From that day on, Sobon's life was busier. It wasn't exactly a surprise, although Sobon felt like she was making a mistake by bringing others into hers, the Ri'lef's, and ultimately, the Founders' business. Of course, if the Founders found the planet unworthy, they would all die; but it seemed to be, ultimately, a much cleaner path towards safety to not have people involved who were still learning the ropes.

Especially since, in many ways, Sobon was still learning, and had learning left to do. Sobon had needed some way to bind the three into an oath, and so had forged together a prototype "Oathbinding Qi"; she would have preferred to use raw aether, but oathbinding was a Superior, or in Ri'lef terms, a Sacred art, one that pressed itself into someone's fate. So far, Sobon had been loathe even to create Onwards and Reverse Aether Dynamos, since each would consume a great number of lesser dynamos in order to forge, dynamos that must be meticulously crafted to be compatible; since qi included components of Sacred Aether, though, she could just use the abundant energy for this purpose.

And Oathbinding was one of the few easily crafted aether methods at that level; you didn't need to examine a person's whole future, only determine whether and how much they would resist the binding itself. In truth, all of them had resisted in their own ways; Lui was certain that there were moments when honesty was best, down to the foundations of her soul, while Ki'el had an attitude much like Sobon's own, where she would chafe at restrictions if it got in the way of her moving forwards. More surprising was Mian, who had a burning desire to rise, and been seen rising. Although his honesty won out in the end, he had some urge to stand in a crowd and proclaim uncomfortable truths, challenging the fates to intervene.

Or something.

The biggest surprise of the day, though, was Lui's transformation. Only in retrospect was it obvious that Lui had a minor, natural aether effect preserving her innocence. When she discovered it herself, it melted, and Sobon's impression of her spirit changed from child to woman, despite the girl's young age. The facts involved didn't change much; Lui simply no longer turned a blind eye to all of the darkness she had already faced through her life. The borderline sexual abuse, the coldness of her father and grandmother, the unfairness of her mother's death, the loneliness and emptiness of her life in the mountains.

Sobon was not the only one to be instantly concerned, but she was the only one with a technical understanding, and so she spent part of her time in the following days speaking directly to Lui.

"How do you feel?" Sobon started out their first private session sitting down with the girl, alone, in Lui's private room.

"I don't know how to say it. Older, maybe." Lui looked down at her hands, and Sobon could see someting in her facial featuers, again, like the girl wanted to cry.

Sobon just looked for a long moment, weighing her words. "I care for you, Lui, and so there are some things I want to make clear. I am not going to try to make you go back to being innocent, and I would never ask you to do that to yourself. However..." She drew out the word. "I believe that the small knot of Revival Aether helped you maintain your high spiritual sensitivity."

Lui looked at her grandmother, and Sobon sensed an undercurrent of dissatisfaction, now. "The world did always seem kind of... loud. And now I feel like it might be too loud."

Sobon nodded. "What you need to understand is that spiritual sensitivity is a function of purity, in a way. Generally, there are two ways to get there. First is to start naturally sensitive, like you have, and the other is spiritual attunement." She took a deep breath. "I believe you have a kind of natural attunement to your hands, and to your eyes. Those are good things, but you don't have enough aether--enough spiritual energy within your body, to resist harmful flux. And yet, too much energy, or the wrong kind of it, can overwhelm your senses, making you see less of the world outside."

Lui, at least, relaxed. "You want to teach me to cultivate my aether, or qi."

"I don't know," was Sobon's honest answer. "Lui, I am a warrior of my people, not a doctor. I was chosen to be a warrior in part because I had high aether sensitivity, but the techniques we used to increase my power while keeping that sensitivity are beyond me. I understand the principle, but I cannot imagine how many generations of trial and error were necessary for them to master what they already understood in principle." Sobon took a breath. "If your master, Lady Fau, gained or maintained her sensitivity, it may be that she understands the process better than I do."

Lui nodded, a serious look on her face.

"What I do know," Sobon said, "is that aether is a binding, a link across time and space. Part of what lowers sensitivity is the spirit making a mistake." She frowned, trying to find exactly the right words to say what she was trying to say. "Your spirit is a living thing, and while it is a part of you, it isn't your soul itself. The ideal is for your spirit to trust your soul, first and foremost, and it should... how do I phrase this." Sobon frowned deeply, her mind already going to her discussion with Commander Rai about Command Qi, though it was mostly the wrong concept here.

"It should listen to me?"

Sobon gave a half-nod, half-shake of her head, but continued Lui's thought. "And it must always be able to expect that you will listen to it," she said. "Nothing else should seem more likely to listen to your spirit, than your own soul. Usually, this isn't a problem--the only time something deliberately tries to get in the way is when some hostile spirit is attacking you. But if your spirit is desperate, it can try 'speaking', in a way, to other powerful spiritual things nearby. That might not only be other spirits. It can also be parts of your body that are screaming out in pain, for instance--anything that produces a strong spiritual presence, even if only for a moment."

Lui definitely looked confused, and Sobon waved a hand and tried to reset the conversation a little.

"Suppose that you burn your hands, even just a spot of skin on your fingertip," Sobon said after a moment. "A part of the spirit in your hands is afraid, and desperate. It cries out, and looks for anything else which can offer it aid. Before you, your soul," Sobon reached out and tapped Lui's head, "can think to respond, your body's instincts respond for you. This is partly a physical phenomenon, but it's also spiritual. Your hands searched for an answer, and a part of your spirit--but not your soul--answered. From then on, your finger will split its attention, telling your soul everything that it does now, but also telling it to that part of your body that answered its call."

Some part of it seemed to be getting through to Lui, who had closed her eyes and seemed to be meditating.

"In this way, injuries lower your spiritual sensitivity. This is a simple and known example of the phenomenon. It only really becomes a problem if it happens over and over again, until your spirit trusts your body rather than your soul. But depending on when, exactly, it happens, it can be difficult or almost impossible to untangle, to bring a spirit back fully into alignment. Since you are already deeply connected to your hands and your eyes, you will feel a shift if they become confused. Remember what happened, how it felt, and why. If you can do that, you should be able to untangle the spiritual confusion and restore the sensitivity."

"In short," Sobon finished, "understand that your sensitivity is... a close partnership with parts of your spirit. If your spirit is ever in crisis, you must find a way to help it, to prove that you are on its side. I suspect you will have a strong urge to do that anyway," Sobon could feel a smile creeping into her voice, "but I want you to understand that those feelings are not an illusion."

Lui's face, which had become sterner since she had stopped crying, looked sad again. "I... already feel like I'm in crisis," she said, an edge of exhaustion in her voice. "I... I like you, Grandma... Grandma Sobon," she said, and it sounded like it took something for her to say the words. "But sometimes it's hard to... to have hope for the world. For myself. Not because of sky warriors that might kill us, but because..." she took a deep and shaky breath, as she tried to hold in the tears.

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"Because of everything you've seen and everything you've been through." Sobon just nodded, although internally, Sobon cursed. What this girl needs is a psychiatrist, not a Marine in her dead grandmother's body. "You can talk to us. To all of us," she stressed, feeling mostly sure that both Ki'el and Mian would want to help the girl, but not having asked, exactly. "And I think to Lady Fau as well. You spent your early years leading one kind of life, Lui. Your future is already very different than it was going to be."

Lui looked distressed, like she wanted to say something but couldn't put it to words. "I..."

"We will talk again. Tomorrow, and every day, if you need it." Sobon just took the girls' hands and squeezed them. "Find the words. I will listen."

Sobon was halfway through the door when she felt an aether wave from behind her. [ I am not free. ]

Sobon paused, looking back, but the girl only looked ashamed.

Sobon was, and wasn't, sure she understood. And she turned back, and knelt next to the girl, and put her hands around Lui's shoulders and gave her a hug. Because Sobon didn't understand much of what the girl was going through, but it was hard to forget just how different this world was from Crest.

How limited everyone felt here, trapped by powerful forces that might crush them at any moment. How Lui had been uncertain about leaving her father and the inn behind, and how she often seemed conflicted.

"You feel like you should be doing something else," Sobon said, sitting back. "Don't you?"

"Papa needs me. I know he does. And you..." Lui looked ashamed. "You were so dismisive of him. But he... is my father, and I love him."

Sobon looked at the girl, weighing things. Finally, though, she sighed. "I don't intend to ignore your thoughts or feelings, Lui," she said. "But you are wrong about your father. You are his daughter, and he does love you. But." She considered her words once, twice, and then again, then shook her head. "I'm not sure I could explain it to you."

"Try," said Lui, in a small voice.

So Sobon just sighed. "Your father doesn't need you," she said. "Or if he does... that is a choice. A weakness. A refusal to work with others. Lady Fau is a person who cannot work with just anyone, because she has specific needs in an assistant. But the only special reason for you to be the one working for your father, is because you were his daughter. He already had you, so he didn't go looking for anyone else."

"Your father can hire poor help easily, and good help with time, effort, and good fortune. Making do with poor help is painful, frustrating, and terrifying. It is a crisis of faith much like what you're going through. But it is ultimately part of running a business. Pushing through that until you can find the good help is a task that no one wishes to go through, but it is for the better. He can find people better at assisting with the operation of an inn than you would ever be."

Sobon left unsaid that she suspected Tuli was already collapsing under the strain, and his own bad decisions. He had been willing to work with, or at least be bought off by criminals. They would want an accounting for what Sobon had done, and they would expect to continue to be allowed to use his inn for their purposes.

"I just... want to help," Lui said, and there was a river of emotion in her voice, one that surprised Sobon. "I was so happy, there, to see people be happy. And I was happy to be useful to Papa. I felt like I had a place there, a purpose." She sniffled, and wiped at her nose. "It's... it's not like I don't appreciate Lady Fau. But walking away... walking away from Papa when he needs me..."

Sobon shifted a little bit. "You can send him some of the money from your job." In truth, she was loathe to recommend the girl do anything but cut Tuli off, but she suspected the girl would have to learn, in her own time, what kind of man he was, or would become. And... it wasn't as though Sobon was completely sure she was right about Tuli. She was, after all, not a psychiatrist, nor a spy.

Lui looked down, but nodded, sniffling. "Money was always tight," she said after a long moment. "When... when lady Fau first paid me, I thought it was too much. I couldn't help thinking about the days when the inn had no visitors at all, and we counted every Copra that we spent on our own food." She did straighten a bit. "I... I know that would help."

"Mian or I will help you send it," Sobon promised. "But Lui..." she considered what to say, and what not to. "...not all of it. You need to save for your own future as well, and you should pay for your own expenses."

Lui finally pulled back and met Sobon's eyes again, nodding. "I will help pay for things here, too. I don't know what you were paid--"

"Don't worry about my finances," Sobon said with a smirk. "I have more than enough skills that I can get paid to use." Some of them would require materials, and possibly some would have other costs, but Sobon wasn't concerned. Not when she could deadly produce weapons out of sand.

The two talked a little while more, before Sobon finally turned in for the night. In the days that came, she spent more time talking with Lui, and trying to be an amateur psychiatrist with some mild success. The girl had relaxed some after that first night, enough that Sobon wasn't afraid she was going to shatter like glass, but she still had far deeper thoughts than someone her age should need to have.

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

Sobon was fortunate, given how many things she had to do, that Ki'el and Mian seemed to agree between themselves to train together, with Ki'el showing Mian what she knew of Sobon's Cycle and Thorn, and Mian showing Ki'el how to use a sword, or in her case, Sobon's barrier blade. Although Sobon saw flaws in both of their understandings, she did her best to focus on more practical things.

First, of course, was her aether. She reviewed several times the Ri'lef notes on Qi, finding that she had long surpassed the minimum requirements to advance out of Gold Qi, and as such, her core could have, and perhaps should have been protesting. However, Sobon hadn't been growing her personal aether; the act of attuning her body was one that consumed aether, and to a lesser extent qi. She was being careful not to waste energy, but she certainly wasn't piling on.

No, there was a challenge that the Ri'lef had placed over the end of Gold Qi, one that required attunement to pass, a challenge that the locals called the Golden Wall--though Sobon knew little more than that about how they understood the challenge. For the Ri'lef, the concept was simple--once you had attuned a significant part of your body, your core would unconsciously emit a signal, which the local spiritual gods would pick up on, and one would monitor you. If one signaled such a god, they would be smited, and forced to defend against a significant aether attack.

But the point wasn't surviving the attack. Buried within the dense aether would be a key required to unlock the next tier of advancement. A qi warrior would likely have to suffer several attacks, counting on their attuned body to repel the qi storm, until they could see the key buried in the blinding storm of energy, grasp it for themselves, and transcend their current level.

It's cute, Sobon thought. Advancing by facing a tribulation. Less cute was the fact that the locals would need to understand the requirement for attunement itself, which would be difficult if someone didn't spell it out for you. Sobon, for her part, simply walked a ways out of the city one evening, signaled the god, accepted the key on the first strike, and walked back to the city with newly-minted Titanium Qi.

The spiritual god that performed the attack was itself interesting--a bird-shaped being with some intelligence, but clearly non-human thinking. Sobon passed it a few aether packets, but it was uninterested in talking, and only interested in some kind of reward that it got for playing its part in the scheme. Sobon was a little surprised that it was so mercenary, but ultimately put it out of mind.

Titanium Qi was interesting in the way that it transformed Sobon's qi. Sobon had described the qi of this level as "brighter," when she saw it in others, but now that she got to examine it, it seemed like the qi was changing the aether spins it was composed of. While all levels of qi seemed to contain all different spins, her lower level qi had been mostly Right- or Left-hand spins, and now, those were mixed almost equally with Inner- and Outer-spin aethers.

Sobon suspected, although it wasn't stated in the notes, that this would be a bit of a problem for locals' future attunements, because the outer and inner spins would be more likely to attune the body at their level without first fully attuning to left- or right-hand aether. Sobon's body, now, was essentially completely attuned to Right-hand aether, and that would serve as a foundation for higher-spin aethers to come.

Either way, Sobon returned calmly, only to have Mian lead the others in a celebration of Sobon's "achievement." They went out to dinner, Mian and Lui professing that they were very proud of Sobon for advancing, while Ki'el had the kind of quiet contemplation that made Sobon sure the girl understood that Sobon was cheating.

Then, perhaps they all did, and they were all just accepting Sobon among them in their own ways. Sobon accepted the praise as magnanimously as she could, not quite suppressing the fact that her qi was already rocketing ahead, exactly because she was already attuned. It was fine for her to let her body adapt over time; in truth, there weren't a lot of alternatives.

Sobon still had a ways to go, and there was always a chance that she would need to act in a panic later, but there wasn't all that much faster that she could safely go.