Sheets of paper cover part of the wall, circles, and squares drawn over and over with varying sizes and details. One of the sheets is pinned to the corkboard by a single tack, separated from the others. Two, perfectly drawn, concentric circles and two squares tilted, the smaller one's vertices touch the larger one's edge right in the middle, while this one touches the outer circle. There's beauty to its simple design. Thin, even lines, drawn by hand and with no signs of erasing or fixing show the practice put into it. The ones that line the walls and the table are imperfect when compared to it, lines too thick, the ghost lines of erased mistakes marking every paper. The circles are off, sections of it deviating from a perfect circle. Some squares are slanted or unproportionate, some have one line tilted, breaking the perfection. I lean back from the latest try, my back popping when I push it against the chair. I stare at the sheet of paper in front of me, content with the results. I flex my fingers and roll my wrist, some relief washing over the overworked parts. I get up, my knees popping at the movement, and walk up to the other table in the room, placing the sheet on the table and sliding it forward. "This looks good," he says, and I feel my lips stretching into a smile. "And you do understand why I had you do this, right?"
I nod, the movement so quick that my hair brushes against my nose. "It produces a better result." "What about choosing a material?" "Wood. Metals have to be processed the right way to be useful." He looks at me, one eyebrow raised, and sighs. "Good enough, I guess," he says. "Let's go get some materials then." The outside is nice, it was a cloudy day, the thin and wispy kind that simply filtered the sunlight instead of outright blocking it. A constant breeze cools my skin, bringing with it smells of the wood. A musty smell, humid and thick. "Everything that lives absorbs aether, little by little," we reach the forest and when we enter it the smells intensify. It feels a little warmer under the treetops, the air so saturated that it became a little harder to breathe. Sweat started to pool on my brow. "Can you tell which one is better to use?" "The older ones, right? Like that," I point to one, trunk so thick that the both of us couldn't wrap around it. "Compared to that one," I could probably wrap my arms around that alone by myself. He hadn't taught me about that yet, taking his time with each step before advancing to the next one. "You're... not wrong," he starts. "Normally that's how. But what about that one," he indicates the same tree I had just pointed, "and this?" The one he indicates now is a different tree, though it looks the same as the first one. "Or that?" This one is a different type of tree altogether. Lighter bark, almost a light gray, compared to the other's dark browns. I open my mouth to answer, though the answer doesn't come. You would need books about every other tree here to know. "You put aether into it," he places a hand on a random tree, "slowly. You feel a…" he hums, calling me closer with his free hand, placing it on my chest when I get closer.
You would need knowledge about the tree's growth for the third one, but the first two?
He seems amused by the confusion on my face, a slight smile appearing on his.
That weird feeling again.
Two hearts beating out of compass. One fast and erratic, beating strong, the other a steady pace, barely felt. I feel warm despite the breeze that cools my sweat. I feel cool, despite the heavy layer of clothing I feel pushing against my shoulders and brushing against my skin. It continues for a while, warm aether -
This is weird.
I feel the warmth on my -not my- chest, one line going from a heart and quickly branching into dozens if not hundreds of threads. I feel the strands pooling together onto a palm and not stopping there. It pushes through, going somewhere different and I feel it probing around, gathering into a ball.
"This one is not bad," the connection is cut off as he takes his hand off my chest. "Also, you're way too warm." One hand disappears inside the cloak, grabbing something. "Watch out." He holds his fist out, one finger pointing to a tree branch. In the blink of an eye a weird shimmer, long and thin, appears on the tip of his finger and suddenly disappears when he swings his arm. The next thing I hear is the wood cracking, and the branch falls, a clean, smooth cut where the tree connected to it. He points to it another time. The same shimmer and splinters fly when the branch is cut once again, leaving a thick piece of the branch, the size of my forearm. "Pick it up and let's go," he says. His eyebrows shift up and he smiles. "Long day ahead." I pick it up, throwing it up on my shoulder. "How does that work? That whole…" I wave my free hand around as if that was an explanation. "Senses thing?" He looks at me over his shoulder, grinning. "My teacher created it," he seems proud. "People didn't have the right… feel for aether" mana "so he created something to help." "What happened to him?" "Everyone…" he trails off, "it's complicated." We don't talk until we come back to the cottage. We enter a different room, an odd mixture of a library and a workshop. Shelves line half of the room's walls, filled with books, the other half is bare, a single workbench, and a cabinet. He opens it, the door blocking from view what's inside, and picks up a long wooden case from the inside of it. It's varnished, the latch giving in with a click as he opens it. The tools displayed are neatly arranged, four chisels of different sizes reside inside the grooves inside the box. Two hammers, one big and a small one, rest on the same kind of indentation. "You have to carve it if you're using it."
He picks up the smallest chisel, its tip thinner than a finger, and the small ball peen hammer. A flick of the wrist and the chisel spins around his index, the handle pointing at me.
My muscles tense as I roll out of bed. One leg lands solidly on the floor and I push myself up -where am I?- Ceiling and floor seem to switch places as I stumble into a twisted second step. I crash against the door, the sound of it barely registering, with one hand pressed on my mouth and I fumble with the handle before opening it. I take the familiar - where? - route to the bathroom, rushing.
Heaves and splashes of water fill the bathroom. I feel soft fur, lightly pressing against my back, -scared, startled- and without even looking I push Luci away.
I spit out the thick of the acidic taste and collapse on the floor, exhausted, head resting on a folded arm on top of the toilet.
Where am I? What is happening?
It's as if I see the bathroom through two sets of eyes. The white tiled bathroom is familiar - strange- as I shift my head a little, the dog -Luci- seems too big as it gets close again, I push myself against the wall.
John - who is he?- stops at the threshold of the door. He looks confused, even if a tinge of fear shows on his face.
My voice catches in my throat, the room suddenly appearing too small. I feel my heart pounding in my chest. It's hard to breathe.The cold tiles feel even colder on my skin because of the t-shirt that clings to my skin.
"Are you okay?" I hear the man -John-say. He reminds me of Abraham. The image of the cloaked man flashes on my -my- mind. What is wrong with me?
John approaches step by step, taking his time with each movement, crossing over Luci's body. He kneels down in front of me. "I want you to breathe." He's trying to act calm, but there's still some fear in him. "Slowly."
I close my eyes, I regain some control. My heartbeat slows down. My breathing steadies.
Good. Good
This was bad. The thoughts are mine now. Simply me. "I remembered more," I say through gritted teeth. "But it was different today, more… I was that person. The way he, I, thought -" I push my hands against my face, groaning into them. I felt as if something had my head in a tight grip as my thoughts split again, my stomach churning as they do. Focus.
Focus.
I breathe in.
And out.
"It was different," I continue, my eyes still closed, each breath I take done through my mouth. "The way I thought before when I learned these things, it was similar to now, but…" I try to find words to describe it but fail to. "And the things I remember... " It's that feeling of disorientation right after waking up, amplified hundredfold, past the level of confusion of the incomplete information I felt the other times.
Some of it is still scrambled, and even though I can't quite tell how to do it I know I can. Making fire or water out of a carving. Molding the earth with a single tool. And the combinations...
Air manipulated with the fierce energy of Fire, set up one way would create Lightning, and another would simply be warm air. Adding Water to this in the right place would transform into steam that could then be compressed within an Air bubble, the release of the built-up pressure creating a shockwave.
Though that same result could be achieved with Air mixed with Earth, I recall. Somehow the mixture of the two can create a shockwave by utilizing the formative energies of the Earth. Though too much of it would create miniature sandstorms, and too little would be just a strong wind.
Suddenly the geometrical shapes I saw before made sense. Equilateral triangles, depending on how you place them could be either Fire or Water. It's not how you place them, but how you guide your mana through it. From the base and splitting results into Fire, while starting from a vertex turns it into Water. Drawing a line parallel to its base separating the triangle in two, transformed the symbol into either Air if you used Fire, or Earth for Water.
"What did you remember?" John's words bring me back from an exploration of the newfound knowledge I had for God knows how long.
"The name of the man that taught me magic. Abraham." I look up, opening my eyes, glad that that weird split didn't happen again. "I remembered how to use it again. There's a process to it, longer than I thought. Four? No, five." I say as I remember the squares within the circle. "Five basic things that I can do. But I can combine them though." I run a hand through my hair, noticing how some of it is stuck to my forehead, wet, as I remember more.
A circle that contains the reaction is the base for most, if not all, magic. Simple v's that connect circles for combining two or more symbols, directing the energy for a better control, or simply overlapping two symbols for a basic combination.
"I just need some time," I get up, slowly sliding up the wall. "To put things together."
It's still dark out, I notice as soon as I get to the living room after changing out from the sweat-soaked clothes, though the sun was starting to come up, painting the sky with a weird shade of blue.
Luci sits down by my leg, resting her head on top of my knee. I place my hand on top of her head, absentmindedly scratching her ears.
I could've remembered some healing magic, I look at the arm still in a cast, that would've been nice.
Magic.
There's so much to it. The carved symbols that I barely remember elements of evolves into what I saw last time, the odd shimmer in the air that I now know carried the symbols.
It's more than that. There was a spoken part of that language because it used to be a language though not known who spoke it, oddly enough I remember reading about that. The spoken part carried a greater weight to it, more power and a better versatility though at a cost. A small slip of the tongue while speaking would cause a backfire, with varying effects. Lost in time. It doesn't exist anymore.
"Are you feeling alright for dinner?" John asks me, a little after lunch. Maybe a long time after lunch. The day had gone by fast, and most of the movement I did was shifting around the sofa with the exception of grabbing something to eat. At some point I had slid down the sofa, the dog's head resting on my lap.
It takes me a while to remember. Dinner, right. "I want to go, it might -" I pause, sigh, clearing some of my thoughts. "It'll be nice."
He smiles, a restrained act, and nods, leaving the room.
When he comes back it's maybe an hour later, the TV had been on since morning though I only paid attention to it for the last episode of some random show about a… werewolf, or some kind of experiment. I'm not sure. Even though I was still sitting on the ground I had eased my back into the sofa.
A shirt dangles in front of me, a nice looking button-up that blocks the TV, right at the climax of the episode, where the guy transforms, off-screen of course, all I hear is a roar, and people screaming, terrified. "Dress up, we'll be leaving soon."
I take the shirt and look up at him, probably making some kind of face because he continues. "You only have white t-shirts. That you sweated through most of them one day or another."
The preparation for going out even the dinner itself is a nice ordeal. A normal, simple routine consisting of shower and then dressing myself minutes before leaving that brings me back to when I was a kid, with an addition of shaving after a few years.
Dinner though, dinner was nice and calm.
Productive.