Completed 10/04
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Chapter Ten: Paradigms
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"Now, Iris, you need to relax. You can do this, my little rabbit; it just takes practice. Remember the feeling and try to find it in your mind again."
Iris nodded from where she stood in the middle of the front room. The sunbeams shining on her face through the front wall's window elicited no reaction from her sightless eyes; her shadow touched the brick fireplace and mantle behind her. A table and her toy chest stood to the right, and on her left the couch and Aran's favorite chair divided the front room from the kitchen. Drawing comfort from her knowledge of the familiar surroundings, Iris closed her eyes again.
She took a deep, calming breath and followed her mother's instructions, searching for the strange, tingly sensation. She had found it twice today already, but lost hold of it again in her excitement, just like she had for the past three weeks.
After a short silence her mind's eye brushed it once more, and she gasped — reached— and lost it. She sat down on the floor, hard, her eyes filling with tears of frustration. "I can't do it, mama!"
Miki knelt beside her daughter and pulled the girl onto her lap in a comforting embrace. "Yes, you can," she replied soothingly. Iris shook her head and continued to cry. "You're an amazing girl, Iris. I know you can do this. It doesn't matter how long it takes."
"But it's so hard!" Iris wailed, her six-year-old self hating the fact that she couldn't master what sounded like such a simple thing.
Miki sighed, having lost count of how many times Iris had lost patience over the past week. Perhaps it was time to try a new tack. She waited until Iris had cried her frustrations out of her system and calmed down before speaking. "Yes, it is hard. Do you know what that means?"
Iris shook her head, scrubbing the tears off of her face.
"It means that it takes time and work to learn. Did you think you would always understand everything the first moment you heard it, or learn something the first time you tried it?" Silence was Iris's only answer, but Miki understood it anyway. Iris had never truly experienced a challenge before. "Many things in life, even the best things that will ever happen to you, will be hard. You'll have to learn perseverance in order make it through and reach them. Can you do that, Iris?"
Iris's silence changed from sullen to thoughtful, and she shifted in Miki's arms, turning her face upward to focus blind eyes on her mother. "I don't know, mama. Hard is... hard."
Miki smiled. "Well, how about if I promise to help you until you can make it through hard by yourself?"
Iris contemplatively wrinkled her nose, reminding Miki again of why she had given Iris her rabbit nickname. "Promise?"
"Promise," Miki agreed, lightly kissing her daughter's forehead. "Now help me make midday, and then we'll try again after we eat, all right?"
"All right, mama."
Later that afternoon, Iris stood in the front room with her eyes closed for the second time that day. The area rug covering the square patch of wooden floor felt slightly squishy beneath her bare feet. Miki knelt beside her, clasping the girl's hand in both of hers.
"Ready, Iris?"
Iris nodded emphatically, her long hair bouncing at the motion.
Miki carefully led Iris through the process again, making sure she stayed calm and focused. Their progress was slow and painstaking, but Miki refused to let Iris get discouraged or frustrated by how much time had passed, or distracted by the birdsongs audible outside.
Finally, after at least an hour and a half, Iris stiffened slightly and exhaled.
"Now, hold on to it," Miki commanded. Iris obeyed, her head moving around as if she were examining something right in front of her. "Let yourself get accustomed to the feeling. The better you know it, the easier it will be to find and hold onto."
Concentrating wasn't always Iris's strong suit, but she put forth a grand effort for the sake of her mother and carefully memorized how she felt. Then she nodded, still holding on to the sensation in her mind, her excitement beginning to get the better of her. "I think I have it, mama!"
"Remember, calm. Otherwise you'll lose it."
Horrified at the very thought after having come so far, Iris forced herself to calm down. For a moment she thought she was going to lose her still somewhat shaky hold, but her fears went unrealized and she stood triumphantly, still in contact with the feeling.
"You're doing marvelously. Ready for the next step?"
"I think so, mama."
"Concentrate on that sensation and tug at it a little with your mind. If nothing happens, try it from a different way."
Though by itself Miki's instruction would have seemed to make little sense, Iris understood the point and tried it. On her first try, nothing happened, but on the second something seemed to shift.
"Mama!" Iris gasped. She turned to Miki with her eyes wide and shining, her hands clasped together in front of her. And Miki realized that she had been right. Iris's eyes were focused. On her.
Iris was seeing.
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Donnnnnnng!
Aislyn woke at the bell's toll but kept her eyes closed. The moment they opened she would get an eyeful of sunlight from the window facing her bed. She was far, far too exhausted to get up anyway. Her mathematics homework had devoured half of her sleeping time, since numbers hated letting her find the right answers. It was maddening, and made for many a sleepless night of solving, checking, and re-checking.
The blankets were so warm, and she was so tired... it wouldn't hurt to rest for a few more minutes...
Donnnnnnng!
At the sound of the second bell Aislyn jerked back awake, her body responding to the conditioning it had endured over the past four and a half years. The second bell was the last wake-up call. To fall asleep again would murder any chance she had for a decent day, or even a decent week.
Thoroughly awake at the very thought, Aislyn rolled off her bed and began her morning routine: dressing, morning ablutions, cleaning her corner of the room, and ignoring the gossip of her seven roommates as they did the same.
As smells from the dining hall wafted into the room she made her bed and stowed her possessions in the wooden chest. It still felt a little strange to be so neat, since before she had left home her room always looked like a windstorm had just passed through. Here at the school complex, however, messiness was not tolerated, which meant the small area she called her own stayed spotless.
Aislyn glanced at the clock above the door and gave a cry of dismay. She grabbed her bag and ran to the dining hall already full of chattering girls, practically inhaled the food set at her place, and dashed out again. The boys training institution was in another part of the education complex, and she had ten minutes to get there. Even using all the extra swiftness she possessed as a Sylph, her record travel time between buildings stood at eleven minutes, thirty-seven seconds.
Time to set a new record, then.
Aislyn skidded up to her classroom door and slipped inside as the giant bell in the complex's center signaled the start of classes. She dropped into the last empty seat, the one closest to the door, and busied herself with retrieving her homework from her bag, hoping Nii Dairn wouldn't comment on her arrival.
"So glad you could join us, Lady Aire," said her teacher without glancing up from the papers on his desk. Aislyn cringed. A welcome like that did not bode well for the rest of the day.
She was right. During the discussion of history, she forgot who lead the terrorist group that tried to assassinate the emperor's father, Emperor Vendre II, five hundred years ago. When Dairn returned the previous day's homework, she found her map of the Capital's surrounding countryside was scaled wrong, and would have to be completely redrawn to receive any credit. To top the morning off, during Dairn's science lecture she received her classmate's semi-regular notice that denounced her right to attend their class, and said she should go back to her girly studies with the rest. Though not entirely unexpected, the reminder of twenty boys' disdain was just one more thing to pile on to her general exhaustion.
It was bad enough, she mused as she ate lunch in the boys' dining hall with her six fellow girl extremists, that she had to fool her teachers for five more years, without having the extra need to prove her worth to her peers as well. She bit into her pear with a resigned sigh and let her eyes drift around the hall.
Funny, the way the students congregated. The staff ate around two tables at one end of the hall, with the outspoken extremists nearest to them and the least vocal at the far end, nearest the main doors. Since she sat with the extremists, she never really had a chance to see the people who could be potential allies in her little private war. She didn't dare try to talk to them, not with how her classmates would react; the most she could do was try and memorize what a few of them looked like, for future reference.
Like the cute brunette boy who stood half a head taller than most of the entire student body, although he was in her year and had to be about her age. It was impossible not to notice him. He stood out even on the other side of the dining hall, talking to his friends and laughing. She was pretty sure his name was Landon; all the classes had weapons and magic training together, and she thought the training instructor called him that —
Aislyn abruptly paused in her thoughts, narrowly avoiding choking on a bite of pear. Today was an all-afternoon training day rather than a half-afternoon, and a review day. She closed her eyes, wishing that reality would go away. With her luck she would be called on to do something she couldn't. For all of her hard-earned skills in physical combat, her mastery of magic skill remained severely limited to a few heavily practiced works.
Abandoning her last shreds of hope for a good day, she polished off her pear and walked to the training grounds with all the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner heading to the executioner's block.
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Iris couldn't stop moving, mesmerized by the world of shapes and colors she had never seen. She flitted around the house, looking as if she were trying to memorize its appearance in case she lost her sight again. She turned to her play corner and began examining her toys, seeing them for the first time, exclaiming over the colors she had never seen before.
"Mama, how?"
Miki smiled at her daughter with tear-filled eyes. She rose from her kneeling position and took a detailed painting and a mirror that stood on the mantelpiece, sitting on the couch with them on her lap. "Come look, Iris. I'll show you."
Iris jumped onto the couch beside her mother, pausing only a moment as the cream fabric of the cushion distracted her. Miki held out the portrait to her, and Iris examined it with interest.
"Is that papa? And me?"
The picture showed Iris and her father sitting outside in the garden in the dappled shadows of a maple tree. Aran smiled out at the viewer, so carefully detailed that the individual brown hairs of his short beard could be discerned. Iris waved from her father's lap, her eyes dancing happily. In the bottom corner of the oval canvas lay Miki's signature.
"Yes, that's the two of you. That's your blue eyes and blonde hair."
"Blue. Blonde," Iris repeated, pulling her hair around to see it.
"Now, look here." Miki replaced the painting with the mirror, letting Iris peer at the reflective surface.
"Oh!"
Iris's pale skin and blonde hair looked no different from the picture, but the eyes... Iris stared at her double's eyes in wonder. Instead of a bright sky blue, she gazed at two orbs of pale cream flecked with shades of all the colors in the rainbow. And there was something else — Iris looked up at her mother's face, then back down at the mirror.
Miki saw comprehension dawn on her daughter's face. Iris had realized that while the blue eyes of her mother and the painting held pupils, her own now had none.
"How — what —?" For once in her short life, Iris seemed lost for words.
"Iris, look at me." Iris obeyed, and Miki gazed down at her little girl as she reached in her own mind for the sensation she had spent so many weeks teaching Iris to find. She tugged it lightly, and turned the mirror to encompass them both. Another pair of pupilless eyes gazed out from the glass-covered silver surface.
"I've been teaching you about the Fae; do you remember what the Tienchi look like?"
"The earth-fae. They look like humans, mama, except... for their eyes..."
"That's right, Iris. Your papa is human, but I am a fae. Because you are our child, you hold the blood of both races, and can naturally take the appearance of both. You have also inherited Tienchi magic from my blood."
"Magic, mama?" Iris turned from the mirror to stare at her mother, trying to absorb everything she was hearing.
"Yes, like how I disguise myself to appear human." Miki hid her eyes again, letting the magic façade settle over them. "But your human form is not a disguise; simply put, you can transform between fae form and human form."
"Why can I see this way?" Iris asked, voicing the most pressing of her questions.
"Tienchi sight is different from human sight. When you change it can work properly with your form and you can see, but it cannot work when you are human. That's why you've been blind."
"Can I stay this way, mama? Please?" Iris pleaded. "There's so much..." She trailed off, unable put her thoughts into words.
"I'm afraid you can't all the time, darling." Before Iris could protest, Miki hurried to continue: "When you meet people, it's not safe to look like a Fae. You can only be changed with people you trust completely, you understand?"
"Yes, but—"
"If you stay changed for too long you will forget what it's like to be blind, and be forced to learn how to compensate for having no sight all over again. To be able to live in either manner, you must first master both. Which is why I'm going to teach you to use your magic, as well."
"Really?"
"Why else do you think I taught you how to find it?"
Iris giggled. "Teaching me everything in the world?"
Miki laughed at the thought and began tickling her daughter. Iris squealed and squirmed, laughing uncontrollably, but remained pinned. "Well, I'll have to teach you how to escape a captor while I'm at it, won't I?"
"Mama!"
After a few more seconds Miki relented and released Iris. "However, first the garden needs weeding. And since you can see now, you can help me."
"The garden!" Iris dashed out the door, intent on seeing the beauty of the outdoors she had only felt and heard.
Miki smiled after her daughter, then gathered her gardening tools and followed Iris outside.
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Aislyn panted slightly, practice sword in hand, worn out from the long procession of sword duels Lesin had just forced the entire group through. She sat down on the grassy field behind the boys' school building where their combat instructor, Lesin, trained them in magic and weapons. Closing her eyes partway, she bowed her head and let the cool autumn breeze wash over her skin.
Magic was over, swords was over, and after this blessed fifteen-minute break all that remained was specialty weapons. He was working them harder than usual today; going from past experience she figured her muscles would be sore for a week afterwards. At least.
Her classmates were quieter than normal, even for one of Lesin's breaks, smarting from the physical strain and verbal lashing that characterized his exam style. She could hear one or two quiet conversations, probably comparisons of wins and losses. She didn't care enough to try listening in.
She did hear an anonymous classmate mutter "Sadist," and she smirked. He did seem to enjoy pushing every one of them to their limits and beyond. The only consolation was that they all suffered according to their objective level of skill — no favorites, no targets, only equally idiotic dimwits. And they learned.
Aislyn curled her hand slightly as it lay palm up in the grass, and concentrated. A small pattern of light-sparks appeared in her loose fist, barely visible in the late afternoon sun. She smiled at it. Three months of extra practice in creating light, snatched from her sparse free time, had paid off. With the good fortune of being assigned to make light, she'd been able to go far beyond the usual glowy light-ball. She almost thought that Lesin had sent an approving upward curl of the lips in her direction after criticizing the brightness of her creation, but she wasn't ready for the world to end quite yet.
She sighed and banished the sparkling points of light. It was a beginning, even if there was so much left to work on. Her father had once told her that she held enormous magic potential, if only she had the skill and patience to harness it. She might not have the skill yet, but the memory of ridicule supplied more than enough patience.
"Win them all, Aislyn?" Aislyn looked up. Deirdre, the closest thing she had to a friend among her schoolmates, gave her a smile. The girl was older than her by a year, and though Aislyn could hardly believe it, more devoted to hating humans than she pretended to be. Deirdre had gravitated to Aislyn from their similar attitudes, and Aislyn did her best to keep up her façade. When Deirdre talked about humans, the light in her golden eyes was scary. And she fought like a whirlwind: deadly and untouchable.
"Maybe a majority, if I'm lucky. Did you lose any?" Aislyn replied.
"To Ayl. The jerk is unbeatable. I'll be glad when he graduates."
"Don't let Ayn hear you say that. She'd claw you."
Deirdre snorted. "Thank you for reminding me of the other lovely classmate I'll be happy to see graduate this spring."
"So happy to oblige." Aislyn stretched, pulling her arms back, and then pushed herself into a handstand. Her small size made dexterity imperative for an even fight, and she worked hard to stay limber. Her miserable magic skill was due in part to the fact that she had spent the previous four years focusing almost entirely on physical fighting skills.
"Weapons change!" Lesin barked, dark eyes glaring at the students from an ageless face. His tall frame quivered with pent up energy, looking for all the world like he was just waiting for someone to pounce on.
"And here we go..." Deirdre sighed as they walked to the large equipment building at the edge of the training field.
In the shed Aislyn picked up her whip, happy to feel the familiar grip in hand. She possessed a natural skill with the whip, honed by practice, and enjoyed using it. Deirdre retrieved her bow and quiver and waved as she headed to the archery targets, leaving Aislyn with her fellow melee fighters.
"Serah! Paden!" Lesin bellowed, pointing at a random girl and boy in the group. Aislyn joined the makeshift ring of watching students as the second round of dueling began. She glanced wistfully over at the archery targets, easily finding Deirdre's bright red hair among the other archers. It would be nice to have someone around now to commiserate with over Lesin's way of training.
He seemed to do the impossible, watching both the duels and the archery routines simultaneously. It gave Aislyn a headache, watching between her own fights as he darted around, turning and shouting criticisms at everyone at once. She was willing to swear he had to split himself in two in order to see everything, but see everything he did.
"Aislyn! Landon!"
Aislyn trudged into the circle. She looked up to meet his gaze — and further up. Her head didn't even reach the tall and gangly brunette boy's shoulders. He hefted his weapon, a single-bladed polearm, and nodded at her in the customary salute (most of the weapons didn't lend themselves to a normal swordsman's salute, so respectful nods substituted). She returned the gesture, and the fight began.
Almost immediately Aislyn realized she was in trouble. Her normal strategy of quickly disarming her opponent, which worked better than just lacerating them with the braided leather, wouldn't work. His grip on his weapon was too strong for her to snag it from him. She paused her offensive for a moment, unsure what to do instead. As she tried to change tacks against him, aiming for his wrists, he abruptly jarred her whip out of her hands with a hit from the unbladed side of his polearm. Aislyn found herself staring down the slightly curved, foot-long blade held mere centimeters from her face. Even though as a training weapon the blade was a dark, polished wood, it could easily break her nose.
Weaponless, she raised her hands, conceding defeat. He withdrew his weapon with a half-smile and Aislin retrieved her dropped weapon before exchanging another salute. Lesin was a stickler for proper dueling behavior, a habit formed who knew when. In Fae society life-spans varied wildly, and it was extremely bad form to ask about a fae's age. For all Aislyn knew, Lesin had been around during the assassination attempt on Vendre II five hundred years ago, or he could have graduated from the school in the last ten years and live for less than a hundred more.
"Dismissed!" called Lesin, and Aislyn realized that she and Landon had been the last duel of the day. The sun was fast approaching the horizon. "Put your gear away properly, you lazy idiots, or you'll clean the entire inventory spotless before I'm through with you!"
Since no one doubted he would happily follow through on his threat, the students put their training weapons and protective gear away with great care. Aislyn met up with Deirdre outside, and the two jogged off to the girls' living quarters to change out of their sweaty, grimy clothes before dinner was served in their dining hall.
"See you there!" said Aislyn over her shoulder as she entered her quarters. She changed, thought longingly of a steaming hot bath, and then decided by a large growl from her stomach that food took precedence. Dinner, then a bath, revising her geography map, her science homework, and then sleep. Sleep...
Aislyn yawned, glanced wistfully at her waiting bed, turned and winced as the setting sun hit her eyes through the window above her trunk, and left for the dining hall. The day wasn't over yet, but it would be soon. The world of dreams awaited.
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And so the blonde duo returns. More of Iris coming soon, and the Ryven gang as well. And to anticipate the question, yes, Landon is Nephrite. He may reappear again in Aislyn's world in future chapters, but he's sticking to the "mysterious unknown" beat for now. Mamoru will hopefully debut within the next two chapters.
There's a cookie for whoever mentions the other two cameos in a review. ::holds up plate of chocolate chocolate-chip cookies:: I'm trying to bring in the rest of the SM universe as minor characters, but bear with me — it's easier to create a character to fit a role than to build the role around an already existent character.
More to come soon, since my lovely editor reminds me that my (hopefully) loyal followers need more story to read. Thank you, 'shina! ::glomps:: (And I promise someday I'll fix the glaring errors of the previous chapters so they're as good as this one; someday.)
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Reviewer Responses:
Fire Lady: I'm honored that this story is one of your favorites. I love to hear your questions and encouragement. I'm still working out the kinks in Kayamé and Tarai's future, and Ghenn and Emmaline are original characters. Artemis and Luna should have cameos eventually, though. I love the cats. Also, there will eventually be chapters in the ten years and beyond time frame. Eventually.
Novaleigh617: Thanks for the typo-alert, and I'm glad you're enjoying yourself. No Ryven this time, but they'll definitely be coming back soon. Don't worry, they're all ok, just busy with rebuilding the town. Yes, 9 feels slight dues-ex machina-ed, but that's partially because the end of the chapter got squished into a smaller time frame than it needed. It ain't over yet, though. Stay tuned... ;)
EmeraldSong: You timed your question about Iris rather well; I hope this chapter explains a bit, about Iris's blindness and who are Fae. Who is and who isn't will be revealed over time; at the moment the ratio has changed to three out of eight characters confirmed fae and the other five assumed human. Make no assumptions about race, however... ::grin::
Mistress of Ice1: ::laughs:: I'm glad you're loving to read about Ami and Rei's life. They've gotten a pretty even spotlight in the chapter distribution so far, and I hope to keep it that way. They'll come back soon, though! (For an elastic definition of soon. ::cough::)
Merry Faerie: I'm glad you're still reading, Merry-san! I'm so happy you're reviewing every chapter, too; it's wonderful to know someone's thinking that much about the story. It's also great to know that I'm getting what I want to be shown, written. Typos will be fixed soon, I hope. And yes, cliffhangers are never as evil to the author as they are to the reader. ::hugs:: I'm so happy you think I portray the characters well!
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Cheers!
Ocianne
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