By next morning, the calm tranquility which had prolonged each day before could no longer be found. Instead, it was time for a good many things to finally change.
Yhse had found herself awoken very early in the morning, as her father wanted to check up on her. She sat through his diagnosis, very disinterested. He concluded she was once again perfectly healthy, just now she was up and active, like nothing had happened. The most he could conclude is that somehow she was honestly that tired.
"So, we're going to need to figure out a way for you to get better sleep." Khaexyn's conclusion was laced in irony, as Yhse yawned sleepily. Clearly, her father was truthfully an idiot. His obsession with her was really starting to feel overwhelming too. "So, in order for you to be guaranteed a proper amount of sleep, I'm going to have you put under a curfew, so that you can have some proper relaxation. Also, I'm going to supply you with some additional staff, three more girls. In case anything goes wrong, I've made sure there are additional patrols in your area, so that you will have extra support." Khaexyn's over-protectiveness had suddenly made an even worse turn.
It seems her insight last night had backfired on her. Claiming she didn't have a curfew had only landed her with one. Even worse, with all the extra people around, sneaking into Lady Sxeiva's Spire.. her mother's Spire.. that was going to be even harder. This wasn't going at all like she wanted, and she had so much she wanted to talk about, both to her friends and to her mother. She hadn't expected so much to suddenly change overnight. Instead, she found herself trapped in her room again, almost as securely as in her dreams yesterday.
Just the same, she was determined to find a way to escape. She just needed to find an opening, something she could take advantage of. She waited patiently, trusting her friends would understand.
Mhyl got Thanrie and Qheria out of bed right on schedule, not letting them get even a wink more sleep. "Okay, sleepy heads, good morning!" "Bad morning, five more minutes." "Thanrie, Celese doesn't even have minutes, get up." "Why? We don't have any responsibilities until breakfast." Mhyl paused, wondering how Thanrie couldn't be as motivated. Certainly they all saw Yhse last night, walking in and out like a mystical sorceress of the night. That blossom seriously wasn't just getting caught in a subtle wind, that was more than a little obvious. There wasn't even a draft in these halls.
Qheria got up, not as excited as Mhyl, but not as lazy as Thanrie. "For someone who had all but given up on hope yesterday, we're brimming with energy today." "Of course, we have lots of practice to do. I'll go see if Lady Sxeiva is awake." "Mhyl, stop. With consideration of every position Lady Sxeiva has, a Lady of the fortress acting as our superior, our teacher, our friend's mother... She is not someone you wake up. If the lady is still sleeping, you're going to have to wait patiently." Qheria's serious tone was there, slowing Mhyl down. Qheria had a pretty big point there, Mhyl was really getting ahead of herself.
"If .. if I don't wake her up, it's fine to just work on some of our later chores, right? Get ahead of things, so that there is more time for lessons? That wouldn't be a problem, would it?" Mhyl sounded really driven, there wouldn't be any help for it. Qheria sighed. "Fine, lets get some work done then. Thanrie, get up." Qheria wasn't going to just leave Mhyl to carry this alone, she needed help. Thanrie being lazy wasn't helping either.
Thanrie burst up in surprise at being slugged with a pillow. "Hey!" "About time you got up, let's get going. You slept in long enough, that's your five minutes." "There is no way that was five minutes! That's totally not fair." "Learn your role here. As I recall, Lwyn got up much earlier every day, back at the Citadel Inn. We might only be faking it, but it is also how we earn our keep here. We owe Lady Sxeiva a lot for letting us stay here safely.. or would you rather do laundry?" Thanrie found Qheria to be completely unfair. Even her accuracy and practicality of their situation was unfair. She also had learned to fear the laundry job, simply by it's reputation.
The three of them went off to get some basic chores done. Mhyl was dusting shelves while Thanrie was back to sweeping the floor and Qheria was sorting clothes. There was clothes that came in and went out as laundry, but fortunately, it was never their job to clean the clothes. They just had to ensure it was sent out properly and folded properly on return. However, Qheria was instead picking an outfit for Lady Sxeiva, a responsibility she had gotten used to. Mhyl was better at her for coming up with an outfit for special occasions, but Qheria had a much easier time at coming to quicker decisions on matters of much less importance.
"I still can't believe how good she got." "Uh, what, who?" "Lwyn, of course, Yhse? Whichever we're calling her. Didn't you see yesterday? She set that blossom going like a pro. Just how much practice has she had in her gift since we got here. I feel so lazy having made so little practice." "Mhyl, don't be hard on yourself.." "I know, I know, I'm not. I heard her say that back there too. She was making very sure we weren't.. she's matured so much since we got here, it's scary." Mhyl still wasn't aware just how many of those changes happened only over the last day. Thanrie however was still too tired to keep up with her.
Qheria however was reflecting on the details with more rationality. "I get the feeling she was letting us know it was her turn too, even if she didn't know it. She spoke of being unconscious, fainting, longer than would have been expected, and worrying her father. Specifically, she mentioned dreaming. That last one is probably the biggest clue. I think even our little Lwyn had her turn with a life-changing dream." "Wait, that would mean her life was in danger, wouldn't it?" "Like you implied, we've missed a lot about what's happened to her. We'll have to ask for more details when she returns." Qheria trusted that Yhse had everything under control, that they would only need to wait patiently and things would be fine. Mhyl however started to get really worried about having left Yhse alone to endure all of this.
Eventually, they found Lady Sxeiva had woken up. Mhyl snatched the outfit from Qheria and raced to help Sxeiva into it. "My, my, someone is excited this morning." "Good morning! Can lesson time?" "Ah, because of Yhse, right? Fine, fine, after breakfast." Sxeiva was genuinely happy to find Mhyl so inspired. Mhyl's Izhaethyx was making progress as well. The four of them completed some initial tasks as part of Sxeiva's wakeup routine, and finished off a breakfast.
Mhyl considered Yhse during breakfast, recalling on their first day how she had to pressure Lwyn into eating breakfast. Now, she was fairly certain that Yhse was given as much freedom in breakfast as Lady Sxeiva herself had. Sxeiva was at least nice enough to give them a lot of freedom with their breakfast, but there were still rules. What she ate was already established for her, she wasn't given choices like Sxeiva was. Sometimes Sxeiva shared some of her breakfast, like today when Mhyl was given a bit extra toast in order to keep her more occupied. The world had a funny way of turning things around.
They resumed where they had left off in gift training yesterday. As it was reasoned that all three of them had displayed an initial usage of the gift, the most rational step was to simply reproduce the same results. Once they could do that freely, they could move on to learning other ways to use their gift. However, in truth, all three of their abilities were dangerous in reproduction. Mhyl's initial usage related to healing, which would be difficult if there was nothing to heal. Qheria's initial usage was some kind of resistance, which would require something to resist. Thanrie's initial usage was some kind of boost, and the dangers to her's were the most memorable of all.
"So, yesterday we learned that some exact reproduction might be difficult to reproduce, but lets not forget the unique principle of your gift. The things you can achieve will relate similar to the same ideas of something very similar to your memories of Earth. Don't just think of everything from a Celesi perspective. So in matters of Earth, what kind of actions do you picture there describes their version of healing?" Sxeiva begun the lesson by giving her most eager student the first opportunity.
Mhyl however was confused until things were translated for her, then she came up with an answer. "Earth had 'medicine'. They used 'doctors' at a 'hospital' to treat injuries too. They also had.. uh.. a lot of 'chemicals' to help with a bunch of things." "Which of those things do you feel are the most advanced process, something only possible at Earth? What just defines the act of the state of a person?" "That would be the 'science' of 'biology'. It was considered the core of anything to do with medical care." Mhyl was left to translate everything into English for the others, as using words Sxeiva really didn't understand wouldn't make for a practical Izhaethyx translation.
"So during our lesson, don't limit yourself to how this stuff works in Celese. Your gift can manipulate things to work similar to the medical care you're imagining from Earth. That means you could do a bit more than you thought you could, as only the beginning. Think about what you know, and feel for yourself what you could do that just makes sense, given this blur between Celese and Earth. Take your time, as I help the others." Sxeiva just seemed like an amazing teacher, with a certain gentle tone that felt encouraging.
Sxeiva determined that she should leave Thanrie for last, since Thanrie seemed a bit out of sorts right now. "Qheria, what about you? What kind of actions do you picture from Earth that describes resistance. Remember, you want to get as deep as possible into what makes it something of Earth, as far away from Celese's way of thinking, much like Mhyl did." Sxeiva was implying again more sciences, even without understanding the word. The biggest measure of resistance, a material's ability to negate influence, like how lead was practically immune to anything. Magnetic, electrical, radioactive, chemical.. okay maybe not everything, but it was a serious symbol of defense against science. The titanium Thanrie always spoke of was a pretty good one too though, but only for blunt force.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Sxeiva gave Qheria the same assignment as she had given Mhyl just before, leaving Qheria to also consider the right way to apply her idea. "Thanrie, now for your turn." "Earth has a word very similar to one we have for energy, but they studied it much more. The 'science' behind energy goes much farther than we could have ever dreamed of here, from 'gravity' to 'lasers'. Accelerating the energy of something... boosts it. This is what things like 'batteries' and 'generators' are about." Sxeiva paused for a moment, not actually unfamiliar with the last two words Thanrie had used. Khaexyn himself had used both before as well.
Batteries, that reminded Mhyl of the power cells they used for their stuff. A bunch of the cells they carried were actually empty, they just hadn't discarded them yet. Mhyl ran off to their hidden supplies and returned with a few empty power cells. Sxeiva recognized the design instantly. "Ah, I've seen those around before, Khaexyn has several of those used for many of the things he's made. He's personally grown attached to them because they didn't explode readily on him. I doubt they would be so unfortunate to explode on you either. Maybe see if you could recharge one?" Sxeiva was impressed how quickly their first assignment was created, and turned back to the others.
Thanrie thought about it for a second, then opened up in Izhaethyx. "If we're thinking this handy, why are we not bothering helping the poor flowers that are dying? Couldn't Mhyl do something like that?" Thanrie using Mhyl's name caught her attention, she was only half paying attention. She understood three words clearly, 'help flowers dying'. Of course! Healing wasn't just good for people, a lot of biological things needed help when suffering.
A plant needed some really basic things, not something you would imagine for wound healing, but.. Sxeiva did tell them not to restrict themselves like that. While a lot of the plants needs were being met, they had good soil, they were being watered properly, but they couldn't photosynthesize without natural light. Being a beacon of natural light might be ridiculous, but there was an easier way to fix this, directly simply make photosynthesis happen. It was a bit more chemical that way, kinda a biological reaction that was just made to happen, but that's how the application of any medical practice would work out in essence. If she could shortcut the process, and bypass that unmet requirement, she could effectively heal the plant.
Mhyl ran off to get a plant, leaving Qheria to her own devices. Somehow, she had found herself last in this process. Somehow, even thinking of lead wasn't helping at all. Maybe, that was the problem. Like her, she had expanded out her thoughts on the subject, but all of them went down to something really simple and specific. Staying in the big picture wasn't helping. The incident with Mhyl, it was caused by scalding, so she was protected from high temperatures. That was heat resistance, how would that help...
Qheria resorted to using English to ask for help. "What relates to heat resistance?" "Oh, Thermal Resistance, so like Fourier's Law for Heat Conduction? According to that, the three more important parts of something's thermal resistance is it's thickness, it's exposure, and it's material thermal conductivity." "Mhyl, why not just tell Qheria to think like a fridge. Unlike my brother, you don't just freeze stuff cause you give it ice, you can also steal heat. Earth never believed in giving ice, because ice is just the lack of heat, but here ice is a thing. No one here would understand the principle behind how heat moves around." Qheria was shocked how the two of them were keeping up with all this. Mhyl had a really complicated idea, something else which might have set Qheria down a long road of nothing, but Thanrie made sense of it and came up with something simple.
Heat transfer, Thanrie might have thought of it because it wasn't actually that unlike what she herself was doing. Still, she had no idea how she could do something like redirect heat with the little she had. She thought of it some more, and broke it down further, following the same path of simplification the others were using. The mentality was about making heat ineffective, but the most simplest of heat was a flame itself. According to science, flame had a combustion reaction, depending on oxygen to convert a hydrocarbon material into smoke and ash. It was a bit more science than that, but she couldn't remember the details, and didn't want to interrupt Mhyl again.
Flames were easy to make, though she would only be allowed something as big as a candle. Candles though were easy to put out, very easy to consider going out, the mental construction would be a piece of cake. Most people in Celese think that you need to drip water on a candle to put it out, that water is needed to quench a fire. Technically, that principle pervades so strongly in Celese's natural laws that there was some evidence Celese flames would not go out simply by having lost access to air. To her, the idea was nothing more than a challenge.
Qheria prepared a candle, and set it in a safe area where nothing would catch fire if things went wrong. The metal everywhere would have little chance of burning, but cloth and wood were a problem. She focused intently on the flame, and it stared back. Of course, right now there was nothing that would put it out. She went and got a thin metal rod, and poked the flame. The flame disappeared. Well of course, wouldn't that deal with it? She re-lit the flame, and tapped the end of the rod to the flame. The flame went out again. She sat there for a moment, wondering if she had made her assignment too easy. She wasn't doing anything special, this was a pretty natural way to put out a flame.
After a time, she gave up, and went to get insight from the others. "Mhyl, Thanrie, I'm at a loss. I'm trying to figure out a good test for putting out a candle, but it's not working for me." "What are you trying to do, exactly?" Qheria reproduced her experiment at Mhyl's request, and once again the candle went out from the rod. Mhyl stared at it in shock. "Qheria, you're amazing, you've got it so easily?" "Huh? What do you mean?" "You do know that candles are put out with a tiny metal cup over it, to snuff out it's oxygen, right. There is nothing cup-like to that metal rod, you are just poking it and poof!" Mhyl was really impressed, she hadn't had nearly this level of success yet. Qheria sat baffled by her own success before Thanrie showed up.
"Ah, I get it. Qheria maybe did not know exactly that snuffing out oxygen needed a cup. Because she believed it would just work, it just worked. Qheria, knowing this, can you do it again?" Qheria lit the candle again and once again poked it with the rod. The flame didn't care. Her experiment worked exactly until she stopped believing it would. This insight astonished her, her eyes lighting up with wisdom. She took a moment within her mind to contemplate everything. This means the truth was, the flame was not going out because Mhyl was right, but because Qheria herself stopped believing she herself was right. She scolded her own self-doubt, determined to stubbornly prove Mhyl wrong once again, and the candle once again went out.
Qheria stood in absolute jubilation. She had done it, she had found a way to her own gift. Her own stubbornness was both a shield and sword in equal measure to the ones she carried normally, her third in that fact.
Thanrie took to the same insight, focusing on her power cell. She had been having no success with the empty cell because she had no idea how to fill it. However, out of instinct, she just picked up the power cell and put it into a lamp. She turned the lamp on, nothing. She was worried that might of happened. She turned it back off, pondering her next move. Then it hit her, she had worried it would not have worked. How was she so certain it simply would not work? That is not how things go. She turned it back on, and still nothing. The damn thing was refusing her, she glared at it, anger surging over her.
"F~~~ing thing, turn on already." She kicked the lamp, and it turned on. Right, because kicking machines makes them work. Wait, does that work if the machine's energy source is empty? The light turned off again. She paused, her cold rage settling in. The damn thing really did hate her. If the thing was working, it shouldn't just turn off like that, right? It once again turned on. At this moment, she stopped herself, and took some time to clear her thoughts. The thing was turning on or off simply because she thought it should. Then she realized, in all practically, she herself was right now the power source. If she turned her own offering of energy off, it would turn off. If she turned instead turned her own offering of energy on, it would turn on. The only control for that was if she believed it was on or off.
She picked up the lamp, staring at it earnestly. The lamp turned off, then on, then off again. Then she started to get it to pulse rapidly, to her own personal amusement. "Ah, Thanrie, stop that, I can't see what I'm doing!" Mhyl was not amused, clearly she was the last one here left at a loss, she had been the last to learn far too many things, and for someone who had a proud amount of scientific knowledge, that really stung. Thanrie settled down, and just left the light on, turning to Mhyl's work. Even Qheria went to join her.
Mhyl was depressed, even Thanrie could make that light work, as the light shone on the plant. Too bad it wasn't real sunlight, that would be what this plant needed. Then she also considered Qheria's lesson. Qheria had made something work simply because she believed in what shouldn't have been possible. And yet, here she was, so firmly set in her ways, that she couldn't even believe the lamp before her was anything of use at all. How was she to be so quick to judge, did she even know what kind of light it emitted. The lamp wasn't even made of things from Earth, the only reason she was so firm that it wouldn't work was because she didn't see it work. But maybe, worse than that, she wasn't ready to believe it would work.
After all the 'Celesi science' she's seen here, what evidence did she really have that things wouldn't work? She was rejecting principles, proven principles, simply on the premise that it didn't work in a place with other principles. This was a poor scientific approach, more of a personal bias. Everyone else found stuff that worked, why couldn't she? She turned to the lights glowing in the room, the neon filament lights, lights she had the worst understanding of. These things had exploded under pressure, a scientific thing to do. However, she still knew next to nothing about them, beyond that they emit light.
She brought the plant directly up to the light, and fought hard within her mind. If scientific principles matter so much, then she has to consider the scientific principle they had just proven. When the gift is used properly, things just connect the way they are supposed to. As such, under that belief, giving this plant the light, while herself carrying the plant, with consideration to her current potential capacity in healing, that would effectively equate to a net positive in overall light required to complete a life-light process like photosynthesis. It was just scientifically sound.
Mhyl practically danced with the pot in her hands, lost within the science her mind was creating. Eventually, building a pattern into her motions, she even started to sing. It was the same habit she had done initially way back at their facility, to calm herself down while they were working, setting nails into wood. Her mind had just felt overwhelmed, and she buried her thoughts in more creative ideas instead, building into a pattern of motion. As a result, she stopped concentrating, and started having fun. Then she stopped noticing everyone staring at her like she was crazy. She then set the plant down in embarrassment.
However, before her was a flower that had fully enjoyed the experience, and was brimming with life. All three of them had accomplished what they had set out to do.