(Resumed) Solstice

[Emmett]

From the depths of the shadows, I became aware of my laboured breath.

Next, I became aware of warm water ensconcing me up to my neckline. Then I became aware of soothing pulses dancing through the water, seeping into my skin and caressing the muscles within.

Then I became aware of just how stiff and heavy I felt, particularly in my chest.

I opened my eyes slowly with a groan, a pale tile wall reflecting snowlight straight in. Well, this looks nothing like the building we stopped in front of.

"Well well!" Ser Larsen's voice shattered the silence from the left.

With great effort I wrenched my face to face him. The tan-muscled cerulean-robed PT instructor's sight greeted me with the same old paper-thin black hair but paired with an uncharacteristic grin. 

It reminded me of an errant child about to sow chaos upon all it could see. 

"The Living Zombie awakens!"

The next voice I would hear brought much more joy to my heart. "EMMETT!" 

My eyes twitched starboard toward Ansel sitting on a chair, and his barkskin self bounded to me in a single step. 

"Emmett you're alive!!"

I flashed my one true friend what I would have sworn was a winning smile.

Ser Larsen strolled from the desk a wall away from me next to the porcelain tub holding me in warm water. He dipped his left arm in, placing his palm atop my exposed chest.

It was at this point I realised I was deprived of the overwhelming majority of my clothes. My cheeks rushed red and I couldn't focus enough to feel whether I at least had smallclothes.

My instructor pushed firmly against my chest. Emerald-sapphire light surged from his palm into the water, into me, carrying a surge of stamina and vitality with it. "You picked a good one Bauer; he has nerves of adamant and apparently the craziest Body Talent I ever heard of."

Ansel clenched his fists, catching himself with a deep breath afterward. "Ser." The wrath in his voice swam through my spine, shivers rippling through me.

"Soldier." Ser Larsen's voice was equally measured. He took Ansel's emotion and projected it back at him without a hint of losing concentration. He didn't even turn around.

"What happened to my friend." 

Ser Larsen drew a short breath. "You read the report, Bauer?"

Ansel clenched his fists, this time around holding the tension. "You mean that horseshit about him overburning?!" 

"Drop the attitude maggot!" The older male snapped his free hand out toward Ansel, gathering a turquoise flame about it without stopping his Healing Magick infusion. "How would you know whether the report was wrong anyway? You were in the brig!"

Ansel leaned forward into a deep yell. "Because Emmett doesn't overburn!"

A deafening silence echoed in the walls of the infirmary room. I expected Ser Larsen to scream back at Ansel, to punish him with yet additional punishment duty.

He didn't. Instead, a good half minute later, he muttered a single word. "Shit."

Ansel blinked and relaxed his posture. "Ser?" He held his left hand over my bathing tub, over me in particular. "Ser, I need you to please tell me why in the Heavens and Havens my explanation warranted a response of, and I quote, 'Shit.'"

I blinked. Why was Ansel this overprotective of me all of a sudden? I didn't get it. I didn't get why the tension in the room was choking my poor lungs and crushing on my breast-

Correction: I did not have breasts. For some reason, my mind rendered a delusion that I was breasted. I had no idea why and this alarmed me greatly.

Ser Larsen lifted his hand off me and out of the water. The Magick around him faded back into the air. "Bauer." He took a step toward him. "Given how close you two must be in order for you to know that before I did, I will grant your request, but I need you sworn to secrecy. The real report officially never happened. I only know because I was the one who received him when Fayt portaled in. That and you need a preamble since you're likely the only one he'll listen to in a pinch."

Ansel took his hand away from me and dropped to his knee, looking down. "I swear to secrecy. I swear on my Magick to secrecy." He looked up, and I could swear I saw an amber light envelop him ever so briefly. "Please! Tell me what I need to know!"

Ser Larsen gave a single booming clap. Something in me said he was grinning ear to ear, though I couldn't see his face. "No need to be so formal, Bauer. At ease."

Ansel scrambled back to his feet.

"First, the preamble." Ser Larsen stepped away from the tub, back to the opposite wall so we could both see his face. "And Sinclair, you need to pay attention too." 

I gave a soft nod and opened my mouth.

"No need, Sinclair; save your energy." 

I closed my mouth.

"Alright lovebirds, listen up."

Ansel's teeth bared into a snarl but he did not protest.

I just didn't have the energy to correct him.

"In my many years of studying, fighting, healing, and teaching, I have encountered three general kinds of transcasters: the transitioners, the advocates, and the crazies." Ser Larsen pulled up a chair and took a seat. "The transitioners are just those who transition, usually by Full-Body Transmutation to trade dysphoria for dreaming, but others use more experimental methods to approximate the other sex, keeping their Magick along with all the other problems. Either way, they are the closest of the three to normalcy."

Ansel tilted his head ever so slightly. "Hm." His hum conveyed an unusual annoyance. "Is it not rude to imply that transcasters aren't like you or me?"

Ser Larsen rolled his eyes and laced a chill knife into his voice. "I'm sure those who would see Sinclair, you, or even me killed care so much about politeness." 

Ansel bit down on his teeth, his breath tapering to a hiss.

Ser Larsen shook his eyes and relaxed his tone a bit. "In seriousness, it is likely precisely because whoever taught Sinclair previously treated him like a normal Magus that he had not a drop of actual talent walking in our doors. You commit the same mistake the advocates make in conflating treating one with normalcy with respecting one's humanity." 

I saw Ansel's facial features relax, but I felt a tinge of animosity sealed tight in his posture.

Ser Larsen held up a finger. "Speaking of! The advocates are the ones dedicating their lives, ambitions, studies, monies, what-have-you to improving the condition of trans Magi. The main thing I've noticed about them is they place extremely high, if not top, of their classes, and they are driven by passion to put an end to dysphoria once and for all. The best of the best of them are working on a way to modify Full-Body Transmutation to preserve the Ætheric Vessel and stop it from disintegrating. They may have some radical beliefs, but they are truly dedicated and, all in all, the world is better for it."

Ser Larsen crossed one of his legs. His eyes fell toward first me and then Ansel before he cleared his throat. "Finally, the crazies. I get a lot of flak for that, but it's true. These Magi are the monsters of the battlefield who dropkick the limits of what's possible into next year despite most of them being trans and suffering greatly for it. Ever wonder why Ser Lienne, a woman, is the best damn Circleweaver in the Colleges? How she is Provost of Combat when fighting requires intimate awareness of your physical condition?"

My breathing grew shallow and swift. Lienne, Ser Lienne, who threatened me against calling her Sir... She transcasts too?!

"Because she's one of the crazies. She's so far in the deep end that Aegis himself will run the fuck away from her despite his Magick being invisible and absolute! She said herself the only reason she hasn't transitioned is to instill a healthy fear of the female sex and womanly gender. She suffers every damned day from that dysphoria, and yet! She empowers herself from the pain of it all and bellows her flames with spite!"

I blinked, staring off into the wall. I thought a moment about that scarlet envelope the Librarian gave me, how she had instructed him to give it to me when I started looking into transcasting.

Did she know? Did she know this entire time?

Of course she did. She would immediately think to check for it because she had the same condition but in reverse. But then why didn't she just tell me?

Ser Larsen pointed to me. "Bauer."

Ansel's teeth clattered. "What... are you saying..."

"This friend of yours, whom you've stood up for against me multiple times, is also in that third category. He is following in Ser Lienne's footsteps. You wanna know what really happened?"

Ansel nodded, not saying a word.

"Sinclair here, upon arriving in Stormingcalm, threw down with Breckenbale, got his heart punched out by Arbor Magick, and kept fighting without it. I'm sure you can imagine the skill in both Magick and Biofeedback needed to do that. Sinclair should have died, and yet here he is. That's why it took him a full week to recover and that's why his Soul is as weak as it is."

Ansel's voice broke into a scream again. "Then WHY'D YOU SAY HE WAS FINE?!"

"Because if he survived the hard part on his own, then he plus every Healing Magus in CVAC can handle the easy part, Bauer, and WE DID!"

I started shaking. These emotions, Ansel's emotions, protecting me from a stronger authoritarian man...

"Grace Gardner is wanted for treason against our Lord, and she will be brought before me or you will all be slain."

My teeth pressed against each other. A ravenous furor within me opened its maw and Æther poured out to envelop me.

"Shit!" Ansel rushed to me and threw his arms into the water, drenching his robe to get his arms around me. "Em it's alright; please calm down; you're safe now!"

My mind heard but something deeper did not. "...not if... she...doesn't..." I rambled old words that did not hail from this time.

Ser Larsen stepped toward the exit. "I'll let you two have some time alone since he's stable enough to cast. Sinclair, you're still in bath-rest so don't try anything."

The older male is leaving? I heard a voice ask in my head: a woman's voice, not my voice.

"Em, breathe, she's safe, they're all safe, we're just worried about you!"

This doesn't comport. "Where... where..."

"You're in the infirmary, here, in CVAC."

Back here? When? How? the foreigner continued to ask.

"Everyone made it back in one piece, Em. 'Only one who took a beating is you."

Familiar voice. Familial voice. Disengage. The mysterious woman finally said, her voice departing and my Magick subsiding.

Ansel did not let his arms and hands off me. "Good, good, steady, easy. You're awake, you're alive, you're stable, you just need some more time to finish healing."

My breaths grew longer, and my smile with it. "Thank you... Ansel... I'm...."

"Not accepting an apology right now because you're still delirious." Ansel slowly lifted his arms away from me. "I just want to know. I just want to know what demonic force pushed you to attack Neil Breckenbale, political and military leader of a village known for harboring the financial elite of the world of Magick, when you had only just learned how to use Magick at all?!"

My smile faded and I looked down. I had angered Ansel and threw my life away again, against Grace's warnings as well.

I shook my head.

"Answer me, Emmett."

I seized up and my breath quickened.

He deepened his voice into a controlled yell. "Why did you-"

My eyes pierced through his angry mug into his eyes. "I DON'T KNOW!!"

Ansel's jaw slacked open and he gripped his chest.

"I DON'T HAVE A SINGLE FUCKING CLUE, ALRIGHT?! THE JACKASS FALSELY ACCUSED GRACE OF TREASON AND WANTED TO TAKE HER BY FORCE THREATENING OUR LIVES TO DO IT SO HE CAN DO HORRIBLE UNSPEAKABLE THINGS AND I JUST..."

Ansel moved his hands to cover his mouth.

I coughed and sniffled and my eyes watered. "AND I SNAPPED, OKAY?! SOMETHING IN ME BROKE AND I HAVE NO MEMORY OF ANYTHING THAT HAPPENED BECAUSE THE LAST THING I REMEMBER IS MY MAGICK SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL!!" I pulled my barbell-like legs slowly yet fast as I could in order to hug them with my arms.

Ansel must have recovered quickly from my outburst because the next thing I knew, he laid a gentle hand on my shoulder and kissed the top of my head.

I hissed. "B-back off."

And he did.

And a cold sharp pain lanced through me that I could not describe nor account for.

"I was in the wrong," I heard him say softly.

I let out a whimper.

"I raised my voice and forced an answer out of you when I shouldn't have. I was so scared and angry I didn't consider you. I am so sorry."

I let out a little bit more than a whimper that time.

"Em." His voice broke the silence against which my cries contrasted. "Magick is rooted in your spirit. It responds to your actual, subconscious, truly honest beliefs. This is why meditation is so important. If you find yourself in a situation you can't fully process, the part of you housing your Talent will act with or without you. Body Magi like me start punching whatever the problem is, which is why I got aggressive with you and I am so so sorry about that! Mind Magi start thinking a kilometre a second and compose a complicated plan that might work and might kill them."

I nodded and gave a high-pitched whimper that I hoped conveyed assent.

"And Ser Larsen is wrong about you. Both about you not being normal and what your Talent is."

I coughed out my mouth because my nose plugged up from the crying.

"You learn quick but you're not that good. Hells, I bet you didn't even know what Biofeedback was until I mentioned using it to lock onto your casting style."

I remembered reading about it in that Four Elements, Three Talents book but didn't want to correct him.

"Plus, locking out that much agony is a Mind Talent. Body Magick yes, but you need Mind to power through literally not having a heart. You're not a Mind Talent and your Body's not that skilled which makes you a Spirit Magus. And a traumatised Magickal Soul is a hell within the world."

"What..." I shivered and clutched myself tighter. "Do.. you mean?"

"Magick is rooted in the spirit. That's not some self-help quote meant to encourage self-care. That's literal fact. All Magick goes through the Spirit, so if that's your Talent, your fight-or-flight is managed by literally the part of you that does Magick and all bets are off."

"And if the Spirit is traumatised... told how horrible and dangerous it was..."

"It would limit itself to act docile so someone would accept it. Especially if my hunch is right and that Soul had no real friends." Ansel stepped toward me and set a hand on my shoulder again. "And then it won't have any idea how to control itself because it has never let itself feel those emotions, and then it becomes a spectre of death when set off 'cause it'll throw everything. Not 'everything it has', everything everything."

I shook my head. Did... did that mean I owed Jessica from Iron By Right my life?! Alongside Jacqueline Jade and Aegis?! And was that wind in the room when we... got together... my actual strength of Magick?!

"I'll go talk to Selene and see if the two of us can spend a week with ya." Ansel took his hand off me and stepped away. "I want the world for you but I need help to help you and Selene's the most spiritually inclined of anyone I know. And Emmett?"

I hummed in reply.

"Whether you're a woman or a man, you're an amazing friend. Having said that, Ser Larsen has a solid point: until you figure yourself out I can't court you in good conscience, even though I really want to. I'm not bi."

I blinked and let my body slink back into the tub. It was not until Ansel left the room completely that I realised what he just said.

It was at that time I became very aware of the fact that, unfortunately, I was in fact without any covering at all, even smallclothes.