It came from something deeper, almost akin to the foreign knowledge I gained. I traced that sensation, seeking deep within myself even as the odd girl looked onward, her face a mix of apprehension and fear.

The route I followed was nothing more than an echo of a memory, the process of isolating it – let alone tracking it – took much of the focus I had trained. Tiny micro-traces of concepts fueled my search, each pulled from a thing I once knew nothing of. In the space that bore my knowledge of the stars and the sands, I pulled bare hints of the origins, each building a more complete picture of what I sought. I dug for years of relative time – a new concept I gained along the way somehow, the trace from that continuing my pursuit. I dug like a man dying of thirst, each step closer to the knowledge I sought a droplet against my ravenous mind. That analogy proved suspiciously apt when I found the source of my alien knowledge, the origin point of everything I knew about the magnificent world I was born into.

It was a river.

It contained nothing as base as water. What I found within – what little I understood – was akin to plumbing the depths of the minds of all humanity. Knowledge flowed past me in titanic constructs of data that would shatter me with the barest graze, concepts so weighty I could barely gaze upon them without my soul flickering like a desperate candle, the breeze invisible yet nonetheless lethal. Tiny deltas split from the stream, the flow in both directions simultaneously, each flow pulling knowledge to and from the minds it rubbed against. Deep in those hostile waters, those waters that carried monolithic minds capable of comprehending the universe in its entire infinitude, I found a name. Rivers were historically named, either by those who found them or by those who dwelled near them. This river was no different, possessing a name as simple as could be:

Akasha.

I swam back down my tether to the mystical river, returning to my body just in time to see the girl – woman? – making a break for it, her pace carrying her to the front door within moments. She blew through the door, the solid thump as she knocked my newest ‘door’ off the hinges. Sure, it was little more than two waist-height pieces of glass that could sort of pivot, but I suppose they were doors to those of her stature.

I watched as she confusedly sprinted across the rainbow bridge, eyes all over the place as she made for the wastes beyond the valley. Where was she going? The glass spread nearly to the horizon, my senses unable to note where it ended and normal desert began again. Yet she ran on, jacket bouncing with the considerable weight of whatever those strange pockets bore. I had seen the strange metal ball she held, its size nearly that of my fist. Where was she hiding those in that jacket? It was bulky sure, but that bulky?

I sighed, shrugging my shoulders as I loosened up. I guess it didn’t really matter what she was doing. She didn’t enjoy my company – for whatever reason – and so fled rather hastily. Likely it was due to my alleged ‘Touched’ nature. It seemed those with active mana powers tended to be… less than pleasant, in her experience. I thought of the night mana from far distant places, equal parts strange futures and impossible truths.

I suppose that would turn almost anyone mad.

I turned back to my work room, my gaze following the strings of glass I was working with. It was a fickle material, hard to shape and harder to weave, but I saw great applications for it, least of all some new clothes.

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

She ran until she could barely stand, deep breaths becoming desperate gasps as she tore up ground in her escape from the Touched. Sure, he had seemed nice enough, but she wasn’t about to take her chances with the one in a million chance that he wasn’t madder than the night winds.

She groaned, remembering her next task. As was the duty of all Wielders – even the exiled ones – she needed to report the Touched to the Council. Whether he was directly a risk or not really didn’t matter, sadly for him. The Touched cannot be abided no matter what. The Council would, hopefully, send a collection team to peacefully bring him in for binding. Once bound, he would be free to live as he pleased – just without the influence of the energies within him.

A poor solution, but one better than outright death.

Truthfully, Amiri was worried. He was by far the most powerful and level-headed Touched she had ever seen. His very being vibrated with the energies of the world at large, the streams even something he could slow down or shift, as she saw firsthand. Her senses also told her of the strength of that domain he lived within. The valley was already defensible, yet his bond to the very surroundings would make conflict problematic.

She bit her lip. It wasn’t her place to worry about it. She would report it, get a stiff drink from Dender’s, then forget about the whole incident. She couldn’t help the pang of guilt she felt – he had saved her, if she remembered correctly – but she knew better than to hide this. Touched were unpredictable, their motivations shifting on the drop of a coin.

Yeah, she needed that drink.