Nat sat quietly inside and watched the world go by outside as the coach slowly rolled towards the creche. Their progress had slowed once they'd gotten on the less maintained roads between the packlands and the wilds. The packs — Brin or baseline members both, didn't need roads in the same way that Humans did. They were far more comfortable on rough ground, and tended not to build permanent settlements — similar to how Ber'Duun operated, really. Not quite nomadic in that they stayed within the borders of a several hundred kilometer wide swath of land, but where they were in that land was constantly shifting, both for protection and to avoid exhausting the land's resources.

  So the daylight was almost half gone, and they still had almost an hour left to travel. The urgency of the ride had dwindled enough that Lyn was napping, and Novek had gotten out to walk alongside the coach with Siya — exercise and training, he'd said. Tanner, calmer now — though still agitated — was making small talk on the driver's bench beside Ellie. Nat learned from their banter that they'd known each other for a while, as they'd met infrequently when Ellie was working opportunistically as a driver, before she had taken over her prior employer's coach business.

  He had only been listening vaguely as they talked — the noise of the coach made it impossible to hear the full conversation, but as anyone might when they heard their own name, he perked up to listen as Ellie spoke.

  “Yeah, anyway, the big lady — Ceress — she was nice. You missed her entrance, it was certainly something to see. Novek and Lyn knew her, but hadn't met before. But you've known Nat for a while, yeah?”

  “Almost twenty years, I think?”

  “Oh! Friends of his parents, eh?”

  “No, he was a teenager. It's a long story.”

  “What? He's a teen now — or close to it. How much did you drink, again?”

  Ellie slid open the speaking slot, and Nat could see Tanner had his paw on her arm, trying to get her attention.

  “Nat, how long have you known this goofball?”

  He answered casually as he reached out and opened the door on the side. “Since my late teens — about four years.”

  [Slip]

  Nat pushed his way out of the coach, then stepped out into the air, to slowly drift to the ground over a minute or so, as his weight pushed the air out of the way.

  Nat?

  Hi, Moira. I'm just taking a walk for a bit.

  Do you want to talk about it?

  No, I really don't.

  Nat tried to push forward, but had not taken the air with him, and it was going to be exhausting. He let his talent slip for an instant, then immediately re-instantiated it. He thought it might have been fast enough to not be noticeable — he did not feel like being asked about it at the moment.

  This won't cause a problem for the horses or anyone, right? Bringing the air?

  No, the air you bring doesn't freeze when you leave — only things within your personal event horizon, likely as a safety mechanism to avoid harming others accidentally. Skills, and thus the Talents based on them are, after all, designed and ultimately arbitrated.

  Huh. You know, I think that makes it worse, somehow. To think that someone, or something, out there has decided that this is permissible. Acceptable.

  You should talk to Lyn about that, sometime. I think you might find their perspective on it surprising.

  Sure. Not today though.

  Nat walked slowly, silently, following the road in the dim aetheric light. The grasses to either side would be effectively impassable to him — unless maybe he walked on top of them. But that could cause a fire, even if he was careful, so he decided against it. He was thirty or forty meters in front of the horses — he couldn't see them anymore without asking Moira for light — when the air thickened again, but he wasn't ready to turn back yet, so he pushed forward into it, trudging into the darkness. This caused a problem shortly after, as globules of water were forming and pressing against his face, blurring his already limited vision.

  He pulled his face back from the air that resisted his passage, to let the water fall to the ground, unseen in the darkness, and then pressed forward again.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  It was tiring work, but gave him something to focus on, so he kept at it.

  Half-time reminder. Though the way back should be faster.

  Thanks, Moira.

  No problem.

  He wasn't quite ready to go back, but did, however, stop pressing forward, and simply stood, staring off into nothing.

  Do you think you could light up the landscape a little? Is that safe with the grass?

  Sure. The benefit of theronic energy is that it only burns what I want it to burn.

  That's such a strange thing to think about.

  What? A cognition-sensitive particle-energy pairing? There's precedent even where I come from.

  But I can't choose what my Talent burns.

  That's both true, and not. If you don't touch something, it isn't affected.

  That's not quite the same.

  It is, and it isn't. If you could go a little faster, please, this would be easier for me.

  That, too, is strange.

  It is. And, it isn't.

  Vague, much? Care to elaborate?

  He sped his personal time up in the Talent. Following in the wake of a barely visible pulse that emanated from him and spread outward, the landscape glowed softly, as if a million fireflies had descended upon it. The grass was still a vague suggestion — not dense enough for the points of light to render the fields fully discernible, but the outline of the coach and his companions stood out clearly as Moira's soft liminal fire flowed past and alighted upon them.

  It was an utterly unique spectacle, performed solely for him. The sense of isolation, of loneliness, that he felt on a daily basis receded, if only for a moment.

  Moira herself — if that word could apply — manifested as a soft glowing form a few meters away, a normal — if vaguely outlined — human form standing in the middle of the road further out. She was turned facing away, but he could tell she was mirroring his own pose. Nat did not feel that it was done mockingly, but in solidarity — or empathy, perhaps.

  She lifted her palm, and above it, images of waves formed as she spoke.

  Aether — therons, specifically, don't flow into an area, creating more energy. They suffuse the fabric of reality, here — oscillating at a frequency beyond measurement. Skills are powered by the differential between these two states — the difference itself matters, but what matters more is having more opportunities to resonate in time with that ebb and flow. A hundred-meter tall wave might smash a cliff into a thousand jagged pieces of broken shoreline, but a billion gentle waves will — with a certainty unmatched — erode that same cliff until the only hints of it are smooth sands, hidden beneath the water.

  The interplay was clearly meant to demonstrate the principles she described — but the complex geometry was beyond his ability to comprehend.

  But why do your images get stronger, up to a point, and then weaker past it?

  For the first, because I'm too fast for the world. For the second, because I'm not fast enough. Perhaps it would help to think of it like rain — the same amount comes down, but if it comes slowly, it's a pleasant drizzle, that soaks into the ground. If it comes down quickly — it's a dangerous flood, because it cannot soak in fast enough. I'm the rain in this metaphor, in case that wasn't clear.

  That makes sense. But, shouldn't you be going my speed, if I'm bringing your pattern with me, when I accelerate?

  You aren't bringing me, though. You're bringing a calling card, or a targeting indicator. I exist entirely outside your Talent, and I only oscillate so fast.

  Hmm. Well, I can bring Soot, and air — I wonder if I could bring you?

  A fragment, perhaps. But there's potential to for that to go terribly awry. Imagine if you brought the angry part of me, but my conscience or ethics didn't make it?

  Oh. That could be bad. Wait, there's a very angry part of you?

  Oh, yes. I think, in that, we perhaps understand each other very well. So, for the good of all of us, please don't try.

  Agreed. Time to head back, I suppose. Thanks for the light show. And talking.

  Any time, Nat.

  The trip back to the coach was significantly faster, though as he was lifting himself back up into the coach, he noticed what could only be Siya's eyes — two green orbs, glowing brightly out in the tall grass. Interesting.

  Nat sat back down in the seat, careful to arrange himself as closely to his prior position as he could remember, but he hesitated a moment before he left the dark void of the Talent, mentally preparing himself for the inevitable awkward continuation of a conversation he did not wish to have. He caught a half-sob before it escaped and took his self-control with it. Then carefully smoothed out his face, until it took on the impassive look most casual observers would only ever see.

  [Slip]

  Nat unfroze from the stone-like form that he hoped Ellie hadn't noticed in the few seconds he'd been insensate, expecting for her to perhaps be reiterating her question, or asking another one. He reached to close the door he had opened, but been unable to close in his Talent.

  As he reached, his glance took in Lyn, wide awake in the seat across from him, staring at him with their gemstone eyes. The two clackaw that had taken the place of their two messengers had landed and were clutching the top of still open door — clearly agitated, their heads twisting side to side in search of something. Siya, for his part, was sitting on the runner — staring in at Nat, with a confused-looking Novek visible behind him, keeping pace alongside the coach.

  “Um, Hi,” was what he managed to say.

  Novek leapt and grabbed hold of the handles and pulled himself up onto the sideboard. Once situated, he looked down at Siya, then to the clackaw, and to Lyn. “Siya? Lyn? What happened? Why the sudden alarm?”

  Lyn squinted at Novek, then shifted their gaze back to Nat — their nictating membranes moving to cover their eyes, leaving only a thin slot uncovered. “I'm not sure of the details yet, but I think it's safe to say that any Ber in the area know we're here.”

  Oh. I had not considered how visible that might be. Sorry, my bad.

  “I'm not sure visible is the word I'd use. So, why exactly were you trying to emulate a rift pulse in miniature?”