Harley was asleep. I tried waking him up but he straight up refused to talk to me during his "legally mandated five hour lunch break". He told me to come back in a few hours, so I left. I wasn't really in a hurry. I had a task to do, but I also had a week to kill, and this murder happened two hundred years ago.

It was kind of nice, really. I'd been sprinting from one fire to the next since I became an Ascendant. I'd had downtime, travel and vacations and stuff, but at the same time, even that felt…immediate. Like I needed to chill out RIGHT NOW so I could get as much relaxation as possible into as little time as I could. Which, of course, wasn't actually a super relaxing sensation.

This was weird. It was like…a working vacation. Just facts I was hunting, taking my time, walking my own pace. It was peaceful.

"Master!" Squealed Bella as she appeared next to me where I was sitting outside the bookstore. "Did you talk to the bookstore guy?" I chuckled, speak of the devil. It didn't bother me. In a way it added to my relaxation. Having a friend to share things with.

"I didn't. He's on lunch apparently. Did you have any luck at the tavern?" She seemed energetic, but then, she always did.

Her smile wilted a bit. "Not really. Chester is still there. He's better at this kind of stuff. I don't have a lot in common with small town people. I tried my best though." She looked like she expected me to kick her puppy or something, and it made me feel kind of bad. Was I being that harsh? I'd messed with her a little, but it had felt like banter.

I considered her for a minute then stood. "Follow me." I told her calmly. "I want to give you a lesson."

Her eyes widened in excitement. "A lesson? Is it going to be a technique? Maybe a new Skill?"

"Neither." I said with a shake of my head. "Something much more important. I've learned a lot from my own mentors, but one of the biggest things they've taught me is that WHY you do what you do is as important as how." I led her out of the small hamlet, into the woods to a clearing I remembered nearby. "Motivation and drive is what separates great Ascendants from flashes in the pan."

She nodded, accepting my statement, but seeming a bit confused. "So you're going to teach me…philosophy?"

"Among other things." I agreed. "But philosophy first. My mentor has his own, as does my uncle, who has helped shape me. My mother does too, though she's talked less about it with me. And during the time I've been traveling, I've been working on my own. It's still taking shape, but I'd like to share it with you."

My Path was a part of me. Not just literally, but figuratively. I was the Doom Sovereign, the Fatewalker. It affected the way I lived my life, the way I saw the world, and so much of who I was. And I'd never taken the time to put that into words. To crystallize what it meant to me.

"Destiny…" I said slowly, thinking about how I felt. "Is all around us. It isn't a single path, or a single concept. It's fluid, ever changing. Your destiny can be one thing one second and another thing the next. We all have innumerable destinies, uncountable possible paths, and we have to decide which one to walk down."

Her face was still confused, but it was thoughtful. "So…I should think about what my destiny should be? Try and choose my path as it comes?"

I shook my head. "The path we walk isn't just made up of what's ahead. It's also made up of what's behind. Every step you take is a brick in your road, but the entire thing is the sum total of your destiny. Both the next step and all the ones before.

"People like to treat combat, or contests, or even survival, like it's a zero sum game." I tried to articulate. "Like each incident you experience is discrete, a unique and unrelated moment in your life that you pass or fail. But that's the opposite of what it means to be an Ascendant. Destiny isn't just a step you take. It's MOMENTUM. Every step is leading to the next, pushing you forward. Everything you were before makes up who you are, and that's the person who takes the next step."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I didn't know what I was talking about exactly. Like I did, and I believed everything I was saying, but I didn't know WHY. I just felt like I had to get it out. Had to speak my truth into the world, and that Bella needed to be the one to hear it.

It felt like Enlightenment kind of, but more…personal. I somehow knew that if I could find the right words it would push my Path forward. Or at least help me understand it. But to do that, I needed my Path to not just help me, but to help her. I'd accepted her as my apprentice, and this was how she could help me grow. By learning what I had to teach.

Fate swirled around us, nearly visible it was so thick, and I felt words ready to spill out of my mouth, but I needed her to UNDERSTAND. To grasp what I was saying.

And to my utter shock, she did. It was like something clicked in her head, and her eyes got a little hazy. "You're saying you can help me find my direction, but unless I take my steps with all the experiences I've had before behind me it won't mean anything. You can show me the roads but I have to walk them. Or else I'll interrupt my momentum."

"Exactly!" I shouted, excited. "You need that buildup of purpose and drive to progress, so I can show you ways to choose a direction, but you have your own path to walk and have to choose your next steps yourself. Never compromise your destiny. Never change it to be more like someone else. Not even me. Find what works for you in what I have to teach and make it yours, make everything yours, and that'll be how you move forward without ever slowing down!"

My mind cleared. I'd been rolling along on my Path, having skipped a bunch of steps because I'd tripped into accidentally forming it. But I hadn't UNDERSTOOD it. And I was never going to create my Chronicle that way. I couldn't. I wasn't there yet either, but this had helped, had shown me the way. My Path wasn't just a skill or a thing I used to create techniques. It was like I told Bella. It was my destiny. It was the next step that all the other steps had led you, and I'd somehow managed to sprint a quarter mile ahead of myself, and I couldn't take another step until I caught up.

Which was a ridiculous metaphor that made no sense at all, but it made sense to ME, and that was all I needed. I glanced at Bella, who seemed to be in kind of a trance. I hadn't taught her anything tangible, but this was something she could incorporate into her Path like I just had.

In a way she was probably lucky, because her Path was still illusory, and incorporating this information into it earlier would help her get a better idea about how to proceed. She would UNDERSTAND how she could move forward, instead of just accidentally falling ass backwards into her progression like I had.

I think I'd needed this trip off on my own. Needed this chance to understand who and what I was without my team around, to find this direction. Honestly, I think I'd needed an apprentice. It made me wonder how much influence my Fatewalker instincts had on pushing me toward the ambush where I'd met Bella.

Regardless of the answer, she'd helped me here, in a way that I couldn't quantify, but that I absolutely KNEW was going to be integral to my future success.

And so, I decided to teach her more than just meta lessons. I waited, letting her digest the Epiphany she was having. I wasn't in a rush, like I'd just been thinking, though my current excitement made that harder to hold onto.

Finally, she blinked away her reverie, looking at me in wonder. "That was…weird. I feel like my Path changed. Not in a bad way, I did like you said and only took what felt right for me. But…it changed things. Like my Path is still escape, but a different kind of escape. Before it was reactive, like I was running away, but now I see that escape can mean other things. I can keep ahead of everything, run forward and outdistance my enemies not out of fear, but to be…free of them? I can't put it into words."

"And you don't have to." I told her with a laugh. "But you should hold onto the understanding. Put it into a technique. In fact, it sounds perfect for the one that I want to teach you right now. It's a movement technique."

She perked up. "A technique? Is it like that cool exploding flame teleport thing you do?"

"It's the technique I derived it from." I said with a laugh. "My mom taught it to me. It's called the Supernova Step."

I explained the concept to her, demonstrating it, and emphasizing the need to focus on the image. But instead of just having her use it as is, I told her to try to adapt her new understanding of her Path to the image. Mom always told me I was a genius at creating techniques, it was time to see if I could teach it.

"I feel like I can ALMOST see it." She hissed in frustration. "I just can't…find the connection."

That stumped me for a second. Her Path was personal, and I couldn't exactly create a technique for her when I didn't understand it…but I could give her a concept to link the two things. "Did you know." I said conversationally. "That the speed and momentum required to escape from the orbit of a celestial body is called 'Escape Velocity'."

I don't know why I decided to say that. Why I felt like it was important for her to hear. It was a connection between the Supernova Step and her Path, sure, but it was more than that. I think my Fatewalker instincts pushed me to that, a form of repayment for helping me crystallize my path.

Her clouded expression brightened like the sun coming out after a storm. Not with excitement or joy, but with understanding. She turned, and with a burst of flame, vanished and reappeared across the clearing…faceplanting into a tree.

She stumbled back, falling on her ass and cursing, holding her nose. I walked over and helped her up. "Looks like it needs some work." I told her wryly.

Her eyes were dazed and a little dizzy, not from the impact against the tree, but more from the drain of using a new technique I think. Her soul wasn't two ranks ahead like mine (though her dad HAD paid for her to break her shackles at a local heritage of a branch of one of the five factions) and she couldn't just ignore the costs of techniques the same way I could.

Still, she had figured it out, and it was enough. She laughed, pulling me into a tight hug. "Thank you master! I promise I'll work on it until it's perfect." And I believed her. Which was good. Because I suddenly felt like I had a lot more to teach, as long as I could figure out how to help her learn it.