A Fire of my Own

"Now that you know how to float with your own power," Professor Aionia declared with a pleased smile, "I shall teach you how to kick and tread the waters."

In front of him lay the cylinder of metal once again. 

"Professor?" 

"Yes?"

"Does it always have to be this cylinder?" 

Elwin inquired half in-jest, and half in memory of the phantom pain that made him massage his sides. It was no longer a feared obstacle, but he felt amused that there were so many things such a simple thing as a cylinder could do to help him master the Arts.

"It certainly grows on you, doesn't it?" Professor Aionia joked wryly, momentarily relinquishing the distance of professorship. The two laughed as Tanaar and Arten, the wall of impersonality between them now broken. 

She as his Tanaar witnessed the courage and tenacity that Elwin displayed, day after day, week after week, and he in turn witnessed her dedication to teaching him at the crack of every daybreak, every waning Sun, every weekday and weekend, through rain and snow, even though she had mountains of work to wrangle. There was an exhaustion unspoken that was always on Professor Aionia's expression when Elwin looked, but she never failed to smile when encouraging him up every time he fell.

For the first time since that disastrous duel with Lucian nearly half a year ago, Elwin felt blessed. Once his training was complete and he had proved his worth as a rightful member of Aeternitas at the midyear exams, Elwin thought, he would ask Professor Aionia all about what he wanted to know – how she came to be an experimental philosopher, whether she knew to control all the Four Mahamastra equally well, how and when she mastered the art of flight for when she introduced herself to the first-years at the dining hall, why she presented her name as Hana Reiss instead of her true name back at The Marlin, and most of all, why she sacrificed her time and health to help a boy like him succeed.

"Elwin... Elwin?"

"Ehm... oh, sorry, yes!" Elwin replied, snapping out of his long train of thoughts. In time he would learn to distill them.

"Are you ready for the next stage?" Professor Aionia asked, readying her Quan.

"I am."

Elwin put his cloth blindfold once again, and as he breathed, perceived the trees and the winds and the moon come above him with a tapestry of golden weaves. He felt the heat as Professor Aionia heated up the cylinder white-hot as she did back then; and saw its dense, packed swirling lines in his quiet Asha. 

"Up till now, you've trained to see the energy of the world. Now, it is time for you to pull it, push it, and redirect it, just as you'd train to kick the waters once you're afloat. From here on, it is about moving energy."

Elwin nodded.

"Hold out your Quan to the metal."

Elwin slowly raised his left hand outstretched, and as he did so, became conscious of his beloved Quan humming to life, awakening from its rest.

"Do you remember your first coming-of-age? What did you dream of, when you received the blessing of the Founder MANASURA?"

"I was... I think I was just eleven... I was a dragon of the sea in a tempestuous storm. I recall there was a figure of luminescent blue, and when I reached my claws out to grasp at that figure, I awoke."

"Water swirled around you when you awoke, didn't it?"

Within his subconscious, a tinge of delightful surprise arose. "It did! How did you know?"

"I guessed. For me, all the earth around me was rumbling like an earthquake, but it wasn't a directionless rumble; there was a melody to it, a harmony, like the striking of xylophones to a composition of music."

"Your Maht is Gurun, Professor?"

"Gurun indeed."

"Does everyone have the same experience at their first coming-of-age? Er, I mean, for a specific Element?"

"Not exactly could you call them 'same,' but they are rhymes of the same song. Now, it is challenging to describe in words alone, but there is a boundary between the waking and dreaming mind, a twilight, which everybody feels at their first coming-of-age. You must have felt it too that night. Can you remember it?"

Elwin thought back to it, appearing to him as a memory from an ancient time.

"Yes, professor."

"Good. See if you can return to that state of mind at the present. Imagine yourself as the dragon that you dreamt; imagine the glowing metal cylinder in your vision as the luminescent figure of blue, and you are reaching out to touch it."

Elwin took a measured breath and calmed his senses. By clearing his head and sharpening his focus like blade upon grindstone, which now came natural to him, Elwin felt at ease feeling the ORI of the world moving around his present self, its various weaves dancing, breathing, vibrating like strings from an instrument. 

He gently let his consciousness drift to the moment before slumber, that deep, velvety ocean of dreams; but carefully he nudged that limbo, lest he fall asleep for real. There was no such twilight he could see nor walk, and his mind quickly filled with thoughts and questions again. He felt his Quan twitch in agitation, reflecting the frustration of his spirit; but just as he lifted his mind above the surface of the water in annoyance, he saw a thin string just a hair's width above the ocean. Concentrating, and relaxing his focus at the same time, he grasped it, and hoisted himself upward – and when he had done so, he felt the exact same as he did that night of three long years ago, and when he looked upon his own figure he was a dragon of blue, made of hundreds of weaves that made up the world.

Can you see yourself? Professor Aionia's voice now came as if from above and everywhere, although she was immediately to his side.

Yes, Elwin replied back, unsure whether he'd just spoken with his tongue or projected it from his thoughts.

Good. Now, reach for that cylinder of golden weaves with your outstretched hand. Quietly, gradually.

He opened his palm, his fingers as dragonclaws lifting above the ocean towards that cylinder of golden energy. And as he did so, he saw the three blue weaves from his dragonformed-self unravel and flutter across the blackness of space; like threads from spun cloth it flew and flew until at last, it touched upon the vibrating cylinder in his vision.

"Ow! Ow – it's hot – it is very hot!" Elwin exclaimed, feeling the heat upon his Asha for the first time, where in the past he only saw it.

You are not in danger, Elwin. At ease. Don't let go – have as much time as you need.

And so Elwin endured and waited, his forehead dripping with sweat, ever conscious of the blazing heat which he now felt with his mind. But every second that passed assured him that it wasn't dangerous; like a curious child he reached for the hot cylinder with more weaves of his own soul, first with one string, then another, and another, every contact scalding hot at first, but dulling. Incredibly, Elwin felt his left arm and wrist envelop in heat, and was smitten with realization that his Quan was helping to do the work for him, sharing the burden of energy.

Excellent. Now, listen very carefully. When you pull the strings taut, the energy of the hot cylinder will flow directly into you. Try it; and when you've pulled all of its energy to yourself, I want you to release it into the empty space; into the air.

Elwin gulped and furrowed his brow. If learning how to float taxed his physique, kicking the waters tested the constitution of his very soul and mind. 

On the count of three – 

"No, wait, professor!"

Two – one – 

Elwin had no leisure to rationalize. By instinct, he pulled taut the lines that linked him to the vibrating weaves of the metal cylinder, and as he did, he saw them glow white-hot with energy, all of its heat rushing directly into his mind. His soul was immediately lit ablaze with the power that the cylinder once held, and the world around him illuminated like midday as if he was a Sun that flew above the ocean. Elwin felt his head hot, wobbly, and full of vertigo, just like when he was about to make the final strike upon his Quan to complete the soulforge. But he knew that he had survived such a feat before, and he would overcome this too. 

Guided by the motions he found natural, Elwin rallied all the energy he held into his Quan, vibrating to escape, and then punched it into the air, seeing the white hot threads shoot across the sky in a hundred threads, sizzling and snapping, drenching the atmosphere in a firework of colors.

Professor Aionia rushed his blindfold off; and in front of him, in the world of sight, glimmered the embers of a brilliant fire which he himself had breathed to life. Elwin, the boy of water, unable to set alight even the smallest woodblock in Professor Helen's class, had finally produced fire of his own accord.

Never would Elwin be able to forget this moment.

He looked to Professor Aionia next to him; and she gave him a cool smile, giving him a thumbs-up.

The metal cylinder which had glowed white hot, was cooled to silvery gray by Elwin's own power. Witnessing the task successful, Elwin could let out only a single phrase before he collapsed in exhaustion.

"Why am I so dizzy?..."

When Elwin came to, it was far past the evening hours and deep into the night. He awakened, rubbing his eyes, rising from the sweetest sleep he'd had in weeks. He noticed Professor Aionia's thick cape upon him, for she'd laid it on his sleeping self as the night was cold.

"Finally awake, are we?" 

Professor Aionia looked out into the quietly lit campus grounds below from the summit. It was still two weeks until the Artens would return to the Academy.

"Yes, did I?..."

"Worry not. No great feat is ever achieved without passing out at least once."

She spoke that sentence with such casual levity that Elwin was convinced the experience was not new to her being. But in a strange way, the comment connected both of their thoughts, the wryness with which they dealt with tribulations; in that brief, sweet moment, the Tanaar and Arten chuckled together. 

"Some tea?"

Professor Aionia floated a ceramic cup of steaming tea in his direction. 

"Careful now. Hold it with your sleeves."

In that brief moment, pale light from the Moon and the Rings of SERA shone clearly through the parted clouds, and Elwin saw the tea glimmering like a pool of gold, reflecting the stars above. He thanked her and took a cautious sip. 

It was the same tea that Katherine offered them all aboard the skycraft months ago. It was a tea that Mirai knew, a tea that Mirai spoke of as enjoyed by the peoples of Heian.

"Is this Hoji, professor?"

Professor Aionia raised her eyebrow with a hint of knowing mirth.

Elwin asked. "Are you... from Heian?"

She sighed quietly, somewhat longingly, and looked to the great plains of the east, towards the Tannunion Gates and the snowy peaks that stood guard. Past the shoulders of those numerous peaks, across a plain vaster still, across an inland sea, and even higher peaks and in a lonely forest hamlet at the City of Tranquility, her journey began.