Nat was already feeling overwhelmed with the events of the day, and Lyn's revelation and its implications kept derailing every train of thought.

  He could feel himself zoning out with so many things clamoring for his attention, and though his eyes were still open, he wasn't really seeing anything. This inattentional blindness, as one of his doctors had called it, was familiar to him. He could remember seeing things while in this state, but only if he later focused on recalling them. On reflection, he thought that it was much like stepping into his Talent. He didn't fight it, but just let his mind go walkabout, idly moving between the concepts that hung invisibly in space around him like aether patterns; no volume or mass to speak of, yet almost tangible.

  His subconscious poked and prodded at the virtual mobile of problems, suggesting avenues of thought, and some possible solutions. Then jarringly, and for no immediately discernible reason, the inward focus ended as if he'd been awoken from a daydream. The high speed debate between Lyn and the Clackaw had concluded, and everyone was looking at him expectantly. ‘Oh, sorry. I wasn't paying attention. What was the question?’

  Two of the three put their hands — or wingtips — to their heads. Tessan might have as well, but her position made that particular maneuver difficult so she just rolled her eyes instead.

  Lyn put their hand back down so they could sign, ‘We've agreed that the next steps are to establish the passive regenerative patterns and proceed with a detoxification purge for Tessan. This will take multiple days.’

  ‘Oh, sure. I'd already started a new pattern.’

  ‘Yes, but in order to not provide Trant and his group time to react, or to have the young suffocate or starve, you will need to act as nurse to Tessan, within your Talent.’

  ‘Oh, of course. No problem.’

  ‘For three days.’

  ‘I'm sorry, what?’

  Nezzar signed in response, but not to Nat apparently, ‘I would like to rescind my agreement.’

  Lyn didn't look away from Nat, but answered, ‘Too late. We all agreed.’

  Nat stumbled on his answer — starting, then stopping twice before deciding on his response, ‘That's fine, but why only me? Why not all of us?’

  With a shrug, Lyn responded, ‘We didn't bring enough food with us. There's your pack, and the remainder of Tessan's lunch. Additionally, the detox is only the first part of the process.’

  Nat considered for a moment, ‘But we don't have Moira at the moment. So I have to sit mostly in the dark for three days with only Tessan to talk to? No offense, Tessan.’

  The broodmother gave a half smile, ‘Oh, none taken. I hope you don't mind if I don't talk back, though. I agreed to this process on the condition that, until Lyn considers me healthy enough for their particular method of pain relief — that I be rendered unconscious.’

  ‘So… does anyone have any books?’

  Shortly thereafter, most of the key details had been worked out. The remainder of the current time would be spent inspecting, cleaning, and re-bandaging Tessan's injuries. Nezzar helped with this, and was quite capable — enough so that Nat was excused to work on the two tasks he'd largely set for himself. An improved healing pattern — one more closely resembling Moira's refined work, and attempting to re-summon Moira. Partially for her superior pattern capabilities and lightning, but also because Nat worried he might go slightly insane after three days in the dark alone, even with breaks every eight hours to have Lyn check on Tessan's progress.

  Preparatory work complete and Tessan rendered unconscious by a careful application of electrical energy, Nat re-entered his Talent, with only Tessan, himself, his pack, and a makeshift chamber pot.

  The novelty of checking the breathing of the sleeping broodmother wore off after the first hour or so — though it was hard to tell time exactly, but he had gotten fairly good at estimating the passage of it with all the recent practice. He wished he'd been trusted with re-application of bandages, but Lyn insisted they'd handle that during their time in a shortened Talent cycle.

  Hours three and four were spent designing the basics of a small fictional world; one he was excited to share with Moira when she returned. Five was spent trying to nap, but that proved futile, and with two hours to go before his first break, he decided it was time to do something about the Moira situation — or at least try.

  As he came to the end of his first shift, he felt fairly good about being able to sustain ten patterns of various permutations floating in the air around him as he practiced. Interestingly, his patterns seemed to not cause much of a strain on what was available — he hadn't yet found a limit on what he could generate. Moira had said this was because time was relative and that it didn't matter how much time passed outside his Talent. He didn't quite understand how that could work, but apparently it did, since his patterns didn't flicker or wane. Granted, he also wasn't setting the entire top of the chamber alight, either. They'd have to do something about that if they didn't want to be observed, if Moira wasn't around to help. That, at least, gave him something to focus on.

  Twenty or so attempts later, he admitted he'd have to ask for help, as he could not figure out for the life of him how he was supposed to block Trant's vision when he had no air to climb to get to the ceiling — and unlike Moira, he could not summon patterns more than half a meter or so from him. They'd stay where he put them, but he had to get up there somehow. Maybe if he threw some small items and they froze at different heights? Well, he certainly had time to think about it. But first, it was time to get Lyn.

  [Slip]

  Lyn was still in almost exactly the same position as they had been when Nat had last seen them eight hours ago. Three seconds of freeze, plus whatever time had passed relative to the Talent — it had probably been less than ten seconds, and Lyn hadn't quite internalized that either, since they were obviously just starting a conversation with Nezzar when he tapped them on the shoulder.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  ‘Oh, already? My next few hours are going to feel like a first responder to a mass casualty event.’

  ‘Is there a way to give you my Talent? I'm happy to trade. Are you ready?’

  They gripped his hand, ‘Let's go.’

  [Slip]

  Back in the Talent, Nat waited for Lyn to light their hands before speaking. His patterns were still visibly floating where he'd left them and gave off a small amount of light, but they hindered vision more than helped, and he decided to move them out of sight later. So resolved, he brought up his concerns, ‘So, one problem I've run into — I was trying to hide our activity, but I can't reach the windows. So, Trant can see everything we do that isn't wildly accelerated, without Moira's obfuscation. Any ideas on how to reach the ceiling?’

  Lyn pondered a moment before answering, ‘Nothing I can think of that we could do without spending more time building it than healing. Maybe some holes in the walls to climb, but that seems more dangerous than just ignoring them. I suppose it can't be helped — we'll just need to heal Tessan faster to deny them time to react. They already know we're here.’

  Nat thought a moment, ‘Oh! Like Tanner's tabletop strategy games — they can't act until our turn is over.’

  Lyn nodded, ‘And we control the turn clock — exactly. Given that, my general suggestion is to address it by focusing on solving the issue with Moira, then let her handle it.’

  Half an hour of bandages and bedpans later, Lyn signalled it was time to exit. ‘When you get too tired to stay awake, pop out and let me know. I'll take a half shift in with you so you can sleep — I don't want to leave Tessan unattended for too many hours at this point. Also, between attempts to call Moira you might consider refining your restoration pattern. I kept mine running while I was changing bandages, but mine works on Ber physiology and I cannot make it durable, as it is a command signal, not a physical effect.’

  ‘Sure. Anything in particular I should focus on?’

  ‘Can you make a more powerful, localized version? You can't tell a body to heal everything at top priority — and blood cell regeneration is of the utmost priority. That will increase all other recovery at this stage.’

  ‘I'll have something ready for you next shift. Ready to leave?’

  [Slip]

  Lyn nodded, and then they were back in the light. Nat basked in it for a few seconds, as if he could absorb the memory of it for the next hours to come. Back to it, then.

  [Slip]

  This time he went straight to pattern work. The reasoning being that if he could bring Moira back, the boredom could be mitigated entirely. Plus, he'd have someone capable of watching Tessan while he slept without burning time becoming hungry.

  Nat's plan was to start with what had worked before. Moira knew they were in a shielded room, so there should be no need to repeat Lyn's electromagnetic knocking. The uncertainty was in whether the fault was in Nat's pattern somehow, or if Moira had been rendered incapable — or perhaps unwilling, to manifest.

  Nat decided to address all of it at once — and within a few hours was surrounded by a whimsical village of tiny doors, though he'd only sketched a few lines of the houses in lines of light before restraining himself from creating a diorama. For all of his effort though, none of his doors had shown any hint of working. Adjustments in the number of wraps, increases in power, twice as many threads. None of those worked. One single thread, longer and looping — nothing. His latest attempt was a full-size door. Because why not?

  None of that showed any positive effect — not so much as a flicker of unexpected aether.

  To give himself a break, he switched over to healing patterns, instead. He'd been thinking about it the whole time he'd been working on the doors, and so he didn't have to sit and think for an hour first — he went straight to holding up a hand and spun the beginnings of a new healing pattern above it.

  First, persistence — he weaved the ends back into themselves. Any unspent energy thus returned to the pattern. Three copies interwoven, but rather than wrapping them tightly all the way, instead he left the ends loosely attached so that they trailed into the center where they vanished into a swirling vortex, flowing into the wrapped braids lengthwise. It managed that for only a few seconds before it snagged and unraveled itself, exploding into a tangle of light.

  Trying again, he created a second ring, rotating counter to the first. A moment of consideration, and he rotated the second ring slightly to offset it such that the counter flows resembled teeth in a gear. Now the pattern spooled and unspooled from one ring to the other and back — it was mesmerizing. It also lasted until it was time to bring Lyn back in without needing to be refreshed. None of his other attempts over the next couple of hours worked better than this first, which Nat found mildly disappointing.

  Lyn made impressed gestures as Nat showed off the new pattern base, ‘Do you think it will make it more effective?’

  ‘Not really. But I put absolutely zero time or effort into reinforcing it, and it's still here. Maybe that has a use?’

  ‘Well, keep trying, I suppose. Maybe if you make a few small versions of these we could put them where they're most efficacious. Once Tessan is awake and eating again, we'll try applying them — for now we'll stick to what we know works well enough.’

  Four hours of sleep was really not enough, Nat decided. He was making small, obvious mistakes as he iterated on his patterns. He was on his second shift of the second day, and the lack of sleep did have one effect that he wasn't sure would turn out positive or negative; in the course of validating his mistakes, he found himself more willing to entertain ideas he'd normally have shut down as irrational.

  This led to him questioning a number of his assumptions about how aetheric systems worked. Which wasn't much — he wasn't trained in it, after all. Most Ber'Duun didn't need courses in it — they were granted the knowledge relevant to their Skills when they were Awakened. Few saw the need to investigate outside their competencies.

  Nat was currently trying a slight variation on his healing pattern — this one intended to help get around a fundamental limitation of aether. Aether didn't have many rules that couldn't be bent by sufficiently strong desire, but there was one which was as inviolate as they came — direct aetheric affects could not pass the boundaries of another's body without consent. You could not burn someone from the inside. Bodily autonomy was respected, whether by physics or design, Talents and Skills stopped at the skin of a person.

  Most aether wielders got around this by simply burning people from the outside. Simple, really, and generally sufficient. But not for healing. So Nat considered making a simple aetheric wrap — like Moira's disguise, except she wouldn't have to maintain it, when she returned — which he was sure would be soon.

  So he crafted only the first half of his spool trick, but neglected to set the ring spinning a vortex into itself. Instead, he added some slack to the surface, so that when he pressed upon it, it ended up wrapping a film around his hand and wrist, that fit more snugly than any glove.

  He considered that a success, and practiced it a few more times, refining it slightly so that it spooled back into place when he withdrew his hand. He was excited to show it to Lyn, and to Moira. Which made him, for whatever reason, think about the doorknob that had worked the first time. Only this wasn't a door — a doorknob wouldn't make sense. Instead, he directed his creation over to the wall, and set it in place. He tried to push his hand through, but it was stopped by the rock, of course.

  Now he was just being silly. Aether was strange, but physics was, after all, physics. Inexplicable as aether was, the laws of thermodynamics broke for no-one. No aetheric ability had ever been found to violate those fundamental rules. Every time someone had insisted they'd found an exception, others inevitably discovered a mechanism which balanced the scales.

  Nat decided to take physics out of the equation, and moved his portal back half a meter. Then he reached his hand through, positioned as if to help pull a friend over a cliff's edge, or perhaps out of deep water. He managed barely a moment before the feeling of foolishness caused him to withdraw his hand. A strange resistance made him look more closely — and he could barely discern the faint blue-white outline of another hand, struggling to establish a grip on his.

  So he grasped the hand in his own. Then pulled.