(Resumed) Solstice

[Emmett]

I had contorted my thoughts into a spiral of anxious overcomplication. Ansel wanted to court me?! Like, go out with me as a couple?! 

I looked down at my naked soaked brick-muscled shamble of a body and stared. What did Ansel see in me? He was stronger than me, I knew people liked men who had their abdominal muscles visible, I was useless at Magick and nearly got myself killed so I wasn't even a reliable social investment. I had nothing to my name, except a massive debt to the Colleges I could never hope to pay in time.

Plus there was that whole thing about what if I was trans or whatever.

Why am I never allowed to have even a standard for who and what I am!? I cursed at myself internally.

And then there was the cross-punch of what if Ansel liked women and saw me as one. That made more sense, honestly. He definitely knew about me transcasting, and I just didn't make the cut as a man; Jacqueline had made sure to remind me every week I was under her roof.

Or maybe this was a test? Ansel did say I had to figure things out for myself and that I had to assert myself. Maybe if I could just declare myself a man-

I winced. What? The back of my eyes stung briefly. Was I about to cry?

One more thing was wrong: If I really did have my heart mutilated, I would be dead, so why the false action report? 

Why was it that the moment I woke up from failing the Fayt mission I was in the infirmary with nowhere to go and even more questions and not a damned answer anywhere in sight?!

I closed my eyes. There was nothing I could do. My body was too heavy to move and I had basically been confined to this bathing tub. 

...

"... and shine, Sinclair!"

My eyes sprung open to Ser Larsen infusing more Healing Magick into my watery bed. "Nng... Hi..."

He held up his spare hand and raised the third finger, curling up the left corner of his mouth. "Yeah, you're gonna be sleepy and sore for a good few days. Good news is you have enough soul in ya to move around without needing babysat every second." He pulled his right hand out of the water and the spring light lapsed. "Let's get you out of there and into some clothes for the first time this week."

I grumbled, having once again forgotten I was completely in the nude, and contracted my stomach to make a sit-up. Nothing happened.

My instructor chuckled and reached for my arm. "Yeah son this ain't PT and honestly if you could do a sit-up right now I'd shit myself. We had to use redistributor arrays to thin out your heart trauma so you wouldn't die trying to walk around."

Dull, harsh throbs reverberated through me and I grunted out. I had no idea being hoisted out of a bathtub could be so painful. Ser Larsen kept me from slipping on the wet tile below when I hopped down, but that did not abate the feeling that every muscle I had was heavily concussed.

I didn't even have the energy to complain. I just wanted clothes. 

After Magick whisked the water away from me, I spent what felt like an hour waddling to the tables across the room with Ser Larsen catching my falls. Once there I finally managed to clothe myself, though the embarrassment did not cease.

I found myself slowly escorted to the door.

Ser Larsen opened it-

"Em!" Ansel called the instant he saw me.

"Hello!" Selene's voice squeaked before I could even recognize the two students standing before me.

"He's all yours!" Ser Larsen pushed me right at Ansel, who was gracious enough to catch me before I dropped. "Sinclair, you're on office detail for a week. That means no exercise and no Magick. You only have so much Soul to throw around and however much you think you have, you don't."

The door closed. I didn't even get a chance to reply. 

Ansel gently pushed me back on my feet, stepping back only when he was certain I was stable. "Welcome back Em."

Selene's sky-coloured eyes sparkled under her silvery hair. She bounced on her toes toward me, tapping my nose with her forefinger. "I guess you really needed the good luck, huh?"

I groaned and nodded. "Yeah. Everywhere... hurts."

Ansel belted out a laugh. "No shit you're hurt! Larsen freaking ported you, man!"

A voice in my head hissed internally in his general direction, but being put on a Post-Op Recovery Term shouldn't have caused this reaction in me.

Selene hummed and whistled. "Well, then we should wait a day for Emmett to recover before trying anything Magickal. That or three days. But absolutely not two days."

"Why not two-" 

The looks they flicked at me said it all.

"Oh. Right." Enday. 

Ansel shook his head and Selene clasped her hands. 

Ansel gestured toward a hallway that promised to lead to an exit. "I already asked for your absent work to be sent to the General Library. Let's spend some time there."

I assented with a low hum and brought my leg forward with a hiss.

Selene held a hand toward me, a soft azure light enveloping it. "Let's take this slow, shall we?"

Apparently slow meant my battered self couldn't walk from the deepest-fortified east wing of the North Outer Field back to the North Inner Gate, never mind the Student Centre closest to the West Inner Gate.

Both Ansel and Selene had offered to help and even carry me, but I declined. I didn't want to confuse Ansel about any intentions when he wasn't sure about me, and I didn't want to burden Selene, who had presumably accepted Ansel's request to aid me out of the kindness of her heart.

Selene had chosen to ensconce me in a cocoon of Æther as her reply. "I need the practice anyway," she had said about one second before I found myself held aloft by Magick.

We made it down the staircase to the General Library in a matter of minutes instead of hours after this decision.

"Welcome to the-" The Librarian threw his hands out straight in my direction. "What in the Heavens and Havens is going on?"

"Uh, sir," said Ansel blankly, "This is Emmett and he just got discharged and we'd like to help him with the classwork he's missed."

The Librarian stared at me for a few moments, then a Selene whose body shook. "How long has he been in that?"

Selene drew some laboured breaths. "From... North Inner..."

"Release him!" barked the Librarian.

Selene gasped with a whimper and held her hands up.

The cocoon around me dissipated into vaporous Æther.

Ansel dashed to me who had just begun to fall and caught me gently in his arms. "Selene, what are you doing?"

It still hurt a lot.

Selene spun her feet to press her back to the wall next to the door. "S-sorry! I just-"

I took in a breath, overpowering the burning in my chest and back. "It's okay," I managed to grunt out.

The Librarian shook his head. "You could have taken your time. I don't bite." He swiveled his eyes to face me. "Stars above, they released you in that state?!"

I threw my face down, then up.

"I am going to throw the book at that arsehole." The staff member returned his gaze to some parchments on the Library's front desk. "Just don't cause a scene. Welcome back, by the way. Situate yourselves and I'll bring the missed work over."

The three of us shambled, quiet as we could, to a spare table away from the others who were reading, studying, or both.

Ansel stood up and paced through the shelves, looking for some choice entries.

Selene took her seat across from me and held out her hand. "I'm really sorry about dropping you."

I reached and clasped her hand for a handshake. "It's alright. I'd have been fine."

"Ansel asked me to help you with your Magick." She glanced to her left, my right, toward Ansel carrying two short tomes and looking for more. She looked back toward me. "However, there's something he's not telling me and I'm hoping I would hear from you."

I felt a tug against my hand and let hers go. "Yeah?"

"What happened? We played Throwball, you started self-actualising, and when we next meet you're one foot out the coil and your Spirit is ghostly faint."

Numbness seized me. How much had she figured out in the short time she'd been carrying me?

"Just how badly did your Mission go wrong?"

"Very," said a voice neither mine nor Ansel's. 

We both looked up to find Patrick and Grace, his brown hair lighting up her black. Red and blue robes contrasted like fire and ice. Fitting really, considering their Elements.

Why were they here? Why was he here? Grace I was more able to forgive since she hadn't been torturing me since I was a child and recently started helping me, but Patrick was a different story entirely. One could say, the story of my life.

"You are his Squadmate?" Selene asked with a chill that was decidedly not present with the Librarian.

Grace nodded. "We both are. I'm just glad Emmett's okay."

"I see." Selene pointed to Patrick. "Explain, then leave. You're disrupting his Soul."

Patrick shot her a glare. "You weren't even there! How could-"

Grace clasped Patrick's shoulders softly and gently pulled him aside. "No fighting in the library."

Ansel returned with a small stack of books and glowered. "Em literally just got out of recovery. If you mess this up, I'm challenging both of you at once."

"And if this spat continues you are all banned from my Library." The Librarian marched to us with a stack of parchments, some papers, and a book or two. "Behave or else."

Everyone shuffled about, uttering apologies and forming up at the table around me. Ansel sat next to me. Grace sat next to Selene. Patrick sat on the off-side to my right, between Grace and Ansel.

I was sifting through the papers, starting with the less Magickal topics like maths and history when the conversation between the others resumed.

Said Selene, "You said you were going to explain?"

Said Patrick, "I was, yes. Everything went to shit the second we touched down. We got out, and Breckenbale was asking for Grace's head..."

Words could not describe how it felt to see Patrick Peterson, friend-turned-worst-nightmare from the age of twelve, shaking in fury, trying everything he could not to break down and cry.

Said Grace with a hand on his shoulder, "Hey. Don't push it. It's okay."

Said Ansel, naught. He just set a shoulder on me without a word.

No word was needed.

Said Patrick, "No, I need to explain this. Fucker demanded that Grace be brought to him under charges of treason. We had two students with Elements and the Dean of Air on our side. All that and guess what?"

Said Grace, "Patrick-"

Said Patrick, "Not one of us did a damn thing to stop that jackoff from doing whatever he wanted with Grace! The only one of the four who had any balls worth keeping was fucking Emmett! I don't remember the details; someone fucked with my mind. Probably the Chancellor, but he screwed up erasing his tracks 'cause you wanna know something?"

The table stood stunned. I was paralyzed.

Patrick stared dead into Selene's eyes. "When the man's man of the clique who stood up to corruption is the lying shitestain that got your brother killed, you shut up and you remember that. No Memory Magick can even hold a damned candle to that."  

I felt a surge of murderous malice bubble up, despite this being the single most glowing evaluation of character anyone had ever given about me.

Patrick pointed to his left arm with his right finger. "Even if he did, I'd still know. This arm is burned from the inside. There is only one spell that burns me like this and it's one of mine and I only cast it when there's an Emissary actively trying to kill me or mine."

I twitched. There was no way. There was no way that Patrick would burn his own arm just to save me. Something was wrong. Something was dead wrong. 

"Patrick?" Selene's lips passed a gentle question into the air. "I think I understand now."

Grace raised an eyebrow at the other woman. "Understand? Understand what?"

"Why Emmett Sinclair's Soul is starved to within a footfall of its life, why it took a week for them to recover, where this Mission was held, who gave the Mission, and that a dire threat is on the move." She pulled a text on the subject of Runes and Spell Circle formations from the middle of a stack. "And Patrick? I hear you and I feel the pain of change upon you. But we absolutely must not continue this topic now: you may have had a week but your Squadmate woke up yesterday. We can share our classwork if you'd like; that's why we're here, but we need to focus on that."

Ansel tapped my shoulder to get my attention before gesturing to an unoccupied bookshelf. "Em?"

I nodded and followed, hissing through the pain of it all. Pain that did not bother me even five minutes ago.

My oldest friend whispered into my ear. "Em. I'm telling you this because I care about you, but I know the extent you will go to see the people around you safe. What Patrick described with his arm burning? Some Magi will use self-harm to artificially strengthen their Magick. I do not ever want to see you go that route. Got it? We nearly lost you last week. Please. We would rather be hurt ourselves than see you do that."

I shook my head and sighed. "Is... that what this was about?"

Ansel nodded.

I nodded too. "I didn't even know I could do that." 

Ansel's eyes warbled into what was possibly the most scared look I'd seen in a long time.

"Look, I don't intend on resorting to something like that."

"It's not about intending, Em: you didn't intend to nearly die and here we are. I'm not saying don't intend to do it. I'm saying don't do it. Self-harm's addicting and it draws you in more and more. It justifies self-hate and soon that hate will bleed out and hurt the very ones you swore to protect. It probably already has."

I looked down.

"So don't do it. I'm repeating this not because I think you're weak. Em, you're driven. You will do anything for the people you care about. That's exactly why I'm so fucking scared of this."

I nodded. "Alright. I can't swear on my Magick or anything like that. But... I won't. Please, help me learn to actually use my Magick correctly so I won't feel that temptation."

"Like you even need to ask."

The two of us returned to the table and I started poring over the mathematics text first. Naturally, a discipline that focuses on internal deduction would be easier to catch up on than one like history which relies entirely on external facts and cross-checking.

Selene tapped my book and held out a sheet of parchment. On that parchment lay an interesting inscription. The inscription held a wide circle, broken at the top to signify noncompletion. Inside this outer circle was a completed circle. The ring held a Kenaz rune at the bottom, a Tiwaz rune at the top, and long triangles curving with the ring pointing from the bottom to the top.

Inside the inner circle, a top-down compass rose connected the Kenaz rune to an innermost circle. The compass rose was marked by Perthro and Nauthiz, and a similar one bonded the top of the innermost circle to the Tiwaz rune. 

Said Innermost Circle had Isa on bottom, Sowilo on top, and Jera runes on each side, with four long triangles again, each pointing from one rune to the next anticlockwise. There lay a single Ingwaz rune in the centre.

I took the diagram into my hand, and scanned it over. Okay, so clearly this Circle goes bottom to top. Not sure what the triangles on the outer ring do. Perthro and Nauthiz? Something about making a choice? Then what's this Jera loop doing? And there's a note about how you could do basically the same thing by making every arrow instead point up for a cheaper application, but this was a general form? And going from... Ice to Fire? Back to Ice?

I shook my head and coughed slightly. I felt an imaginary pressure atop my head. "What is this?"

"A Spell Circle Ser Feylance asked us to study," replied Selene, "This particular one is an introductory variant of a class of inscriptions called redistribution arrays. Basically they take something concentrated in one spot and smooth it out across the available space of whatever the medium is. In this case, you're taking the heat from a fire, and Magickally spreading it throughout the local area by forcing an alternate reading of Ingwaz to mean a home or a room."

I nodded. "Normally they're a lot more complicated, aren't they."

"Correct." Selene took the parchment back and laid it down. "Real redistributors have lots of numerological optimizations and safeties. The only real one this has is the outer triangles to probabilistically discourage back conversion."

"And there are these structures in all kinds of Circles? For all kinds of things?"

Selene nodded rapidly. "Yes yes!"

Grace and Patrick were talking over one of their shared assignments, but I didn't pay much attention. "Can you even redistribute injury from one muscle to a bigger muscle group?"

Grace's speech stopped.

Patrick blinked. "Grace?"

Selene's eyes widened. "Um, that's illegal. Why would you even-"

Ansel's voice entered a guttural growl. "That son of a bitch..."

LunaSoltaer

This chapter took quite a bit to write out, and had like three different endings I was debating between and for the longest time I was afraid I'd probably left in unnecessary bits to my detriment. In fact, I think I still have, especially with the whole Spell Circle bit. I was originally gonna cut off this chapter before then, but decided that hey, this link from the bottom of the chapter to the top might be neat.

Let me know what you think? Oh yeah I had like five different versions of how that Circle went too.