Rune

"What's her name?" I asked.

"Rune." He said gruffly.

"That's not fair… She has such a cute name…" I groaned

She slowly pulled her hair down farther over her face, but her movements were so weak you'd think she was actively dying. Her breathing was heavy, and her heart rate was fast, despite her small size and lack of any movement.

. 'My name makes me sound like I'm part of an inquisition or something…' Letting out a sigh I knelt down on the floor next to my bed. "Ok, Rune. I'm going to hold your hand for a minute, just try to relax.' I grabbed a hold of her hand and instantly felt a jolt, manna flowing through me like a current of burning alcohol that even ran through the grooves in my bones. After a moment, and no doubt thanks to my dragons. I was able to change the flow from running through me to running around me. After that I sent my own manna back into her body to try and figure out what was wrong but none of the feedback I got made sense. I quickly let go and the excess manna around me dispersed.

"So… You did something right?" Mo asked, raising an eyebrow.

'Kind of… I'm making this up as I go… Honestly, from the feedback I got…' "Bear, you said she was your sister right?"

He nodded. "I found her on the street and adopted her."

'What, she's not a dog…' I slowly leaned back over her and pulled her hood down, revealing cute fuzzy wolf ears. 'Or… Maybe she is…' Her eyes went wide as she flopped her ears down, limply lifting an arm over one of them to hide, nervously trying to pull her hood back up. 'Well… That explains why the manna traveled the way it did… I think she has a tail too…' I gently pulled her over from her side and brought her arm back down. "Hey, hey, it's fine. See look." I pointed at my eyes. "Some people are just a little different than others."

'It would make sense that people treating her like a freak for being different was what traumatized her… But she's never seemed all that scared… Just embarrassed… This is why I feel really bad about what I'm going to do next…' "Right…" I cleared my throat, standing up. 'How do I explain the problems I'm running into with my magic… Without saying I'm using magic…' "Bear… Go wait outside…"

He let out a slow heavy breath but turned and left without complaint. 'If nothing else He's the perfect subordinate… He really does just trust me unconditionally…'

"Ok… So… Mo…"

"Just tell me what to do."

'Right… She's been conditioned to follow orders without explanations…' I sighed. "Her clothes are made out of leather." 'Which I confuse too easily with her body and blurs everything together…' I sighed. "I need to be able to see her body, and her clothes are too thick and getting in the way.

"So you need me to take her clothes off, got it." The girl squeaked again but didn't even have the energy to tense up.

"Everything that's made of leather… If that happens to be everything then we can just cover her with a blanket… Fabrics tend to have like twice the relative amount of carbon as human skin… And you have no idea what that means… But it doesn't matter." 'Honestly… I'm not even sure if that's actually the reason it works like this…'

I felt bad enough as it was embarrassing her even more… But I only felt worse when Mo stopped halfway through to stare at her tail, which understandably made her feel more self-conscious, at least by the looks of her face suddenly turning bright red.

Her underwear was made from something more like cotton thankfully, but we decided to cover her with a blanket anyway and I sent another wave of manna through her body, tracing her circuits. 'Her manna circuits are thicker than her arteries… They're thicker than her freaking muscles… And she's releasing so much manna her body is even growing new circuits through her clothes…'

I let go again, taking a moment to steady myself.

"Did it work?"

I slowly turned and sat on the floor "One of the things I'm really good at feeling is Manna, you know what that is right?"

"Sure."

"Well, she has so much of it that it's even fusing itself into her clothes."

"So we need to make her naked?"

She squeaked again.

I grabbed her hand before she could do anything "No! No… Nothing like that… Although…" 'I'm starting to think her gate isn't broken after all… It's more like… The pressure gradient between her body and the outside world is too high, so her circuits aren't allowed to close the gate… It's not so much broken as much as it is held open by a permanent tsunami…'

"How come half the time you think with your mouth open… And the other half the time you try to talk with your mouth closed?"

Suddenly I was starting to feel a little embarrassed too. "I just try to be careful with my words…" I chuckled

"50% proficiency isn't very high… What do we have to do? Do you want me to make something, we have plenty of herbs."

'I don't let my thoughts slip out that often do I? Is it really 50 % of the time?' I rubbed my head. "No, I'm going to try something first," I still couldn't cast spells by combining soul and manna… But I had been working on it bit by bit, and I felt confident in at least manipulating them together without rupturing all my circuits. 'Ok… Manna is incredibly resistant to moving through soul energy… If I can wrap my soul around her body, and then wrap that with manna to remove the pressure gradient, that should hold out long enough for her gate to close.'

"You're about to do something stupid again aren't you…"

I suddenly stopped just before starting. "What? No… Why would say that?"

"You have a look."

"I do not… You're serious?"

"Same look you gave your brother when you told him to throw you over the castle wall, or just before you marched across that open plane into arrow fire… You have a look."

"Ok… But… Those both worked…"

She shrugged. "Can't argue with that."

I turned back to Rune, who instead of being embarrassed showed some combination of wonder and astonishment. 'Well… This will be the first time spreading my soul this thin…' It's worth a try though… And souls always rebound back to the owner if something goes wrong… Probably… Oh… But If I stretch myself too thin will the dragon break out and wreak havoc again?' I turned back to Mo, suddenly starting to get nervous.

"Just do it already, we both know you're going to anyway, whatever it is."

"Right… Well, sorry if this makes you uncomfortable then..." 'I can't project my soul into anything I'm not holding… And I need the distance between us to be as little as possible to minimize how thinly it stretches.' I climbed under the blanket and lay down next to her, intertwining our arms and grabbing her hand. 'No time like the present… Who knows how long it will take for me to recover from this…'