image [https://i.imgur.com/jpOYNWV.png]

Colson and I went into our separate rooms, since he suggested a shower. I wasn’t going to gainsay him, I felt funky with sweat and dust everywhere. Still reeling from the day’s events, I put the gun and my spear holster on the bed, took off my clothes, and stood under the hot water until my fingers looked like prunes.

I may have punched the tiles a few times. Not hard, mind you, just hard enough that I registered the pain as a distraction. I calmed down a little as the water cleansed the sweat and grime off of my arms and face.

Feeling slightly refreshed, I put on a clean T-shirt and a fresh set of jeans. With all the clothes I’d been going through on our little misadventures, I’d have to do some laundry in the near future. I’d never done laundry before—one of the few perks of growing up at a boarding school I suppose.

Taking a good long look at myself in the mirror, I noticed there were heavy bags under my eyes, and I was slowly developing a tan. My hair had also bleached out a little bit, the normal black hue becoming a shade lighter because of all the time we’d spent in the sun. Maybe it was less of a tan and more of a lobster-red, I'd have to get some sunscreen, I guess.

Finishing up, I went back outside to knock on Colson’s door, his baritone blaring inside his room.

“… the baaad boys, are standin’ in the shadows, and the goooood girls are home with broken hearts. AND I’M FREEE, FREEE FALLIN’…”

Chuckling to myself I sat down outside his door and rested the back of my head against the wall, closing my eyes. I absentmindedly listened to his singing, thoughts circling back to the day’s events and the path we’d taken to get here.

Everything still felt so surreal. My memories were more akin to dreams and nightmares than real-life events. Thinking of my father and the hints I’d overheard at Imara’s; I wondered what else he’d neglected to tell me. And why.

Their statements made me wonder if what he’d put me through had all been premeditated. If it was his way of preparing me for the horrors that were lurking out here. Or if he just disliked me. He’d always talked of our family’s “Tradition” like it was an inevitable thing, that I just had to accept because I was a Margrave.

Maybe things would’ve been different if my mom was still alive. I sighed deeply. I was sure that most people had probably wished they could turn back time at some point in their life, maybe so much that it seemed kind of silly. I was having a moment like that right now.

Thinking of my dear old man didn’t even get a rise out of me at the moment. My rage was reserved for Tanner, but it too had faded a little, returning to a low simmer that circulated just below my skin. Not getting anywhere with that train of thought, I let them go. Instead, I decided to check out my Sigil.

Entering the tranquil mind, I sat my spiritual self on my Sigil and took a look at it.

image [https://i.imgur.com/SC2GAqs.png]

It was still the same.

No… wait, there was a slight advancement. Puzzled, I put my hand down on the red line and compared it to what I could remember from yesterday. If my assumption was correct, I’d say it had moved forward an inch or so. Colson had said that it would start integrating ambient aether by itself at some point, but I hadn’t expected it to happen visibly like that so soon.

I was ripped from my musings when Colson opened the door suddenly.

He was looking down at me with a wry expression.

“Sorry it took so long, I had to oil the beard. Damn heat makes it all fuzzy and dry,” he commented, running his fingers through it, “couldn’t keep away from my singing, eh? Understandable, I’ve been told I sound a bit like Johnny Cash, but even more manly.” The last party sounded like a boast.

“More manly than Johnny Cash?” I asked, looking up at him.

My eyebrows were raised in an “oh, really” expression. “Colson, I like you, but there is no ‘more manly than Johnny Cash’, period.”

Remembering his cover of "Hurt" and the feelings it conveyed, it resonated so strongly with me that I'd been on the verge of tears the first time I heard it.

“Hmm, that’s a good point actually,” he conceded, “you ready to start working with some aether?”

I got up from the ground. “Thought you’d never ask. What are we doing tonight?”

He gestured for me to head into my room and sit on the floor. “Tonight, we’re gonna work on consolidating some of your green aether. The training is kinda twofold. On one hand, you’ll work on absorbing aether and tracing your Sigil, and on the other, you’re gonna work on processing your trauma at the same time.”

His statement put a frown on my face. Sitting down on the floor, Colson plonking down opposite me, I asked for clarification.

“Here’s the deal, kid,” he started his explanation, “Sigil Holders have an advantage when it comes to processing trauma. I guess it’s kinda unfair, but with some of the shit a lot of us go through we’re lucky it’s something we can do. There are specialists in our line of work. They don’t handle the trauma though; they handle the diagnoses that follow in its wake.”

“Like what?” I asked.

"Suffice it to say that the list is long. A lot of people in our line of work experience severe challenges. If they manage to treat it, they still leave a lingering mark. Maybe it won’t be today or next year, or in ten years, but at some point, most active Holders that do field work have to seek help and talk to someone about it.”

“Okay, so we can take a bigger emotional beating but at some point, it still overflows,” I surmised.

"Exactly!” Colson pointed at me. “But! The earlier we start processing everything, the bigger the advantage. We don’t wanna build up a giant backlog, so to speak. Head into tranquil mind."

I did as he asked. Appearing inside my soul space, I sat down in the lotus position next to the outer line, emulating my real body.

“You there?” he asked.

“Yep.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Alright, first things first. We’re gonna fill the traced part of your Sigil and store some aether. But instead of pulling aether from the atmosphere, I want you to use the green aether you’ve collected.”

“Okay,” I said, my real body frowning in concentration. “I just pull at the green aether and guide it towards the outer foundation instead of absorbing it into myself?”

“Precisely. No reason to use your second sight. It’s still there, even if you can’t see it. While you’re doing that, I want you to focus on the bodies we found in New Orleans, your emotional state as you fought with the empousa, and the sensation you felt when you died. In that order. It means splitting your attention a little bit, but I believe you can do it.”

Willing the green orb towards me, I lifted one hand and held it where I could intuit the orb was floating. The other I placed on my outer foundation, near the red outline. Then I thought of everything that happened in New Orleans. The combined emotions of my experiences almost overwhelmed me when I brought them to the forefront of my mind.

Dread, hopelessness, disgust, and anger threatened to pull me out of my meditation. I managed to keep a rein on it, but only barely.

“I’m ready,” my voice was strained, focused.

“In case you can’t tell, all of these emotions are amplified when you use your meditation technique. Normally when you use it, it mutes everything, but now it’s just the opposite.”

“I can tell, Colson,” I managed through clenched teeth. This guy.

“Right, sorry. Now while you guide aether into the opened part of your Sigil, I want you to let those emotions go. Gradually let them flow through you and imagine that you’re depositing them into your Sigil alongside your aether.”

With the emotions toiling in my mind, I thought about the green aether and how I wanted it to fill the opened space in my Sigil. There was a brief sensation of heat near my raised hand, and what felt like a small tendril snaked out and wrapped itself around my index finger.

A feeling of warmth filled my body, but not in the same way as when I’d filled it with ambient aether. It was fleeting. As if the aether was just passing through—which I guess it was—instead of lingering in my chest. A similar warmth was mirrored in the hand that was touching my outer foundation.

I tried letting my feelings go. The sensations I’d felt when we snuck through the abandoned building, finding the bodies, fighting the empousa, and when I died.

I imagined them travelling from my head, through my body, and into the hand touching my Sigil. To my surprise, the tenuous hold I had on my meditation eased gradually and I felt myself grow lighter.

It was slow going, but I was doing it. Like waking from a nightmare, the brief rush of adrenaline you’d feel on waking slowly fading into nothing. After an indeterminate amount of time had passed, I hit a wall.

Feeling a little weary, but not nearly as tired as yesterday, I looked down at my Sigil and saw that the red outline was glowing faintly. To be honest it looked sinister as hell, the rust-red colour shining with an eerie glow.

“I think it’s done,” I told Colson.

“Good work, kid. You’ve been at it for a little over an hour. If you'd activated aether sight you'd probably see that the green orb's gotten a little smaller. Come on out, tell me how you feel.”

Opening my eyes, I shook myself off. Colson was looking at me intently. I searched myself and found that I was… lighter. Like a burden had been lifted from my shoulders.

“I feel good,” I told him, surprise tinging my voice.

He nodded at me.

“You should,” he told me seriously, “it feels like you’ve set down a heavy bag you didn’t know you were carrying, right?"

Right on the money, that’s exactly what it felt like.

“Yeah,” elation coursed through me. “It does,” I added after a moment.

Concentrating briefly, I checked to see if the red part of my Sigil was still glowing. It was.

“Try thinking back on your experiences now,” he instructed me.

Recalling the scenes was just as easy as it had always been, but the accompanying emotions were almost gone. Almost.

I frowned.

“There’s still some there. A lot less, though.”

“As I said, it leaves a mark. That’s what you’re feeling. The disabling intensity is gone, but there’ll always be a lingering trace.” He beamed at me, “You’ll feel a lot better going forward."

“How does it work exactly?” I questioned.

“Well, it’s not an exact science,” Colson shrugged as he spoke, “but aether purifies. Manipulating and channelling it cleanses your body and spirit. If we attach our trauma to it, it burns them away. Not completely, but mostly.”

Thinking about it for a moment, I came to a realisation.

“Wait, does that mean that we can burn all our emotional states away like this? Can we remove loss?”

Colson’s expression softened.

“I can understand why you’d wanna do that. Thing is,” he thought about it for a moment. “Everything that’s happened to you so far,” he made a circle with his hands as he talked, “is what makes you, you, Ethan. Good and bad. Sure, we can remove the worst parts. But do you really want to remove your sense of loss or regret? The overpowering characteristics fade when you get older, and I can assure you that if you start down that path, you’ll never think of your mother in the same way again.”

Shit. Why’d he have to go and be reasonable about it? I didn’t want to risk ruining the image I had of my mom. It wasn’t perfect, but that didn’t matter. It was mine. And even through all the hurt I still cherished it from the bottom of my heart. The resentment I held for my dad was another issue entirely, but I decided to hold off for now.

“Fine, I promise I won’t do that,” I told him.

“Good lad,” he smiled. “Now how about we trace your Sigil out some more?”

Agreeing, I entered my soul space again.

“Why is the traced-out part of my Sigil glowing?” I questioned.

I had an inkling, but I wanted to make sure.

“Because it’s full of aether—" he answered promptly.

Yep, I was right.

"—It’s primed and ready for use. It’ll disappear once you’ve used what you can hold to trace out a larger area.”

“Do I just use the green aether the same way that I do when I absorb ambient aether?”

“Yes, there’s not really a difference practically,” he lectured. “Well, maybe a little. Just remember that the green aether is more potent than the ambient kind. Instead of guiding it like you just did, try to absorb it like you did yesterday.”

Nodding my head in affirmation I started absorbing the potent aether.

Willing it inside myself, I could feel the orb hover closer to my chest. When it touched me, I was staggered by the difference. Where the ambient aether felt warm and comforting, the green aether felt hot and wilful.

“Uh, Colson, is it normal that it feels like it wants to wrestle?” I asked through my meditation, focus wavering.

I heard him laugh.

“It is, that’s the difference in potency making itself known. You don’t feel it when you’re just guiding it, but when you absorb it, it’s a different beast. This aether used to belong to someone else, after all. Don’t worry, nothing bad’s gonna happen if you lose control. In that case, the energy you’re currently channelling will dissipate. Kinda wasteful, so try not to let it. You can do it,” he added encouragingly.

Concentrating, I imposed my will on the aether, and gradually brought it under control. It felt like wrestling jelly, it was crazy slippery, but I managed it after a bit of back and forth. I gradually filled myself to the brim like I’d done yesterday. The heat in my chest intensified, to an almost unconformable level. It felt like I was doing it a lot faster, but that may have been because the aether was stronger.

When my body felt fit to bursting, I told Colson.

“Little difference from yesterday, kid. Because you’ve already got aether stored up in your Sigil, we’ll use that first since it doesn’t tire you out as much. Touch your hand to the outer formation and will your stored aether to fill it out first. Then repeat it with the amount you've absorbed into yourself until you’re empty.”

Not needing to be told twice, I imagined the stored aether into motion, like a trench being dug out, and after a moment I could feel it moving. By a lot. Unwilling to let this advantageous feeling slip, I instantly substituted it with the aether I was holding in my body. As I’d done yesterday, I imagined the hand touching my formation submersed in water and letting it out like a faucet.

I sat there for a while, concentrating on tracing out my formation, until the heat in my chest disappeared. Fatigue hit me like a bullet train.

“Holy crap,” I breathed.

A pounding headache pulsated near my temples, and I dropped out of my meditation.

“You okay there, kiddo?”

Colson looked at me with concern when I opened my eyes.

“I’m good, I’m good, I just need a breather. That took a lot out of me,” I told him.

He just grinned.

“That it does, that it does. Give it a minute. When you’re up for it, I want you to see how far you’ve progressed,” he looked at me with anticipation.

Resting and gathering myself for a good five minutes, the headache subsided a little bit. The fatigue, on the other hand, felt bone deep. Taking a deep breath, I looked at the Sigil in my soul space and told Colson what I saw.

image [https://i.imgur.com/dGzyYvc.png]

"That..." he hesitated for a moment. "That shouldn't be possible."