It was only an-oth-er three days af-ter that when Ki'el was well enough to stand and move, and was able to leave the heal-ing house, along with Chi-an. Dur-ing that time, Chi-an did her best to keep her com-pa-ny, though in the end, Ki'el spend more of her time try-ing to grasp the fun-da-men-tals of aether, es-pe-cial-ly those of Space and Time. It was dif-fi-cult, with her not be-ing able to prac-tice; her main ref-er-ence point for Space aethers was still the pair of riv-er stones that she had not even brought along, along with a few--or now, a great many--vague words from Kuli about space aether formed con-nec-tions at a dis-tance.

  Even just sit-ting in bed, even with-out us-ing aether, Ki'el felt cer-tain that she was al-ready sens-ing the aether of oth-er things at a dis-tance--that she al-ways had. Kuli kept silent about some things, per-haps when the aug-ment felt that Ki'el would fig-ure it out on her own, but on this, Kuli was clear: space aether was an ac-tive use, far more than just a pas-sive sense of the world around her. To form a con-nec-tion to an-oth-er place, en-er-gy must be con-sumed.

  Of course, she wasn't well enough to ex-per-i-ment when she left, ei-ther, but she still breathed bet-ter be-ing able to stand on her own two feet, if un-steadi-ly.

  "The In-ner sect has pre-pared us hous-ing," Chi-an said. "Or... a place, at least. Broth-er Du said that most times, they al-low--I be-lieve he re-al-ly meant force--In-ner Sect dis-ci-ples to cre-ate their own hous-es, but you are... not pre-pared for that." She paused. "I'm not ready for it, ei-ther. I... should prob-a-bly not be in the In-ner Sect. I ap-pre-ci-ate that they are let-ting me stay, though."

  Ki'el want-ed to re-as-sure Chi-an, but had no idea what she could say. She so far knew noth-ing of the In-ner Sect, or even the Out-er Sect, and how ei-ther of them func-tioned. "We will find a way," was all she could fi-nal-ly say.

  Chi-an was silent, for a time. "I'm less wor-ried about my-self," she said, as they wan-dered down an-oth-er path. "I think that the Sect ex-pects a great deal from you. Al-ready, when I've gone out, I've heard sev-er-al peo-ple whis-per-ing. Al-ways call-ing me the friend of a prodi-gy." She scowled, her face dark-en-ing. "Or the ser-vant of one."

  Ki'el, though she was tired and weak, did feel the ir-ri-ta-tion from Chi-an, and felt it in her-self as well. "You are no such thing."

  "No." Chi-an sighed. "But a re-la-tion-ship like that would make things sim-pler. Some peo-ple al-ready seem... im-pa-tient with me. As though I should be able to do every-thing they do, when I've only just sta-bi-lized my tribu-la-tion en-er-gy." She sighed. "It's not as though I don't think I can learn, but I would have pre-ferred to go much more slow-ly. Af-ter get-ting away from my clan... I was hop-ing to make friends in the Out-er Sect and learn things slow-ly. Maybe..." her voice dropped, slight-ly. "Maybe that was spite. I al-ready spent a lot longer in the Less-er House than I planned to."

  The Less-er House. It al-ready didn't feel real that Ki'el didn't have to go back to that place. Though... as she looked ahead, she saw that Chi-an had al-ready turned them down a path in the woods, one of many that had branched out ever since they had some to one of the high-er is-lands in the Sect. Ahead... was a small cot-tage, one that was fa-mil-iar to her--but, she judged, might have been the least of the build-ings in the Sect. It was cer-tain-ly not large enough to con-tain more than one room com-fort-ably, not with-out some-thing like Sobon's spa-tial ex-pan-sion.

  "This is...?" Ki'el didn't ex-act-ly feel un-com-fort-able with the build-ing ahead--it was more than the Less-er House, and in bet-ter shape than what was left of her vil-lage. But com-pared to the mod-est lot Sobon had in Emer-ald Val-ley, it was noth-ing.

  "It's bet-ter than it looks," Chi-an said, but her voice was warm. "They have some stu-pid name for this style of build-ing--Wis-dom Seek-er lodge or some-thing stu-pid--but ac-cord-ing to El-der Sang, you have the right to mod-i-fy the area around it by quite a lot." She paused, and turned back, point-ing to a stone by the side of the path. "That's one of the bound-ary mark-ers. There should be oth-ers, at the cor-ners. Once you can con-trol your qi again, we can try to fell the trees for wood, or some-thing." She frowned. "I... don't know any-thing about wood-work, though."

  { There are many ma-te-r-i-al-con-trol aether pat-terns like the ones Sobon used to cre-ate quartz rods, } Kuli sup-plied, sens-ing Ki'el's ea-ger-ness, { but it might be bet-ter to learn the qi meth-ods first. }

  Ki'el nod-ded. "I would like to study how we would do things like that with qi."

  "Me too." Chi-an paused. "I... guess we're just al-lowed to do that. But, we'll have to pay, like every-one else. Al-though El-der Sang said lit-tle, he im-plied that you still have quite a few points left, though I..."

  "What I have, you can use," Ki'el con-firmed quick-ly, be-fore the oth-er girl could hes-i-tate more than a mo-ment.

  "...thanks," Chi-an said, sound-ing em-bar-rassed. "We'll take jobs for the sect some-time soon. I'm sure we won't have a choice, but I've also been rest-less. I want to do some-thing."

  Ki'el agreed, but silent-ly. She knew that her chances of us-ing her aether or qi soon were still low, but she doubt-ed she could take any job for the Sect that was pure phys-i-cal work--not that she felt at full phys-i-cal strength yet, ei-ther.

  When they fi-nal-ly got to the cot-tage and looked in-side, Ki'el found the room ex-act-ly as she en-vi-sioned it--a bare room with-out even mat-tress or table, a dirt floor, and only a sin-gle open door-way. "No hole in the floor," she said, bit-ter-ly. "That is a step up."

  Chi-an wrin-kled her nose. "And it's pri-vate. I was shar-ing at-tic space with sev-er-al oth-ers. Every-one there keeps sep-a-rate from the oth-ers, but some-one al-ways seemed to be look-ing, even when I slept."

  Ki'el snarled word-less-ly in re-sponse, but stepped in, pulling her mat-tress from her space ring and de-posit-ing it on the floor. The room seemed just wide enough to fit two side by side, which struck her as right, and just long enough to place a small table on the oth-er end with-out block-ing the door. "We can do this."

  "We?" Chi-an sound-ed ea-ger, but paused. "Ah... I mean, I was hop-ing, but didn't want to guess..."

  "You are my friend, and I would be hap-py if you re-mained with me," Ki'el said, though she felt like her voice was stilt-ed, up-set. Did that much still need to be said? "You have pro-tect-ed me and re-turned my friend-ship. I place as much trust in you as I do my fam-i-ly."

  Chi-an gave her a smile in re-turn. "I hoped you'd say that. The Sect grant-ed me the small lot next to this, but... with-out a cot-tage, Wis-dom Seek-er or oth-er-wise. I could have sur-vived un-til I could pay to build some-thing, but..." She ap-peared a mat-tress from her own space ring next to Ki'el's, and then filled the room on the oth-er end with a small table. "I pre-fer this. I would be hap-py to join your prop-er-ty to mine, if we have use for the ex-tra space."

  Ki'el nod-ded, but sagged to her mat-tress. "Do you have items to set up a pri-va-cy bar-ri-er?"

  "Yes, Be-nai was hap-py to pro-vide me with them. They ...prob-a-bly won't stand up to any-one in the In-ner Sect if they re-al-ly want to force their way in, but Be-nai is very good at these things, and far stronger than she lets oth-ers know, so... maybe they will." She moved to the door. "I'll go place them. You re-lax."

  Ki'el did, the bloat-ed feel-ing of her qi dis-or-der eas-ing now that she wasn't mov-ing. But... she couldn't re-lax, just as she hadn't been able to so far. When at last her thoughts set-tled on a ques-tion for Kuli, it didn't sur-prise her at all what she had been think-ing. What would I need to learn to ex-pand space the way Sobon did?

  { Sim-ply us-ing the kind of meth-ods he used isn't dif-fi-cult, how-ev-er, de-sign-ing the ef-fect to be sta-ble and us-able re-quires sev-er-al dif-fer-ent meth-ods work-ing to-geth-er. You seem to re-call the ba-sics of his method-ol-o-gy, but the sta-bi-liz-ing method will be un-in-tu-itive with-out un-der-stand-ing the high-er math in-volved. The 'base-ment' in your mem-o-ries can only make use of the sta-bi-lized space thanks to force planes and grav-i-ty-al-ter-ing ef-fects, which you will also not un-der-stand. }

  Ki'el sighed, hav-ing more or less ex-pect-ed a sim-i-lar an-swer. She didn't doubt that a method like the one Sobon used would be dif-fi-cult for most peo-ple with-out his back-ground. What do I need to learn to form sand into... quartz, the way that he did?

  { Meth-ods of that type vary in their re-quire-ments. I have no doubt that Sobon used ver-sions far more com-plex than you can use, re-quir-ing ex-treme-ly pre-cise con-trol, but less-er ver-sions with lim-it-ed ef-fects can be quite sim-ple. The ma-te-r-i-al used also mat-ters; ma-te-ri-als made of one or two types of [atoms], which can be sourced eas-i-ly, still re-quire you to un-der-stand their [chem-i-cal struc-ture], while ma-te-ri-als like wood have dif-fer-ent re-quire-ments. In each case, the pur-er a source you can find, and the sim-pler the re-sult, the eas-i-er the process. }

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Chi-an came back as she was hear-ing that an-swer, and when she con-firmed that their space was pri-vate, Ki'el re-layed what she was think-ing. Chi-an had a strange look on her face as she lis-tened.

  "...Your mas-ter could just form ma-te-ri-als with his ...not even qi, but aether? With-out be-ing a spe-cial-ist in that el-e-ment?" Chi-an with-drew a small stool from her ring and sat down next to the table. "You talk about him as be-ing very wise, but most of the peo-ple I know of who can con-trol a ma-te-r-i-al stud-ied their whole lives to do it. I guess..." she paused. "It's not that I doubt-ed that your mas-ter re-al-ly was great, or any-thing..."

  "You have nev-er met him," Ki'el said, tired-ly. "And even if you did, you would not have seen the side of him that we did. But he grew stronger at a rate be-yond any sense, and he knew so much." She looked out the door-way, to the woods be-yond, feel-ing that the world felt dif-fer-ent with the wards set around them. Qui-eter, but also... emp-ti-er, in a way. Some-how, that empti-ness dis-turbed her, not be-cause she thought it was fake, but be-cause she like the feel of oth-ers' qi in the back-ground. As she conidered that still-ness, she con-tin-ued speak-ing, not re-al-ly think-ing about what she said. "In truth, I don't know how great he is, or if per-haps he is only what I have seen of him so far. Per-haps, in my mind, I have a... myth, of him."

  "Myth?"

  Ki'el looked at her friend, her thoughts catch-ing up to her words, but looked down at the floor af-ter a mo-ment. "He speaks of strange things, some-times. Of fate, and myth. He has made me re-al-ize that the world was not as I thought it was, but that is still prob-a-bly true, even with as much as I have learned. I do not know what is true and what is false. He could be the amaz-ing and wise war-rior that I be-lieve he is, or he could be... just... some-one. I do not know." Maybe I will nev-er know.

  "I don't know why you're sud-den-ly ques-tion-ing it, but I think he must be amaz-ing, to have taught you every-thing he has." Ki'el glanced back up at Chi-an, who was lean-ing back against the wall. "But we re-al-ly ought to talk about what we do next. You said you want to learn to make things with qi, or with aether? I can find some-one to speak on these things, but with you not be-ing able to prac-tice..."

  "It would be fine to ask Out-er Sect dis-ci-ples," Ki'el said, when Chi-an left the im-pli-ca-tion hang-ing. "And I would be hap-py to watch you prac-tice, and sense, and see if I can un-der-stand what is be-ing said and demon-strat-ed. It will be far bet-ter than wait-ing alone and think-ing."

  Chi-an nod-ded, and stood up. "Should we start right away?"

  Ki'el con-sid-ered it, then nod-ded. "I don't have a rea-son to de-lay."

  In far short-er a time than Ki'el ex-pect-ed, Chi-an re-turned with a woman from the Out-er Sect, who bowed as Ki'el brought Chi-an's stool out-side and sat. "Sis-ter Ki'el," she said. "Sis-ter Chi-an said that you wished to learn about ma-nip-u-lat-ing wood qi, but can-not prac-tice yet."

  Ki'el nod-ded, and the woman stepped for-ward, ea-ger-ly. "I am Sis-ter Muzi, and I have stud-ied the prop-er-ties of wood for sev-er-al years. Be-fore we be-gin talk of ma-nip-u-lat-ing it, we should speak of what it is. Wood--when processed for use, and not still liv-ing--can be fun-da-men-tal-ly un-der-stood as two main ma-te-ri-als. Part-ly, it is made of fibers, which we call [thread-wood], and part-ly, a com-plex sub-stance we call [press-wood]. Wood with-out ei-ther com-po-nent is much weak-er, and cer-tain ways of ma-nip-u-lat-ing it will break the threads or re-sult in less-er press-wood bonds..."

  Ki'el lis-tened in-tent-ly as Sis-ter Muzi spoke at length about how the fun-da-men-tals of wood, and watched as she bent a sam-ple of pre-pared wood into shape, and then the same with a fresh branch from the for-est, which oozed sap im-me-di-ate-ly when she twist-ed it. The woman talked about how the com-pounds from the wood nor-mal-ly liked to dry and set be-fore use, and said that bend-ing live-wood would not nec-es-sar-i-ly meant that it would main-tain the shape as it dried.

  Be-fore Ki'el knew it, two hours had passed, and Sis-ter Muzi bowed out to go to an-oth-er task. Al-though the woman had not specif-i-cal-ly taught her any-thing about how to ma-nip-u-late wood, Ki'el felt that she would do a much bet-ter job at mak-ing a first at-tempt, if she could, and when she said as much to Chi-an, the oth-er girl agreed.

  "Liv-ing things are com-pli-cat-ed," Chi-an said, mov-ing over to a near-by tree and press-ing her hand to it. "The fox part of me feels that--we are for-est an-i-mals--but I nev-er looked clos-er. No mat-ter how I sense, no part of life is ever quite sol-id. It's a mix, even if it's some-times very well blend-ed to-geth-er." She low-ered her hand and looked back at Ki'el. "I am go-ing to try a few things."

  And Chi-an did try, sev-er-al times, to bend wood with her qi, but she still had trou-ble get-ting her qi to do what she want-ed, to say noth-ing of at-tempt-ing new meth-ods. In the end, nei-ther she nor Ki'el were sat-is-fied with the ex-per-i-men-ta-tion, and Ki'el only felt more rest-less.

  So she turned in-wards, again. Kuli. What can we teach Chi-an so that she can be stronger? Con-trol her qi bet-ter?

  Ki'el's aug-ment seemed to hes-i-tate be-fore an-swer-ing, but when Kuli did an-swer, it didn't seem to re-veal any doubts. { Your friend's the-o-ry of how qi works is fun-da-men-tal-ly wrong. She still un-der-stands Qi as be-ing much like spir-i-tu-al en-er-gy, al-ready con-tain-ing wis-dom that she can sim-ply 'com-mand'. To form her own qi tech-niques, she must com-mu-ni-cate her full in-tent to her qi, not mere pieces of it. }

  Ki'el nod-ded, al-ready un-der-stand-ing parts of that. When she looked at Chi-an, she found the fox girl look-ing aback at her, and Ki'el con-sid-ered how to say what she want-ed to say.

  "How well do you think you've learned Fire?" she even-tu-al-ly asked.

  "Fire?" Chi-an tilt-ed her head. "I was... most-ly learn-ing it to hide my na-ture, but... I guess I still un-der-stand some of what you said."

  Ki'el swal-lowed, feel-ing un-com-fort-able with dis-guis-ing her in-ten-tions, but ges-tured. "Show me. We could use a fire here, any-way."

  Chi-an sighed, and got to her feet. "I should make a fire pit, first. Let me gath-er some stones."

  Ki'el didn't ar-gue, al-though be-tween that and gath-er-ing the wood, it took Chi-an a while be-fore she was ready to at-tempt to light the fire with her qi. Al-though she was able to light it, the girl took three at-tempts--and the re-sult was not spec-tac-u-lar.

  "I do re-call some of your in-tent," Chi-an said, "and it helps that you also put it into words. But there is too much--"

  "Try to tell me what you un-der-stand, with in-tent," Ki'el said, find-ing that her voice was cold-er than she want-ed, cold-er than she in-tend-ed.

  Chi-an looked at her, but her eyes changed af-ter a mo-ment, and she nod-ded. She set-tled back by the fire, and closed her eyes, and med-i-tat-ed. Af-ter a while she said, "[Fire] burns [wood] with [air] and heat." But even with those few words, Ki'el could tell--even with-out Kuli's help--how sev-er-al of the con-cepts felt wrong, in-com-plete.

  "If that were the in-tent you put into your fire qi, it would do a poor job," Ki'el said, feel-ing like the sound of her voice was too au-thor-i-ta-tive, too smart. She felt like it didn't sound much like her-self at all, but... she didn't stop. "Qi must con-tain the whole con-cept, as much as you know. What burns is not al-ways wood, but any-thing that can burn, in-clud-ing things in the air. And there is more in the air than just the kind of air that burns, but the one kind of air is need-ed for fire. It is the com-bi-na-tion of those things and heat that makes it hap-pen." Hav-ing said all of that, Ki'el's next words felt much more nat-ur-al, even though the use of qi to speak them aloud itched at her. "[Fire] is the [re-ac-tion] of [fuel] and [oxy-gen] with heat."

  Chi-an frowned, and tried to speak, but stopped with-out any sound com-ing out. Ki'el un-der-stood--she had felt the same when she first tried to speak with in-tent--and wait-ed un-til the girl was fi-nal-ly able to speak. "The burn-ing... of [fuel]... and [oxy-gen]. With heat."

  Ki'el nod-ded at her. "Qi is not spir-it en-er-gy. It needs the whole in-tent."

  Chi-an looked at the fire, and frowned. Af-ter a mo-ment, she gath-ered qi into a ball in her hand; Ki'el winced, wor-ried that the fire would ex-plode, when the girl re-leased it, the air swirled, and the fire went out. Chi-an frowned at it. "So it's true, with-out oxy-gen, there is no fire. Hmm..."

  Ki'el watched the oth-er girl play with her fire qi on and off for the next few hours, oc-ca-sion-al-ly ask-ing Chi-an to speak with in-tent again. As time went on, the girl seemed less and less re-luc-tant to speak the same sort of un-der-stand-ing of Fire that Ki'el had spo-ken, as though she was grudg-ing-ly ac-cept-ing what Ki'el had al-ready spoke. Though... in truth, Ki'el be-lieved that it was sim-ply how the girl need-ed to learn, just as Ki'el of-ten need-ed to learn in her own way. It would be wrong, she was sure, to sug-gest that Chi-an was be-ing re-bel-lious, al-though from the way she act-ed, it was easy to un-der-stand how teach-ers some-times thought so.

  Her moth-er had seemed to think so, in some mem-o-ries she had, when Ki'el had been young. More of-ten, though, her moth-er had been kind and pa-tient. She sup-posed that every-one had times that test-ed their pa-tience.

  The day wound on, and Ki'el found she had to rest for much of the af-ter-noon. The next day, Chi-an again fetched Sis-ter Muzi, who went over what she had said the day be-fore, but more briefly--un-til Ki'el in-ter-rupt-ed her to try to speak what she had learned with in-tent. The rest of their ses-sion in-volved both her and Chi-an try-ing to speak in-tent that matched that of their in-struc-tor. The woman was re-lent-less in cor-rect-ing them, and only when when they were be-gin-ning to sat-is-fy her did she be-gin speak-ing on ma-nip-u-la-tion meth-ods.

  That came very close to the end of their ses-sion, though Ki'el and Chi-an ex-changed notes af-ter the woman left. Kuli helped Ki'el keep a fair-ly good im-pres-sion of the in-tent the Out-er Sect sis-ter had giv-en them, and with that, Ki'el did her best to keep Chi-an fo-cused.

  When, af-ter an-oth-er af-ter-noon nap, Ki'el came out to find that Chi-an had in-ex-pert-ly twist-ed sev-er-al branch-es into strange shapes, they both shared a grin, and Chi-an be-gan to talk about where and how her in-tent had not quite had the cor-rect ef-fect. Ki'el watched her make an-oth-er at-tempt, pri-vate-ly won-der-ing if Chi-an would be able to make ad-e-quate use of wood ma-nip-u-la-tion in-tent in an-oth-er few days, and she won-dered how Mian and Xam were do-ing in the Out-er Sect.

  She hoped that her friends were at least do-ing as well as her, or at least, were as hap-py as Ki'el was be-gin-ning to feel.