The harsh sunlight stabbed into Jeb’s eyes when he finally reopened them. Clenching his eyes shut, he rolled over more on instinct than any higher level thought. A deep rumbling voice chuckled as he did.
“I am glad to see that you still live,” the voice spoke. Looking up, Jeb saw that it was the Bear.
“I’m honestly not sure that I am glad to be alive,” Jeb replied, sitting up. Every part of him screamed in pain, from the tips of his fingers to the deepest corner of his soul. When his eyes finally focused on the Druid, he saw that he was nodding slowly.
“You act as a child, despite your strength.” Though the words could have come off as harsh, Jeb did not hear any judgement in the Bear’s voice.
“What do you mean?”
“When the tides were pushing against you and you were unable to withstand them how you prefer, what did you choose to do? Did you ask for help? Did you attempt something new? No.”
The Bear grunted and picked up a piece of driftwood. He started absently carving it as he continued to speak. “Rather than do anything sensible, or even accept that you would fail the Trial and admit as much, you simply doubled down on what had worked for you before. I do not know who led you to your Fundamental Understanding, but they have done you a grave disservice.”
Jeb stared blankly.
“I am aware that a Trialist is not to be given aid, but you are not a standard Trialist. It is clear that you already have a Fundamental Understanding, even if it is not Druidic in nature.”
Seeing that the Bear had apparently gotten the wrong impression from Jeb’s stare, he hurried to clarify, “what is a Fundamental Understanding?”
The driftwood in the Bear’s hand snapped, and he looked down in surprise at the loud sound. Shaking the confusion off, he stared at Jeb.
Jeb was suddenly completely sure that the being in front of him was not a human. Bear was absolutely the name for a species, even if it also meant something else. The creature in front of him was not civilized. It was intelligent, and clearly capable of communicating civilly, but as his black eyes bored into him, Jeb was reminded of how dangerous a wild predator could be, even without a Class. Given that this Bear was the leader of his Circle, Jeb had no doubt that the Druid could end his life with barely an effort.
The Bear blinked, and the pressure lessened.
“What makes you who you are?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” Jeb replied.
“I understand that this may be a rarity among your interactions with people, but I meant exactly what I said. What makes you yourself, rather than any other being? What makes you yourself, existing at all?”
“I don’t know,” Jeb replied after a long quiet moment.
The Bear still stared at him, though no longer overbearing. It only took Jeb a few moments to realize that the Bear was content to sit in that place until Jeb came to whatever conclusions he was meant to arrive at. With that in mind, Jeb started thinking out loud.
“I don’t know what makes me exist, but the fact that I exist means that I do?” he said hesitantly, unable to articulate exactly what he meant.
The Bear’s head dipped the smallest fraction, which Jeb took as a sign of approval.
“Due to the injuries you have sustained, the Enclave has changed the next portion of your Trial.” He stood, and Jeb was once again reminded of the Bear’s sheer bulk. “Come with me.”
Although the Bear moved with complete grace, Jeb had the feeling that it would have preferred to move on all four limbs. He led Jeb to a clearing with soft grass underfoot. Jeb sat when the Bear gestured for him to do so.
“Observe,” the Bear said. “And, though it is not an explicit direction in this Trial, consider the questions I asked you.” He moved out of the clearing, and Jeb was left alone.
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Jeb quickly started looking around the clearing. After a few minutes, though, he concluded that there was nothing in particular he was supposed to see. Just to make sure, he stood and walked through the entire clearing, remembering the Bear’s advice to not take directions at face value. Once he was satisfied that the clearing was what it appeared to be, Jeb sat back down in the grass.
A faint breeze started blowing through the space, carrying the scent of blooming wildflowers. The blades of grass waved slowly back and forth in the breeze, making the green floor look like it was a single being. Jeb stared, entranced, and did not notice as he started breathing in time to the waving.
When a flower drifted in front of his vision, Jeb realized that he had been completely lost in his breath. It was a feeling he had almost entirely lost since Magic had consumed Meditation. Even before that, though, Jeb had never simply sat and breathed.
Before his thoughts could spiral out again, he once again looked at the grass and breathed in the sweet air. He let his mind wander as he turned the Bear’s question around and around. Who was he?
That was an easy enough question. He was Jeb. Since he had never met anyone else with the name, Jeb had never felt attached to any other way of specifying who he was more clearly.
Who else was he? He was his parents’ child, his sister’s brother. He was a Graduate of the Academy. He was a man who was once a boy dreaming of Farming.
He was a Wizard.
Jeb looked down at his hands. They were still thick, far from the long and slender digits that so many in the Academy had. There were no calluses on them, however. His hands were as soft as any child’s.
Jeb looked at his arms. They were not weak, but they were nowhere near as strong as he knew that they could have been. If he were a Farmer, his arms would have been tanned and corded. Some spark of an answer flashed in his mind.
Like any spark, though, Jeb knew that he could smother it if he was not careful. Focusing on his breathing once again, he let himself fall back into the meditative state. When the next flower flowed across his vision, carried by the ever-unseen wind, Jeb was not broken from his breath. When an elk came into the clearing, Jeb noted it, but continued to breathe with the earth.
It took a small bite of the grass, and Jeb felt another spark flare. When a bird swooped down and ate a fly, Jeb felt the first wisps of smoke begin to burn in answer. Watching that bird be attacked down by a larger bird, the first tongues of flame licked out. When the blood fell where the elk had eaten, Jeb knew that he had his answer, even if he could not articulate how he had come to it.
Even though he still wasn’t entirely sure what a Fundamental Understanding was, Jeb knew that he had been approaching Magic incorrectly. He had thought of his soul as a discrete part of him. It was not, any more than his body was a discrete part of him. His soul held his Class, which impacted his body. His body shaped the way that he interacted with the world.
The revelation did not come with any great burst of inspiration. The pain in his soul lessened, but only slightly. Rather than go rushing after the idea, trying to trace down every consequence the belief could have, Jeb simply returned to breathing, watching the microcosm of nature play out in front of him.
The shadows on each blade lengthened as the sun set. Bright greens grew darker and darker as the light grew dimmer and dimmer. The breeze died down, and Jeb realized that he was not simply an observer in the clearing.
Each breath he released stirred the wind around him, even if only slightly. Each change in the grass rippled out, disturbing the world.
No, that isn’t right, Jeb thought. Disturbing implied that there was a correct way for the world to proceed. Jeb had just as much of a right to be here as any of the blades of grass. Still, his being here changed the world around him even as the thoughts changed him.
As stars rose in the sky, he listened to the different sounds of nature. The large and small creatures which moved about in the day time were sleeping, and the creatures that rose in the night began their own activities. A cloud of bats passed over the clearing for an instant, eating the insects that had gathered around Jeb’s heat.
Three days passed as Jeb sat in the clearing. Each moment was imperceptibly different than the one before or after, and yet time still flowed. The sun rose and set, the moon grew fuller with every hour, and the stars danced about in the sky.
When dawn broke for the fourth time, the Bear returned. He tracked his eyes up and down Jeb’s sitting body before nodding.
“Your soul is sufficiently healed, and I see that you have deepened your Understanding. Come, your next Trial awaits.”
All at once, the peace that Jeb had found vanished. “Did I pass this Trial?”
“What do you think?” the Bear asked, walking out of the clearing.
Jeb followed and tried to reason out an answer. Each Trial he had failed up to that point had been met with another Trial. However, he hadn’t passed any, so he had no way of knowing what the rewards for success were. The fact that the Bear, unlike his past two Judges, had not come directly out with an answer seemed like one in itself.
“I think,” Jeb replied slowly, “that the Trial has not ended yet.”
The Bear let out a booming roar of a laugh, and Jeb heard a flock of birds take flight.
“I will be honest,” the Druid said when he caught his breath, “I had not expected that answer. No, that stage of the Trial is over. I was legitimately asking you if you think that you passed.”
“I’m not a Druid,” Jeb replied.
“That is true,” the Bear agreed.
“So I guess that means that I failed.”
The Bear shrugged and led Jeb forward.