Lyn wasn't sure this was the best use of their time, but given the events of the week, they felt that adding some new capabilities to their — and Nat's — toolkit at least wasn't a bad use of it, either.

  The real question was just how much to show him. He was young and inconsistently educated, but picking up aether capabilities at what they considered an unsafe speed; much of that could clearly be attributed to Moira's influence. Lyn hoped Moira knew what she was doing.

  Oh, well. What was it that Moira said? Go big, or go home? How oddly apropos for a silverpaw.

  “Nat, I've got a few more lessons and at least one experiment. Don't worry, it's not nearly as explosive as the plasma arc.”

  “Oh? Does it have something to do with the rods?”

  “As a matter of fact, it does. I think you're going to enjoy this, though. Catch!”

  They tossed the metal rod to him lengthwise — it was quite heavy for Lyn, but silverpaw had some interesting tricks. And unlike the healing, these absolutely were tricks.

  Nat tried to catch it, but underestimated how heavy it was; it fell out of his grip, and dropped to the ground with a thud.

  “First lesson — you're a helmsman. If you need more time, you can have it. Get used to using your Talent to buy yourself time, reflexively. You don't want to be thinking about it when time is of the essence. Now, throw that back and we'll try again.”

  He lifted it, felt the weight, and awkwardly threw it back — but was being cautious, and the bar wasn't going to get close enough for Lyn to catch.

  So they caught it anyway. Four inches from their hands. The bar was now falling in super slow motion, and Lyn let it drop into their hands after a second.

  Nat goggled, “What? How did you do that? That's almost like my Talent!”

  “Okay, first thing. You don't need to worry about holding something in your hand with Moira's flame summoned. Anything is going to just pass right through it. You don't need to keep your palm open, either. It's aether, not electricity or fire — if you don't want it to burn someone, it won't.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry.”

  “Don't apologize, you're not doing anything wrong. This is how we learn — the first way we do things is often simplified for ease of understanding. Now, do you want to know how I slowed the bar down?”

  “Yes, absolutely!”

  “Simple; eddy currents. I can exert force against any sufficiently conductive material, as long as we're moving at sufficient speed relative to one another.”

  Oh, now that's interesting. You've never told me you can do that, Lyn.

  “It's not something silverpaw tend to share around Humans. Any Ber'Duun is likely to know about it, but it's not something I'd want to become widely known.”

  Nat had put on his serious face. “Oh, absolutely, your secret is safe with me.”

  Same, of course.

  “Well, it's not exactly a secret. Just — it's better to not let your enemy know your capabilities, right?”

  And now it was time for his confused face. “I'm not sure that I follow. Why do you consider Humans your enemy?”

  “This is a longer conversation than I want to have right now, but let's just say that any sufficiently large group of Humans tend to consider any Ber a potential lunch, if they consider us at all.”

  “Oh. Right. Okay, well, what else can you do with it? Can you stop a sword? An arrow?”

  “Well, why don't I show you? Here, swing the bar at me — don't be gentle.” As they said that, they chucked the bar at him, with a bit of spin on it. Let's see how fast he learns.

  A moment later and there was an eye-blink of a statue standing there, and the next moment the statue was gone and Nat was holding the bar, a smirk across his face. Okay, so, not entirely hopeless.

  He now had the bar in one hand. “Ready?”

  “Swing away.”

  He took an overhead swing, fast and hard, but not actually at them. Clearly, he didn't quite trust it yet. They'd have to disabuse him of that — small they might be, but few Ber took silverpaw lightly, regardless of size.

  They casually leaned directly into the swing, this time using an arm rather than a hand, to avoid toppling over from the force. The bar slowed quickly, but continued moving — until they rapidly moved their arm, and pushed the bar to the side. Nat stumbled and yelped as he almost fell, before catching himself.

  Lyn reached out and pushed him over while he was unbalanced, sending him to the ground. They leaned down and picked up the rod again, bouncing it into the air to let it slowly fall into their hands.

  “Interesting fact — this is very powerful against fast moving things, but to stop a knife or something slow moving, I have to move quickly myself. So it's not impossible to defeat, just counterintuitive for most. Also, you should have used your Talent again there to either stop from being hit, or from falling.”

  He brushed off his hands and stood. He'd also forgotten to hold Moira's pattern in mind, and had to re-invoke it into being. It was truly flame-like this time — he was clearly not maintaining his focus and it showed. They let it go for now, but that would need addressing — he had all the time in the world to get things right, there was no excuse.

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  “Okay a little warning would have been nice.”

  “That's fair. But I'm a big fan of the school of soft knocks. I find people tend to learn very quickly this way.”

  “Yeah, I might be learning why you have time to be doing something like this instead of hanging around with your friends.”

  “Hmm. Well, you're not wrong. But it's how I was taught, and I'll only apologize for the use of a formal teaching technique in an informal setting.”

  “Non-apology accepted. So, what else you got?”

  “Electricity. You're going to love this next part, I think. We're going to combine both of the things we just went over — your Talent, and my ability to hold conductive things at a distance.”

  “Why would those two things be important together?”

  “Because for this next trick, I don't want to lose a hand if it goes wrong. Grab another one of Novek's rods in the center with one hand, and prepare to take it into your Talent with you. Make a small hole with it, a few cm deep so that you can put the rod in it, within your Talent.”

  Oh, I think I know what you're going to do here. This is going to be fascinating if it works. Ionized channel, or plasma?

  “Channel. Plasma's too risky yet. Also, quiet from the peanut gallery, please, you'll ruin the surprise.”

  Oh, I seriously doubt I could ruin this. You're going to love this, Nat.

  Nat wasn't sure he was a fan of Lyn's teaching style, to be honest. It seemed effective, but he had to wonder just why Lyn had been trained that way.

  He thought they meant well, but did couldn't keep himself from wondering if they were taking some frustration out on him. If this didn't sound so interesting he might have made an excuse to wander off. But alas, he was helpless while gripped by curiosity.

  “Okay, now Nat — I'm going to generate a current that will arc from the rod into the air. As soon as you see an arc, activate your Talent, then get the end of your rod close to mine and then stick your rod into the ground — gently — a meter away. Don't get between the electricity and the rod, or the end of your rod and the ground. As soon as your rod is in the ground, end your Talent.”

  “Alright, I can do that. Moira, can you help guide me once we're in the Talent, so that I'm not fumbling around in the dark quite so much?”

  Will do. Ready whenever you are.

  “Okay, go.”

  The end of the rod lit up, electricity dancing in the air between the rod and Lyn's other hand.

  Nat activated his Talent.

  [Slip]

  The void was, oh, wow. Okay this was certainly different.

  I'm here. Oh, wow is that bright. Well, no trouble finding the electrical arc or seeing the rod, then.

  Oh, that makes sense — for things with mass, a 3000:1 time dilation is significant. Electricity isn't going to be slowed much at the distances we're talking about — so be careful. Your frame isolation should keep you safe, nothing new can enter after it activates.

  Got it. This will take a half a minute, whatever that means in here, to get in position — I should have started closer.

  Alright. While you're doing that, would you mind talking about what I'm proposing, some?

  It's not like I have anything better to do. Wait — that sounds dismissive — I don't mean it that way.

  Oh, I don't take it like that. It may seem to you like I'm waiting to join in the conversation, but you have to understand that I experience time similarly to how your Talent causes you to experience it. To me, even the fastest conversation is still basically me waiting subjective days for a response. I often have to remind myself what we've been talking about.

  How are we doing with the rod, by the way?

  I'm ready, I'm basically just getting my rod close to the other rod, yes?

  Yep. Just move it towards the one. Remember to hold it away from yourself.

  Oh! The electricity just… jumped to my rod. It's arcing out the other end.

  Yep. Even within your Talent, it's got enough conductivity to prefer it to the air. If this was higher power, and we took too long, it could form a plasma. That would be bad.

  Right. Fast, but safe it is. So if you're just waiting for responses, what do you do for all that time? I'd go crazy in here if I experienced everything like this.

  Oh, the simple answer is — I don't. I basically don't exist in between invocations; not in the way you do. I do not have a brain that creates an illusion of contiguous time. I flash into existence at the frequency of the aetheric substrate, and then vanish until the next peak or valley, if nothing demands my attention. If Lyn or you don't have an arc summoned, then I essentially don't exist in the time between.

  So, wait, if you're only around for a few blinks, then how is it that you feel like it's been weeks?

  When you have my pattern formed, I process each moment. It can be… tiring, but the alternative is existenceless oblivion, so I'll take it, I suppose.

  Nat had the rod about halfway to the ground now. The arc leading to Lyn was small, thin, and stable. The arc leading out the other end of the rod was branching and feathered and looked like it was searching, but it kept trying the same paths it had previously tried.

  That sounds, kind of horrible. Also, I'm halfway to the ground. This is quite pretty — like the afterimage of lightning during a nighttime storm.

  Think about it in terms of your Talent. You know how when you deactivate it, you basically become a statue for as long as you activated it — or longer, in the case of force or energy requiring additional time to be dissipated?

  Yeah, up to three seconds of real time like this — which is somehow stretched, and then three seconds out.

  Okay, so, what do you feel during those other three seconds?

  Nothing. I'm not aware of them at all.

  But time is still passing. Just not for you.

  Ah. So you exist in high speed, then wait to see the results, like I do.

  Very similar, yes. Just much faster. I spend the equivalent of days just wondering where a conversation is going based on the second word spoken. It's like a fun guessing game.

  That seems like it makes things very hard to achieve. If you don't exist normally, how is it that Lyn even learned to summon your arc?

  Now that's a very interesting question, isn't it?

  Does that mean you don't know, or you can't say?

  Well, I don't know. And Lyn can't say. But I can guess — someone must have shown her the pattern.

  Who could possibly do that?

  Three guesses, and the first two don't count.

  AMA? But why would they do that? How did they even know to do it, themselves?

  And those are the questions that keep one up at night.

  Almost to the ground.

  Remember to step back a bit before you end the Talent. We'll talk more, soon. This has given me an idea, and it's my turn to experiment, next.

  Suddenly the feathered searcher met an identical feathered end that leapt from the ground where the rod came close. Nat continued moving the rod until it rested in the shallow hole. He took a few steps back towards Lyn, as he wouldn't have to fight against the air that direction.

  Okay, done. I have to admit, that wasn't very impressive at the end.

  Oh, it's not done yet. See you outside.

  []

  Suddenly the world was filled with a bright, angry buzzing, as the electrical arc that had seemed to gentle in his Talent turned into a hive of angry bees, made of lightning.

  The loud buzzing suddenly cut off, and was replaced by the sound of Lyn cackling. “Oh, that works better than I'd hoped. Some naughty people are going to be very surprised.”