"Soooo… Dale."

What's the kid going to try this time?

Roof?

Cliff?

Stray hoe?

Monster?

… He was actually pretty worried Mal would try to fight a monster, so mentioning that was a very bad idea to him currently. Most of his thoughts were results of his overly suspicious and anxious mind, so the largest scale of Mal's self-inflicted injuries that he knew of was hitting themselves in the head with a hoe or running into a wall during practice. This ignored the repeated meets with Marigold, their main medical doctor.

Mal usually was relatively unharmed, but they still got in trouble for so baldly lying after the hoe incident.

That was when he first called them by their full name since they first requested a different name. It was also the first time he saw them vomit up blood so abruptly. He would very rarely use it as a way to instantly get them to start following orders in situations where he had to get their attention. Dale only used it a few times before, preventing him from going outside of town on one or two rather dangerous occasions. He had to keep a bucket inside after the first time.

...

"Dale. Please stop taking advantage of the indoctrination."

… Indoctri… Mal's remembering things now.

… OH.

Brothers? Damn me right now please.

He felt incredibly guilty. He should do something to apologise, but he… he waited. He just learned this uncontrolled bleeding his child had to go through was most likely intentionally created by someone in their past.

And he didn't… couldn't face that right now.

He waited for their excuse for the bloodstained clothes, mood swings, fatigue, anger management issues, distracted tendencies… the list honestly just went on and on.

"I… seem to have a supernatural ability."

…

…

Well I'll be. The kid finally got around to realizing it. Amnesia's a horrible thing… but did he really not notice until now?

So, kid. You're going explain how you ran incredibly fast into a wall?

Didn't get as hurt as hard as you thought you would?

Broke a hoe with the back of your bare head?

Good for him, though. Recognizing Aura's quite a good thing to know-

…

Dale looked at Mal's arm.

… That… wasn't bruising your arm from running into a tree.

….

The arm was limp, but shaking slightly like a wet dough held up over the ground and being wiggled slowly. He could see actual shards pushing against the skin.

… What did he…

Dale started paying attention, and noticed a small white and violet-blue mottled pattern flickering.

Dale gingerly broached the topic again, in a more investigative manner he hadn't done for a long time.

"Kid. You know about Aura?"

"We talked about it, yeah. Nebulous 'essential part of you' mysticism people can unlock. You said you had some."

Supernatural speed/strength/healing thing. Related to souls or something.

… Mal realised the similarity absurdly fast as soon as Dale asked him about it years back.

There was an especially dicey time when, having no clue how Dale knew about his self-titled ability, Mal tried attacking him, broke his skull, and feigned amnesia.

After that, Dale took him in and slowly taught him about the world, leading into the more magical parts in a measured pace. Mal couldn't see anything wrong with Dale, and the main point he learned to assume he was working under the rule: If you don't have any Aura unlocked, you can't see it.

… But maybe someone can forget they ever had any, let's say… an amnesiac young adult who came out of the middle of complete nowhere.

Dale must have had the same idea. There's no look of astonishment in his eyes.

Just… acknowledgement. He probably thought he knew about my ability before I did.

Can you… re-unlock it?

Mal started theorizing how to ask that. Could he ask to "re-activate" it, and then have his ability… and Dale's version of it? That… would be awesome.

"… It isn't a cure-all."

Mal muttered quietly, "Oh. Shame." They had honestly thought it was some even cooler multipurpose technique to further their already frightening hidden ability. He wondered exactly how far the healing went.

… But the big thing was just that.. they basically already had it?

Bummer.

"Mal."

Dale clenched their shoulder.

"Mal. You are going to have to lose your arm now."

…

The kid was in shock. After all, they were going to lose an arm today. He wishes there was a better way to have admitted this uncomfortable truth to them… Any training would have been better than leaving the kid alone in order to avoid any chance of a traumatic remembering.

Now he had to find out a way to either learn how to get them an artificial limb, or teach them to explore the world through one arm. It'll be a long letter writing day today.

…

He clasped his child's stable hand.

I should have just told you as soon as I realised. I'm sorry.

….

What's this dour atmosphere? It's just an arm!

… Dale. Just you wait. You can see it all in action!

"Dale. It's okay."

I patted his shoulder.

… "It's NOT 'okay'."

"Well I can make it okay! Just hear me out here!"

I held up my good arm, waiting for him to get slightly calmer.

Less on guard.

…

…

He let his hands drop slightly and reduced his hunch by a degree.

-Then I fell to my side like a windblown scarecrow in a hurricane.

"MAL. WHAT ARE YOU DOI-"

Ohhh he's absolutely furious.

"I JUST said it's NOT a cure for everything!"
"Hey. Dale. You could've told me about the rules of doing supernatural stuff earlier and given me a frame to work with! You didn't, so I did it MY way!"

…

… Mal questioned if the jab was a bit too much. After all, poking at your already overanxious guardian isn't that smart of a tactic for good mental wellbeing.

"This is the cause of all the bleeding?"

… This boy is absolutely insane.

Dale squatted down as low as he could in his equipment, which was actually a pretty good range, and quietly tried to get something out of the boy.

"The night you didn't show up last week?"

… His face tilted closer to the floor, but their eyes focused on me. He was struggling to tell something. Dale assumed the worse.

"Grimm."

Mal laughed so hard he felt backwards, now gazing up at the ceiling.

"That was when my green shirt was torn and buried outside town," he chuckled, "and the long night was me trying to come back stable after falling into the river."

He somberly watched Dale's eyes twitch.

"By the way, that's why my trouser-things are drying on the roof."

…

I am going to lock this boy up for a year.

… but before that…

"Mal. What caused everything else?"

….

His anxiety powered suspicions over my wellbeing shot into overdrive.

MEGAN. CURSE YOU. HONESTY IS REALLY PROBLEMATIC HERE.

…

Mal tried to roll myself over with their good arm to avoid the conversation. Curse me and my lack of foresight! I was nearly at 500 when I was first talking to Dale! This could've been resolved SO easily, but NOPE. I chose the HARD way and now I can't roll away when I needed to!

"Can we wait ten minutes?"

"No."

…