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Thirty-minute sessions were held every three hours, each one refining the prosthetic’s calibration further. Elua insisted on varying the timing to first refine the connection by using baseline spiritual states - Dawn, Noon, Dusk, and Midnight, all the sorts of light levels and how that affected her spirit. Working on calm monts before seeking out the more exceptional ones. The first of which was being woken up suddenly in the middle of the night, sohow bright as daylight, with bloodlust rocking the room.
"Your mood affects your spirit, which affects how you process the visual information. If I only calibrate when you’re alert and stable, it’ll stop working properly when you’re tired or emotional."
"If you would stop circling in my blind spot I’d *show* you emotional!"
The brunette danced away from the irate reddish-blonde repeatedly for twenty seconds, unable to get her mother to actually declare what was or was not working with her new eye right now. Not with a set of determined arms reaching out to grapple her in any way possible.
"No, I’d rather not. Were you always so rabid if woken early?"
"I was dreaming of your father, young lady!"
"Are you ever not? You act like I took the one opportunity you’ll ever have to picture him during your sleep!"
A foot stomped on the ground much further upset when hands finally found the illusionary body. Because it morphed and dispersed into a pile of Ogre dolls, like her youngest still slept with. They all landed on their feet - except one who did a handstand - and ran off in all directions. That cost both of them half a day, as neither would apologize.
However, by the fourth day, Yatrel could see more than just blurred light. Shapes began to beco much more distinct. By the seventh, she could read sizeable text even with her organic eye closed. And by the eleventh... the saturation of colors finally matched her natural vision. It was looking good, but the fourteenth day turned out to be a setback which caused Elua’s deeper frustration to finally surface.
"The peripheral vision is still off. Things seem to skew upside down as they approach the edge."
Yatrel reported her only perceivable complaint while tracking a fast moving spiritual automaton - a small, new design that her eldest created for her to use as a sort of combat test partner. The other set of mint eyes squinted and followed it with a grimace, the reincarnator trying to push her adjustnts without destabilizing the whole fragnt of energy with her superior Breacher cultivation in that field. She’d already done that three tis throughout the period of nding the sight.
"Now?"
"Better, a thinner edge of it now... but not quite- oh, it’s all gone again."
"I know."
The ’young’ girl’s voice carried a sharp edge that made Zonnel flinch. She had been watching all of this, with permission, when she was not checking in with her friend. And while she had caught the parent and child bickering playfully, this ti was different. Pressure extended and flattened down, hitting like a runaway train over a cliff edge before it clawed back to the illusionist.
Teenage eyes had gone dull, that emotionless blank face that the mother had not seen since before they parted at the train station, for the start of the Descent. And Zonnel witnessed for the first ti what her strikeforce leader had described. Sharp spikes of emotion - though she would call this hamr-like instead - before imdiate and forceful suppression. Like watching a door slam on soone’s feelings... compartntalized and opaque.
"Elua."
"I’m fine."
"Elua, look at ."
As Yatrel reached out, the daughter began to lift her face ’reluctantly’. Her cheek was cupped gently, with only a small scratching pinch of fingernails near her ear.
"Your stories have painted a picture, but it’s your actions that tell who you are. I’m very proud that you’re reconciling yourself with whoever you once were and whatever you’d once done. So, please don’t hold back like this?"
A thumb brushed against her cheekbone even as her spirit resonated warmly with the Fidelity Astralism in front of her. She knew she was going to regret teaching her during their downti. Rue revealing that in so limited way, the Da Goltbred could use Empath adjacent techniques against... *for* the sake of those she felt a sense of loyalty to. In the sa way that Navuill er Yecine had once tried to calm her down, soone she loved now did so.
’And I really, really hate that it is working. Because I feel like it is only guilt for having blanked her short term mory a handful of tis that I am letting her actually ss with my spirit... sothing I should only be letting Qat do!’
"I don’t want to be the reason you relapse, darling. Not when I know this ans so much to you. You’re allowed to be frustrated for your own sake. You’re allowed to feel things and show them, even when you’re working hard. Especially when you’re working hard - because it ans you aren’t truly focused on the thing you want to be and need to clear your mind. So... tell what’s wrong."
A dam built of distractions... prosthetics, regenerators, and the cold and thin air high up in the Exclave... finally broke as the weeks without acknowledging sothing properly built enough stress. Tears spilled over as her reverse-facade shattered, changing from emotionless to the sort of scrunched up, ssy, and snotty face of a teenager who could not just imagine she had lost her mother - but one who had lived it enough to know she didn’t want to experience it again.
Her shoulders shook as she sobbed and tried to talk through all the fear and fury when she’d first read about the injury. And about now, the crushing pressure of wanting to do everything perfectly because it was not just her mother’s quality of life at stake, but potentially sothing she might rely on too far in sudden combat. Thoughts of not letting her go back through the Gateway at all had crossed her mind more than once - and she admitted that freely right now.
One hand stroked through brown hair while murmuring quiet reassurances. A lot of strong, worrying phrases were spoken between the pair. Possessiveness that looked to protect and obsession that divided priorities cleanly. As the duelist lightly threatened her own daughter, to bring her husband to the Exclave if she was not allowed to leave ’or else’, Zonnel stood with her hand on the door’s lever.
Knowing she’d lost the ability to escape what was happening without interrupting it... but not at all brave enough to do so. The healer really just wanted to go deal with the much simpler problem for an Empath. When it ca to Nysoi er Valnf and the depression that Leysah had apparently brought about in the young woman, it just required her to lend an ear, a shoulder, and treat her like a patient in an infirmary that needed food and mandatory exercise.
anwhile, she wasn’t even sure where to begin ’fixing’ these two.
⟠ ⟠ ⟠
A week later, another spiritual pressure wave rippled outward from the central mansion spire. At least it did ’in the future’. Like a shockwave through water, disturbing everything outside of the ditation area under the cliffside basalt arch. The Clairvoyant within broke out of her Astralism training and bolted to catch the wrist of soone and drag her into the protection of the ritual circles. This ti, in reality, rushing a little harder so that it did not make Zonnel faint and get her pinned under the older woman’s weight.
The dulled impact from the foresight experience still made Nysoi wince when the ’ti’ ca, pressing her free hand to her temple. A headache in exchange for the forewarning materialized was a small price. Pressure dissipated quickly, Elua’s regained control shunting most of it skyward or downward into the earth. But from prior experience, the residual force was enough to make the air ’feel’ thick and sticky for several seconds.
’Like swimming in honey. Should the *happiness* of soone really be so violent?’
A hand suddenly ca up to steady herself on the eighteen year old’s shoulder, the hand that was not still caught in Nysoi’s surprisingly iron grip. Their faces were close in the ritual space, considering it had been sized mostly for one person to be seated at. Close enough that pale lilac eyes opening up could easily see the concern forming in the simple, unexciting, unsharp brown eyes.
"Are you alright? Another headache?"
"...Yes. I saw it coming this ti. Sorry. For grabbing you like this."
Releasing the healer’s wrist, suddenly aware of how tightly she’d been holding onto the person... the cultivator that had trapped the young woman against her unconscious body heat. At least, in the first three path-checking renditions of her Astralism usage. It wasn’t intentional and never truly happened, but that didn’t an it was so *easy* to forget the sensation of another woman’s hair falling over your face.
’What is she washing it with, anyway? It’s not what she gave when she forced to take baths after the fourth day here...’
"Don’t apologize for keeping from getting hit by her mirth. I really don’t want to try and resist her again all on my own. That’s the... fourth ti now you’ve warned ? Thank you."
Fingers brushed against Nysoi’s temple in a completely professional assessnt, her eyes closing as she directed her spirit to check for any lingering effect. It was of great interest for the healer to know that Clairvoyant abilities were subjected to feedback damage based on how strong of a spirit the thing they are involved with in potential tilines actually is. She was even considering writing a paper on it to pass the ti.
But for the reddish-blonde, the gentle touch lingered a mont longer than strictly necessary. Her pulse quickened as her ntal defenses sprung up thanks to the adrenaline from the run, she told herself. Not from the easy, unmuddled warmth in Zonnel’s voice when she expressed her gratitude. Or from the unknown need to put proper distance between them... even if it left her out in the viscous field of remnant energy that danced with more ’giddiness’ parts per million than it should.
"Just... paying attention while practicing. It’s nothing. You’ve been checking on so much lately, it’s only fair."
She was given a smile and a pat on the head as the Empath traded places... pulling the younger woman back into the ’safety’ of the modified ditation ritual. Where before it had been mostly designed to bolster the Walk Astralism, it had been touched up to allow a more general exploration and enhancent to spiritual abilities. And Zonnel could feel how the current state of affairs was playing havoc with the sotis manic Valnf.
But that consideration, learned only with a short leap of foresight-only line of questions, made sothing in the cultivator chest tightened uncomfortably. She’d spent over a year knowing exactly where her heart sat. Ti pining hopelessly after a curved blade wielding Kinetic Elentalist, who would never return those feelings like she could redirect and return force. Never in the way the rchant wanted because she *could not*.
There was a sort of safety even in that hopelessness. In the certainty that she’d never have to risk anything because the outco was predetermined by her crush’s sexual preference. It was going to fail, eventually. It always was. But the flutter of uncertainty in her heart over when the plainer woman’s unfettered care was shown...
That wasn’t safe at all. It made every mont feel like she was living in unsteady Clairvoyant ’runs’. For the Valnf daughter had never known what it was like... for a lack of instinctive attraction to *wobble* like it had the past few days. Or what sothing starting from pretty and familiar souls - and not from pretty unfamiliar eyes - was like.
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