The fact that Kaedin was able to sneak a Rune into Keoni’s satchel without her noticing in all that chaos still surprised her. The Rune now sat in her palms, glittering in the blue sun. Ryley was with Qaye, busy learning a few words in the Miraen Language. He’d asked, and Qaye was happy to help him.

Though he definitely was struggling, as Qaye kept correcting even the tiniest of mispronunciations. It was a good time to notice the accents Mir-Cognates had: The way they rolled their r’s, their annunciations on their vowels, so far and so forth. It was kind of funny to watch Ryley try to roll the R on his own name.

She glanced back at the shining Rune. Now would be a perfect time, Keoni told herself. She turned it around, trying not to hesitate as she pressed the Miraen letter to her head.

Samara, but Kaedin, phased into her view. They tilted their head and gave a smile. “Hello, Tejh Sister.” The title still felt weird for Keoni. “Back for more?”

Keoni nodded, ready to learn how not to die while using her powers.

Kaedin was in their Mir-Cognate form, almost an exact twin of Keoni, just shorter. They walked over next to Keoni, lining up next to her.

“One of the first things you need to learn if you want to not explode yourself while using your magic is how to practically split your mind into two separate identities.”

Keoni just stared at them.

Kaedin stared back.

Keoni blinked, “You want me,” she pointed at herself. “To split my mind.”

Kaedin stared at her for a moment longer.

“Yeah, that was not the right place to start for a mortal.” They said, turning away and thinking.

While they thought, Keoni decided to try and do what they had said. She sat on the ground against the hill, closed her eyes, and tried to enter into her conscience. It seemed impossible to her, until she opened her eyes, and was surrounded by a white nothingness.

There was nothing there, except for what looked like her living room setup as it usually was, which confused her. Where am I? She thought.

She cautiously approached the coffee table next to the couch, and she could see something on it, but couldn’t tell what.

As she got closer, she could see that it was a book, though it looked strange. It was large, and very thin.

She sat down on the couch in front of the book. The cover was blank, so she opened it up to read it.

Immediately, images sprang out from the book, like the “screens” that people had in more advanced cities. As she looked, they began moving, and she realized that these were her memories. The current one that she could see was when she, her father, and Samara were playing in the field behind their house.

She saw her father chasing her sister around with his arms straight up, laughing and smiling widely while occasionally play-growling, spurring Samara to squeal and giggle as she ran.

Keoni smiled, realizing that she had forgotten this moment. She scolded herself for it.

She swiped her hand across the memory like she was turning a page, and a new memory came up.

This one was right after the play session, and now her family was seated at the dining table. Little Samara was strapped into a tall chair in-between her father and mother.

Her parents focused on feeding her sister, making playful noises and faces while getting small spoonfuls of food into her mouth.

Keoni could hear her smaller self giggle at her parents’ expressions.

She took the time to study their features as well. Her father didn’t look much like how male wolves are typically portrayed, as he was more lithe than average, wore glasses, and looked very well-groomed.

Her mother, on the other hand, was the opposite of how society typically forced women to be. She was beautiful, for sure, but she looked very, very strong, confident, and more of a man than anybody else Keoni had ever seen in Everton.

She scolded herself again for forgetting things like this.

After finishing that memory, she decided to try another gesture: swiping down.

This stopped the current memory, and showed a collection of all of her memories. She was able to find them much easier now, as they appeared in a grid formation.

She scrolled through multiple years, eventually getting to a point where the time when her family got taken away was on the display. She went to tap it to see what she remembered, but hesitated. Did she really want to remember something she had forgotten for good reason? She lowered her hand back down to her lap, deciding to not recall what happened.

“I felt the same way,” Kaedin’s voice suddenly shattered the tight silence, startling Keoni. “I never want to experience something like that ever again. I still can’t get over it.” They kept talking as they walked over to sit down next to Keoni.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“H-how did you get in my mind?” She asked, trying to not let her voice break.

“You know how I can appear to you through the Rune I gave you, right?” Keoni nodded in confirmation. “That was an image projected onto your mind, but I was able to use a bit of extra energy from the Mirae to get in.” The two sat there for a moment. “If that makes any sense.”

“Most of what you say doesn’t.” The two shared a giggle.

Kaedin got more serious all of a sudden.

“You were able to enter your consciousness much quicker than any normal person. Well, I guess that’s what our lineage is known for. Since you were able to do it, I can teach you how to split yourself in two.”

Keoni gave Kaedin the disturbed look she had become accustomed to when she was around them. “You could have worded that better.”

Kaedin was unfazed. “It’s basically the same thing. I mean, it mostly feels the same at first.”

Keoni became concerned for her life from then on.

Kaedin shifted Keoni’s mindscape to be completely blank with only a mat for the two of them to sit on. Kaedin was about to begin the lessons on how to split one’s mind into two.

“One of the fundamentals of using both light and dark magic at the same time is to split yourself into two beings-”

Keoni interrupted them. “You said earlier that I needed to split my mind, not my entire being. How is that even possible?”

“If you would have let me continue, I would have gotten to that.”

Keoni shut her mouth, deciding to let her crazy sibling teach her something.

“Yes, you do need to split your mind in two, but it’s more complicated than that. Not only do you have to do that, but you have to make sure that the two parts of your mind are separate, you have to maintain control of the two, make sure they are in perfect synchrony, and they cannot, cannot let your Mir-Link be interrupted by the presence of three separate beings within one body.”

They continued their lecture. “Anyways. Once you are able to do all of these things quickly and securely, you need to basically give the control of your body to the two beings you created from your mind. They are you, but they still need to be controlled. It’s strange how it works, and I can’t exactly put it into words. There are cities in the Physical World that have machines that are a good example of how this works, so you’ll have to visit one.”

Keoni could feel her brain practically having a sumo fight with itself inside of her head. Nothing that Kaedin had just said had made any sense to her at all. Though she should probably get used to these kinds of things pretty soon, or else she might turn out like Kaedin.

“Maybe not. Maybe I’m overcomplicating this.” Kaedin closed out of Keoni’s mind, setting them back to the pink field in the Mirae. “I’ll figure it out… maybe.”

“Kaedin…” Keoni started, but they had already vanished. Her confusion was replaced with sadness. She wanted to reassure them, even if it wasn’t the real them.

“Sorry, I got carried away in my mind,” Kaedin giggled, reappearing. Keoni had gathered how strange they were quite a while ago. “I’m okay. Let’s just start with light and see what happens. You’re strong enough for that, and the Rune Quujhok Qaye gave you should just give the perfect boost. Yeah. That’ll work… maybe. You remember his lesson on it, right?”

“Yes,” Keoni said. She sat down on the ground and closed her eyes, immediately feeling the magic around her. That was something she found herself comfortable doing.

The air moved around her as she calmed down, ignoring all the thoughts that tried penetrating her field of calm. Keoni took a deep breath and tried penetrating into Limbo, into the Physical World.

Something pushed her gently out of it. Keoni was amazed to find herself not mad that she lost, but humbled. The feeling was strange.

“Good job, Keoni.” She heard Qaye say. She opened her eyes, seeing him too. “Sorry I had to stop you from opening one.”

“I understand,” Keoni said quietly. She still felt calm, but slowly it was wearing off.

“How did you do that?” Kaedin asked, mesmerized. “It takes weeks for someone to…”

“She’s born of the best, Kaedin,” Qaye looked right at them. Keoni had forgotten Mir-Cognates could see Runes.

Kaedin sighed once he rejoined Ryley. “You won’t be able to do that in the Physical World. It’s a whole different process. Sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Keoni looked up at Kaedin.

“Give me time.” Kaedin paced back and forth. “I’ll think of something.”

“No pressure.” Keoni pressed the Rune to her head, letting Kaedin fade away. She hoped Kaedin wasn’t too hurt. She tuned into Qaye and Ryley’s conversation, hoping to distract herself.

Ryley sounded like he was struggling to say something in Miraen, which was what Qaye was helping him with. “Breathe out loosely, hold your lips together,” Qaye was saying. “Use that harsh air to roll an ‘r.’” He was showing Ryley as the red deer tried it.

“Now touch your tongue ever so slightly to your side teeth and say a normal ‘r.’”

Keoni wasn’t surprised Qaye was able to teach Ryley so fast. Instantly, Ryley got the roll right.

“Try rolling in any normal sentence you’d say. It’s good practice.” Keoni noticed that Qaye had that thick accent, and he too rolled his r’s, but naturally. He didn’t speak much different from a Physical World accent, which was odd.

“Hey Keoni,” Ryley started. “How’s yourrr trrrrraining going?”

Qaye laughed. “Close enough.”

Keoni shrugged. “I think Rune Kaedin was struggling.”

“They wanted to design it specifically to adapt to your learning, which might have backfired.” Qaye said. “If best, it’ll reset when it gets close to the real Kaedin, which can fix it.”

“Qaye, I want to hear you say ‘roarer.’ Or something with a ridiculous amount of r’s.”

“Rightfully, reaching for right there roarer receives wrong results. Shall I continue?”

Ryley stared at him.

“Please don’t stare at me unless you have something to say.” Qaye mentioned after just a moment, dead serious.

Keoni giggled. “I think he’s bested you, Rrrryley.”

“How…” Ryley shook his head. “I’ve got a lot of practicing to do.” He said with a smile.

“I bought a linguistics book for you to use. You’re welcome to borrow it.” Qaye mentioned. He reached into his bag, which Keoni realized with a jolt of glee that it was just big enough to hold books. She found herself hoping Qaye was a reader, too. He pulled out a barkback book and handed it to Ryley.

“I could’ve found something in the library, but this is way better,” Ryley immediately said, flipping through the pages. “Thank you.”

“In the library… Ryley, did you tell your mom you’d be gone..?”

Ryley gasped. “She doesn’t know… no!” He facepalmed. “I totally forgot.”

“Do you want me to send you both back?” Qaye asked.

“Yes!” They both exclaimed. “Please,” Keoni added.

“Just ask when you’re ready to come back.”

In an instant, he dropped them into the Physical World.