You wake up not feeling

The light only just starting to breach your window does not have the usual effect on you. Somewhat strange to think about really. You remember how seeing the morning light filled you with a certain eagerness for the day. Now all it does is feeling kinda warm on your skin.

Getting dressed you say, "I need the sword for practice." There is the sound of wooden creaking then a rattle from your wardrobe. Inside is Sarean's sword. Now armed you head for the training arena. You'd run forms yesterday but there had been a trepidation in your movements that meant nothing to you now.

The sound of metal clashing near the arena suggested the possibility of testing your imbuing on a live subject.

"Fuck!" Vatarie's sound preceding you seeing her laying on the sand with her butt in the air and Mary standing behind her.

"You need to -" Mary's mouth snapped shut the moment she felt you approach. "Christopher?" She asked cautiously.

"No change, you aren't going to try retraining me again are you?" You'd have expect Asune to be the more active subject to test your imbuing on.

Her eyes looked at the sword in your hand and she moved her jaw around. "No."

"Christopher." Vatarie said hurrying to her feet. "Is that sky metal?"

"Yes." You turned your attention to Vatarie. "I'm able to imbue it but don't know what effect it has. I'd like to spar to find out." You entered the arena, moving opposite Vatarie who smile and bounced on her balls of her feet as magical reinforcement spread throughout her body.

"No she wouldn't." Mary said grabbing Vatarie's arm. "And you shouldn't test until you are comfortable with the sword," she nodded at your left hand, "and with the hand holding it, which you aren't. Until you can run forms without a mistake while imbuing you can't spar."

It made sense, you're apprehension yesterday as to the potential damage you could cause had limited your forms. Perhaps the passing through organic matter was a result of imperfect imbument. The indulgence of success made you speed ahead when you should have reinforced the basics.

"I'll spar with you." Asune jumped up from the bench she'd been watching from. Her wires spread out around her and her sword was drawn.

"No, Christopher hasn't to perfect the basics." Mary stomped over to Asune and grabbed her with her other hand, pulling Vatarie along with her.

"I want to spar with Christopher." Asune's wires gathered around Mary's hand, ready to severe it if resistance persisted.

Mary was correct. However, if you tested the sword of a live subject before and after removing your hesitation you'd have an even better understanding of how your imbuing worked than if you simply test after. After all, the ability to pass through organic matter without harming the matter could be an extremely useful skill. You will likely be fighting people who can heal like you can, putting them on the back foot of not knowing if the next attack will cause damage or not might save your life.

"I want to spar with Asune." You imbue the sword. The light distracting the Mary enough for Asune to, instead of severing the hand, simply severe the tendons and free herself.

"You seem, better." Asune observed as she imbued her own blade and her wire spread out, ready to defend herself.

Best to test the imbuement on a hand. You fully reinforced your body and moved. Your clothing simple disintegrated off you the moment you did. Everyone standing perfectly still to your eyes as you walked over to Asune's side and flicked your sword up to remove her left hand.

Delilah grabbed your wrist, holding your hand a hair before the metal touched Asune. You tried to move but they were holding firm. Their mouth moved to say something but you were both moving too fast for sound wave to work. Realising you would either have to force them to let go or slow down, you slowed down. You wanted to test your imbument not waste time in a fight, even if Asune thought that is what was happening.

Pulling your reinforcement back Delilah repeated what they'd said. "We disagree."

Asune looked over at you. "I didn't know you could move that fast." She looked down at the sword almost touching her. Mary's hand grabbed her wrist and pulled it away before she had a chance to lower it.

"I need to test the imbument." You explained flatly.

"I need to talk to you about a ring and your mother." Eve said. "More important."

"Not really, I've no interest in my mother or her messages." You tried to pull your hand free.

"You say that now." Delilah's free hand snapped to your chest, a ball of magic forming around your mother's ring. "Still agree?"

"Agree with what?"

They looked a bit disappointed for a moment. "The ring that disappeared from your hand in the vault."

"I remember yes, however, as I said though didn't clarify, I've no interest in dead woman nor her machinations."

"The ring that belonged to my mother." Eve clarified. "That your mother set to look for. Still not interested?"

"No." You felt a tapping on your shoulder. Turning your head, surprised you hadn't felt some approach you see Clare smiling at you.

"Sorry about this." Her aura wrapped around you as she spoke, pushing inside you with ease thanks to your bonding. As it did you felt a stirring.

Oh, feeling that's a good thing. Oh, hey, you can appreciate that it's a good thing. "What did you do?" You asked as her aura withdrew, the numbness was still there but a feeling was inside it.

"Think of it like a refilling. I think, maybe, got to be honest no idea if this will do anything." Clare answered with a shrug. "How you feeling?"

The feeling grew stronger. You weren't sure what feeling itwas but as you probed it a few events replayed in your mind. "Oh ... OH... ooooohhhhhhuuuuucccckkkkkkk." It was embarrassment. "I am so sorry." You said to Mary who was busy bodily holding Asune back from you, who stopped struggling and looked really disappointed all of a sudden.

"Let's get you to your room." Clare said patting you on the back as you tried to go into the fetal position. She and Delilah mostly carried you along the way as yesterday afternoon replayed in your head.

You admitting to Mary who you and Clare actually are, finding out they already knew. Knocking Mary around, twice. Landing in front of the church with literal wings and taking their holy book only to return it without comment. You know that there is nothing in their religion about winged figures but you can be damn certain there will be from now on if - oh, Oriana wasn't there was she, maybe you caught a break.

Your momentary relief is then met with the face of Gabrielle doing her best to seduce you and getting no response. She is going to be so awkward around you next time.

"How you doing big guy?" Clare asked as she put you into bed and you curled up, Sarean's sword was left to lean against your wardrobe and sunk into shortly afterwards. "Sorry for not catching you, greying out makes you impossible to find." She laughed emptily. "How about from no we don't try to absorb an armies worth of auras." She said rubbing your back softly.

"Still need to talk about the ring." Eve chimes in. "Look at him, he needs to relax first." Delilah chided. "Oh we all know what sort of relaxing you want him to do, namely into our - SSSSSHHHhhhhh." Eve started only for Delilah to cut her off.

"Into your what?" Clare asked, suddenly a lot less concerned about you compared to possible perviness.

"Yeah Delilah, into our what?" Eve teased.

"Stop teasing Eve." You said, uncurling. Their collective dismissal of the situation did help. In context nothing you did was that bad, at least you had a really good excuse for doing it, and Lady Demise might be playing keep away with Isabelle for a while, that's an upside. "What ring?"

Clare makes a magically sphere in her hands and puts it over your mothers ring. "Remember Eve telling you about the ring."

"Yeah, hard to forget -" you don't finish being sardonic as you see a quirked eyebrow from Eve. "Or not. So, safe to assume the disappearing items is thanks to my mum. Any idea why she'd want a," you look at Eve and don't mention the first disappeared item being the thing that burned her eyes out, "and your mothers ring?"

"We spent all yesterday trying to figure that out but came up empty aside from agreeing that she must want them bad. The magic to teleport anything is a massive bitch to get working live with an item in front of you, doing it from the past with no way to lock onto an item is insanely complex. Way too complex to even try stuffing into the ring around your neck. We got nothing in other words." Clare answered with a shrug.

"Well it would be live in a way." You said, only just noticing you are naked. "I go through so many uniforms." You didn't feel bad about that, you've a feeling it won't be changing anytime soon.

"What do you mean it would be live?" Eve asked.

"My mum can see the future perfectly enough to leave notes that would be found at exactly the right time. Must be easy to tag something if you know exactly where it is going to be and when." You thought about that for a moment. "The subject of free will and how I might not have any just occurred to me ... well, that's going to stick in my head for a while. Wonder if the letter I burned yesterday was blank with only the envelop."

"Existential crisis aside that kinda works, but not the amount of magic. I told you about this weeks ago, teleport magic is exponential for distance."

"Maybe it's lots of small teleports to where ever they are being gathered." Eve chimed in. "Should we really be worried? My mum said Zara was the nicest person she'd ever met."

"I'd add that she and my sister were friends, but that little freak practically fetishes her own naiveté, actually she does she just want to accept that she does." You can see Clare's mind wonder as it is filled with fantasies of how she is going to being playing into that fetish.

"Would it even matter if we were concerned. With my memory being erased and my mothers awareness I don't think we can stop whatever she's put into motion." You felt a tickle in your brain, a puzzle piece you didn't know belong to this puzzle but you can't nail it down. "Clare is there free will in this reality?"

"Yeah, seeing the future isn't that uncommon, but you lots of prophecies have been avoided." She looked at you with a rather uncomfortable expression.

"Glad my dad wasn't told I'd overthrow him one day." You say as a very old bit of trivia entered your mind, the obvious way to kill a prophecy about a person it to kill them, eating aside.

"Could destroy the ring." Eve added. "Zara wasn't a bad person." Delilah said with a huff. "Why are you assuming it has to be bad?"

"We're not, we're being ready in case it is." You answered. "Though out of all this I think the only thing we've concluded is that if I find a letter tell me to go get something I need to have you with me." You sighed, nodding at them. "Until then I think we just, go on as usual." Everyone agreed and Clare dropped the magic around the ring. "Aurora knows." You sighed and went back to bed. How long has she known?

"What?" Delilah asks, you fill them in on yesterdays events.

"Ha, Oriana is going to be so pissed she missed that." Clare laughed when you were done. You spent a bit longer making sure she was aware of Aurora knowing who she and Eve were. Eve suggested she clearly didn't have an issue with your mental age since she was trying to set up the centuries old mind with her seventeen year old daughter. That did make you feel a bit better.

There was a knocking at the door and Vatarie asked if you were coming to class. Frankly you needed something other than all this to focus on so put on your remaining uniform and headed down, on the way letting a attendant know you'll need a new uniform and was told they have one already made for you. Great you've got a reputation.