Ranvir was lying on his bed watching the others mill about in the room. After he’d reached over-expression Kirs had quickly called for Sansir, which was, apparently, an open invitation for the others.

Kirs had returned to the ritual circle, the energy inside it was slowly dissipating though the ritual would make it last at least a few more minutes. She was lightly tapping her finger against the border of space, where the walls met the aperture. Surprisingly, the small space held up to the punishment, the braces enough to mitigate her physical presence somehow.

“You know,” Kirs said looking over her shoulder, “This is really impressive. That you manage creating this many things, that fast. You form the boundaries, the basic supports, and the apertures all within a few seconds.”

Sansir, who was the only one in their group not currently milling about the circle, handed Ranvir a waterskin. It was solid under his fingers having been filled with ice. Accepting it with gratitude, Ranvir pressed it to his forehead in relief while muttering his thanks.

“It’s actually not as complicated as you think,” Sansir said turning around to look at Kirs. “Most expression work off of instinct and will. Don’t forget, even generators can control their material.”

Sansir generated a block of ice into his hand. “Ranvir might’ve started out with something like this. Then as he grew more used to the technique and his skills more advanced, he found different needs,” a doorway opened in the ice, revealing it to be hollow. “He decided that he needed to look inside it, so he could see his chess pieces. His desire to look inside would’ve created the aperture less so than him consciously creating it.

“Remember, this is all impermanent and ephemeral.” With the flick of his free-hand, the ice hollow exploded into a swirling cloud of snow spreading out across the room. It quickly melted in the heat, after which it lost whatever cohesion that sustained the energy and the water disappeared.

Kirs fiddled with a bit of the pocket-space. “So you’re saying that he instinctively knew that he needed the aperture, so the aperture appeared?”

“Maybe the first time,” Dovar answered for Sansir. “Ranvir was likely working purely off instinct, but it’s both simpler and more complex than Sansir made it sound. All the small details can be added in at a later point, so long as you still have access to the original expression.”

“But Ranvir didn’t have access to the original expression,” Kirs said frowning. “So he did make it very quickly?”

Ranvir turned to Esmund who’d sneaked closer to him. “They do know I’m still in the room,” he muttered.

“You might as well not be, with that kind of exertion headache,” Esmund replied as he slumped down next to him on the bed and watched the more cerebral students explain to Kirs.

“It’s like walking,” Grevor added looking eagerly at the pocket-space that was now getting quite narrow around a seemingly oblivious Kirs’ hand. “You don’t have to really think about how you want to take a step, or how you stop. You’ve done it so much that it’s instinctual.”

Kirs scratched at her upper lip with her pointer finger. “Isn’t that what attuning a technique is?”

Grevor shook his head quickly, “No, Ranvir’s pocket-spaces are like walking. He still has to consciously start the process and make all the choices, like turning or stopping. Attuned techniques are different…” Grevor paused seemingly lost for words.

“You’re the only one who’s attuned a technique,” Dovar said. “But according to some accounts its closer to a completely unconscious action. The same with Concepts.”

Grevor snapped his fingers pointing at Dovar, “Exactly! It’s the difference between walking and your heart beating. You don’t have to consciously make sure that your hearts still going, it just does. My attuned technique is layering, the practice of folding multiple small expressions onto each other. At this point, it’s my automatic goto for any expression, stronger or weaker. It would be easier for anyone else to simply pour more power into it, but not for me.”

Kirs pursed her lips. “Like that story about the master who turned all obsidian he touched into razor thin shards?”

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“I think so… I’m not totally familiar with him—“

“It was a function of his Concept, but essentially yes,” Ranvir immediately regretted speaking up, his heading pounding so badly his vision his started swimming.

“Oh, right. Because both Concepts and attuned techniques function similarly,” Kirs said. “But we don’t have two hearts… But it’s just a metaphor.”

“Concept would be like lungs,” Grevor replied, “You can control it, withdraw it, like how you can control how hard you breathe, but most of the time you’re not conscious of your Concept at work, just like you’re not conscious of breathing,” he paused briefly, notably drew in a heavier breath. “At least, most of the time.”

The pocket-space snapped closed on Kirs’ hand. For a moment, her forearm just ended in a strange distortion of space, sparks of purple emitting from it on occasion. Esmund jerked up from where he’d been slumping next to Ranvir, jostling him and making his head pound. Ranvir groaned and pushed Es off the bed.

“What’s it feel like?” Grev asked, who’d clearly been waiting for this moment. He didn’t sound as gleeful as he’d looked earlier. “Is it gone?”

Ranvir snorted, but didn’t say anything else.

“No, I can still feel it. Even move it, sort of.”

“But it’s gone.” Esmund said, having made his way to her side.

With a pop, the space broke entirely and Kirs’ hand appeared in a bulging wave as the pocket-space meshed in with the rest of the space fabric.

“Oh,” Kirs said, looking her hand over, “nothing happened.”

Why did she sound disappointed? Ranvir thought but decided to put it down. Not my problem.

“You’re okay?” Esmund asked wrapping an arm around her waist.

“I’m fine.”

Ranvir peered out through half-closed eyes, still pressing the frozen skin to his forehead. Dovar had approached him. He seemed to awkwardly debate with himself, whether or not to sit down, before squaring his shoulders and sitting on the far end of the bed. The entire structure shifted noticeably as he sat down, the wood groaning.

“You knew that would happen.”

“Of course I knew that would happen,” Ranvir replied quietly not wanting to agitate his headache further. “It’s one of the core rules of space. It can’t break things. There’s only a few deaths ever registered to space generators and a single one to a manipulator.”

“Manipulator?” Dovar asked curious. “How?”

“She flung herself some two hundred meters into the air and fell on her head. Instant death,” Ranvir replied. “There are ties that bind you to the ground, somehow. If given sufficient time and power, you can worry away at this tie, which will temporary remove that binding.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“Maybe, I don’t really understand the connection myself. It’s… weird,” Ranvir paused considering how to best phrase his experience. “It’s like the tie binds you to the plane, to Vednar, keeping you locked in with the plane as it moves through reality.”

“Reality, not space?”

“I’m not sure, some theories suggest that there is no space beyond Vednar, or any reality as we know it,” Ranvir almost shook his head but caught himself. He waved his hand instead. “It’s really too complicated and I’m no where close enough to the Asient Mountains, nor do I have the power to make such assertions myself. Let’s just say that without that tie, you and Vednar would move independently of each other. That’s the best description I’ve found of it.”

“So it could work on anyone?” Dovar asked. “Or does it struggle with the physical presence limitation as well?”

“I would say it might struggle with it, but really I haven’t tried anything.”

“Probably smart.”

“Yeah,” Ranvir grinned at him, before pulling the skin away. The cold was starting to hurt worse than the headache did.

“What are you two whispering about?” Grevor asked sitting down on the bed opposite them. “Nothing too serious I hope.”

“Ranvir was just telling me about the deaths from space tethered,” Dovar said a little more light heartedly than the subject probably required.

“Cool, what kind of deaths?”

That made the others turn to look at them.

“Like three times where someone insisted that they could create true stasis within a pocket-space,” Ranvir replied while gently massaging his temples. The pain came mostly from the back of his head, but the gentle movements still helped.

“Stasis?” Es asked leaning forwards. “What’s that?”

Kirs leaned into him, “Think a space that isn’t affected by time. Put a squirrel inside it for a hundred years and it comes out exactly the same as when they put it in.”

“For some reason, they didn’t signal to the others that they needed to leave. Their partners just found them dead in the space when they opened it. It’s suspected that air was the problem, since asphyxiation can cause strange behavior.”

“This is way too dark, especially right before bedtime,” Dovar said. His genuine look of worry made Ranvir feel a little bad. Before he could say anything, Grev spoke up.

“Did you just say bedtime?” He gave Dovar a disbelieving look. “We’re grown ups, at least don’t call it bedtime.”

Dovar frowned at him. “What else am I supposed to call it?”

“I don’t know. Just don’t call it bedtime. ‘This is way to dark, especially right before bed’ something like that.”

“How is that any different?”

“It’s loads better.”

“No, it’s not.”

“This is insane,” Kirs muttered.

“Yes! It is.”

“I think it’s both of yours’ bedtime,” she commented.

Grev and Dovar stopped mid-argument giving her their most affronted glares. Looking for all the world like children who’d just been told that they couldn’t have their favorite snack.

“I’m going to my bed,” Grev proclaimed. He dramatically got up, walked all of three steps to his own bed and plunked down huffing loudly so they all understood his protest.