Norman frowned at the blurry, faded Yaskin text in front of him. It was early evening, and Celine was curled up fast asleep on the corner of his table.

This text was a new acquisition from Dr. Strauss, a historian who led mining expeditions in faraway colonies. This text was from a recent excavation in Sector 738, which their team had uncovered. The auto-generated translation was incoherent in a few places and completely incomprehensible in others, so she looked up researchers who had a proven track record of working with Yaskh artifacts and reached out to them.

What she, and most likely many other scholars, were not aware of was that the Yaskin language was actually a pair of two different languages. The Yaskh had natural genetic memories. So for many centuries, they simply didn't need a way to put things down in writing. The very concept of written text did not exist for them.

It was only after their empire had grown beyond their home world, and they made contact with other civilizations, that they needed a mode of scripted communication. The Yaskh spoken language was utterly unpronounceable for other races. And so their early attempts to phonetically encode their speech met with much resistance. It was eventually superseded by a newer non-phonetic script that was based on the lowest common denominator and could be more easily adopted by their first allies. But unfortunately, this writing system had organically evolved, and many remnants of their past attempts were left behind, making the script complex and littered with special cases.

But now, when Norman looked at the Yaskin text, he could instinctively tell which period of language evolution the text belonged to and, thus, how it should be interpreted. He had no hope of being able to read it aloud, though The human throat was still utterly unsuitable to converse in the Yaskh spoken tongue.

Norman was pulled away from his pondering by a ding on his tablet. The academy mandated at least one elective that involved physical activity and coordination, and for Norman, that was the game of Yokidon. Celine meowed indignantly at being woken up.

Fine, there was no easy way to avoid this now. Norman gently scratched Celine's chin to calm her down and headed back towards the assigned stadium. He was pretty sure she'd be asleep again before he even reached the corridor.

He had not chosen the elective because he had ever been particularly good at it. But it was just one of the few physical electives that were not entirely about physical strength and fitness. And also, he found the mechanics behind hoverboards fascinating.

As he entered the practice arena a few people turned to face him. Bran, a redheaded guy who seemed to have an instinctive dislike for Norman, chuckled and proclaimed loudly, "Look who decided to grace us with their presence..."

He happened to be the captain of the team Norman was assigned to. Over the course of the last three years Norman had skipped so many of the practice sessions through careful exploitation of loopholes in the rules that the team now mostly assumed they would have to play without him. And it wasn't as if his absence made any difference. "Hey Bran, Good to see you too." Nonchalance had been Norman's preferred shield for snarks and teasers for as long as he could remember.

Norman picked up his hoverboard from the inventory rack and sat near the edge of the group he was assigned to. Mira, another of his team-mates who took the sport very religiously, quipped - "Do you need a refresher on the rules, Norman? We are always happy to help."

"I am good, thanks." Norman was just glad that these offhand passive-aggressive comments never devolved into any serious bullying. Illustrious Academy was home to the elite, and his rank left no one unconvinced that he would one day occupy an important role - likely in the Protectorate or magisterium. They didn't want to make enemies - the occasional jabs were where it ended. But for a lot of these people, sports played a significant part in their grades, and Norman being part of their team and not putting in serious effort was a perpetual point of contention. And Norman's solution to dealing with it had been to keep a safe distance and limit his interactions to the bare necessities.

A few minutes later, coach Sanders walked in, and his eyes briefly focused on Norman. They had had their share of unpleasant interactions in the past, but at some point, the coach decided that paying him any attention was not worth his time. So he didn't say anything and turned to the class instead. What came next was worse, though.

"We will have a test match today. I hope that from the last month of practice both teams are confident with their designated defenders. The results today will contribute towards your eligibility for inter-cohort trials so you would want to take this seriously."

As the coach finished, Norman realized that every member of his team was shooting him angry glares. With a jolt, he suddenly remembered that he was the designated defender. The coach's emphasis made a lot more sense now. It was well known that Sanders was partial to the other team. Jim Rudolf, the opposing captain who had dedicated his career to fitness research, was openly sneering at him now.

So as the others exchanged exasperated glances, Norman tried to recall what it was he was supposed to do.

Soon, he found himself mounted atop a hoverboard in front of a large circular goalpost suspended in midair. Norman was somewhat alarmed to discover that the limitations on heights that had been there during early practices before, had now been lifted. The team now practiced at the same elevation levels as the professional matches.

Using both his hands, he held a long baton that he was supposed to use to prevent the zipping ball flung by the opposing team from making its way into the goalpost. In the ideal scenario, he would redirect them towards his other team members, called jostlers, who would then route them towards the goalpost defended by the opposing team. The game had supposedly evolved from an ancient sport form that did not require any specialized technology, but in its current form, Yokidon required an intricate familiarity with aerodynamics.

For one, the ball had to never touch a player. The charged magnetic batons were the only allowed means to redirect the ball's motion. The ball touching the ground counted as a negative for whoever propelled it last. A player landing on the floor, either intentionally or due to losing control of their hoverboard, disqualified them immediately. Fortunately, any direct attack on the players was also grounds for disqualification, but in practice numerous workarounds to trigger "accidents" were well known.

The ball was not spherical, and the point at which the baton made contact with the ball drastically changed its future trajectory. Also, the baton lost its charge after each strike and needed a few seconds to build up the charge again. The level of charge mattered because a contact with a fully charged baton propelled the ball much further than a shorted baton.

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So as a speeding ball was rapidly gaining on him, Norman scrambled to get in its way. The amount of pressure he exerted on the right pad of the hoverboard was disproportionately higher, and so the board propelled upward chaotically and tilted leftward. While Norman scrambled to regain his balance and reorient the board to remain vertical, he had already drifted several feet away from the post, and the ball had already zipped past.

A large, glowing scoreboard in the stadium announced a plus-one for the opposing team's score.

Gritting his teeth, Norman glided back to his designated location, trying hard to ignore the taunts and sneers from the opposite side as well as the angry yells from his own captain.

Norman steeled himself for the next ball. It came at him from an oblong angle, and given his current level of competence, or rather the lack thereof, he should have completely missed it. But he didn't. A corner of his vision flashed red. Confused, as Norman turned to locate the source of the unexpected light, he noticed the rapidly approaching ball. As he hastily adjusted his foot pressure to raise his elevation so that the ball was within range of his baton, he stumbled again, but just before he was about to over-tilt leftwards once more, the bottom-left corner of his vision went red.

Realization clicked into place. He wasn't participating in the game alone. He relaxed the pressure on his foot immediately, but in a game as fast-paced as Yokidon, that distraction too cost him. While he did manage to attack the speeding ball with his baton, he had no time left to position it properly. As soon as the ball touched the top end of his baton, the instant change transfer happened, and the ball was propelled towards a far side of the arena where nobody was there. Even though Mira dove after it at the maximum velocity that her hoverboard would allow, she couldn't reach it before it plummeted to the ground. Their team lost a point, widening the difference between their scores to two.

An emotion of deep discontent was projected into his mind. Nothing was to be done anymore, thought Norman as he glided back to his original position in front of the post. Only after he had reached, did he realize that he hadn't really put in any effort into adjusting the foot pressure. He had retraced his path backward instinctively without looking.

Baffled, he turned to see Mira looking at him with a frown. To his far right, Jim was also looking at him with an annoyed expression plastered on his face.

A few seconds later, the system sprung the ball back from the center at a randomized angle. As Norman stayed put near the post, the three pairs of jostlers from opposing teams sped towards it like hungry lions.

Richard Noland, a jostler from the opposing team, angled towards him, and suddenly something interesting happened. Norman didn't just see a warning flash. He saw multiple faint streaks of red light. Possible courses the ball may take. As Richard's baton connected with the ball, even before the charge had dissipated, one of the streaks got brighter and others melted away. As he reoriented himself to intercept the trajectory of the incoming ball, more streaks appeared in green - the outgoing trajectories.

He focused on one of them, which would take the ball closer to where Bran was currently standing - in response, the other green lines immediately grew faint. At the same time, bright yellow spots appeared over the ball. Points at which he should strike.

By the time he rotated his baton to strike the ball, the ball had reached too close. The point at which he touched was slightly lower than the yellow zone. As a result, even though the ball did fly in the general direction of Bran, he had to rapidly elevate himself to meet it, and the time to do that cost him. As soon as Bran reached the ball, so did Vernon, another player from the opposing team, and he positioned himself immaculately such that no sooner had Bran propelled the ball, he intercepted and took it away.

Norman had managed to defend the post, but he failed to turn that into an advantage for his team. The alien sense of disappointment echoed in his mind yet again.

As Norman smoothly rotated away from his position, he noticed Richard gaping at him open-mouthed.

That was the point when Norman realized that maybe he didn't have to be so incompetent at Yokidon after all.

It took a while for someone to bring the ball towards the post yet again. Norman realized that his teammates were playing a lot more enthusiastically now. The exasperated looks were long gone.

But when the ball did come the next time, Norman was ready. He executed the maneuver that his invisible companion suggested and managed to reroute the Ball perfectly towards Mira, who expertly whisked it away, and after shouldering through the jostlers Norman's team scored their first goal.

The duration of the watch was coming to a close, and it didn't look like they would be able to score another goal. But then suddenly, Norman found the ball approaching him yet again. His companion showed him the projected trajectories again, but Norman once again found himself utterly baffled. This couldn't be right at all.

Nevertheless, he decided to follow along still - after all, this was just a practice match. But then, as the ball got closer and Norman reached its range, more trajectories appeared and Norman's eyes widened as the meaning became clear. He propelled the ball at the suggested angle, and then he followed the second trajectory at a pace that made him dizzy. Before any of the other members could gather what was happening, Norman's trajectory took him in range of the ball again. With a strong forward thrust, Norman pushed it into the opposing team's goal post right before the timeout alert resounded through the arena.

A sense of deep satisfaction washed through Norman's mind.

It wouldn't last, though. Norman may have scored a goal, but as a defender, he didn't have the privilege to do so. The score counter stayed inert.

This did establish one thing, though: Norman knew the rules, but his companion did not. It could only scan through his surficial thoughts but not access arbitrary knowledge from his memory.

As he lowered himself down to the ground, every single person was staring at him silently.

A wave of deep exhaustion spread through his body. Had his companion been keeping his tiredness at bay somehow?

"What the hell was that?" Coach Sanders approached.

"Sorry, should have paid more attention to the rules." As Norman touched the ground, his feet buckled, and he had to grab hold of the wall. "Forgot that I could not score goals," he said, panting. He knew that was not what the coach was really asking, but his exhaustion was growing at an alarming rate now. Explanations would have to happen at another time.

He hastily stacked his hoverboard on the rack. His vision was getting darker, and he was seeing phantom stars now. He heard the faint squeal of the electric train approaching from a distance. "See you guys next session," he muttered and hurried out towards the platform. He didn't want to wait for the next revolution."

Stumbling through the platform, he deposited himself on the soft cushion of the train and immediately drifted into sleep. And after a long time, dreams enveloped him yet again.

He was floating in space. All around him, there was only darkness. An unyielding void.

For a long while, there was only the abyss. He was the abyss. But then, suddenly, he saw a spark. As he focussed on the spark, he realized it was not something ephemeral - From closer, it looked more like a clustered network of golden threads. And then he saw another similar cluster next to it. And another behind.

More and more clusters appeared. With a start, Norman realized what he was looking at. These were essence complexes - living sentient souls. Passengers in the train.

He understood why he hadn't been able to make progress on understanding essence-harvesting better. Why the few Yaskin texts that he had managed to procure on the topic sounded like abstract philosophy. Humans just didn't have the natural awareness of essence the way Yaskh did. Awareness that he had now gained, thanks to the wyrmblood flowing in his veins. It was effectively a second sight.

Norman expanded his awareness further. He could identify some twenty souls in the compartment. More beyond. As he tried to expand beyond a couple of compartments, the red warning light flashed into his vision. So it looked like his ability had limits.

If these were essence complexes, could he... another warning light flashed as Norman tried to tinker with one of the threads. He immediately withdrew. Understanding flashed into his mind - there were no words, no exchange of messages. He just became aware that untrained essence manipulation was dangerous. He chided himself for even thinking about it - these were living people, students of the academy.

Zooming in and out from various directions, he continued to inspect the essence complexes for some more time, when suddenly he felt like he was experiencing an earthquake. The essence-complexes remained, but tremors flowed through him. His consciousness snapped back.

"Sir, you have been in the train for two whole revolutions. Where do you want to get down?" An attendant was shaking him, trying to wake him up. Norman blinked away his slumber. He thanked the attendant and got down to his apartment two stations later.