Book Two: KOTLC One-shots and More

Necessary Secret (Oralie POV)

A/N: @Phoenix9563 requested this scene from "Legacy" in Oralie's point of view. It will be told in two chapters.

"So...how do we do this?" Sophie asked, looking nervous as Oralie welcomed her into her castle.

Sophie had forgotten to curtsy, something which Oralie didn't mind in the slightest. She hated seeing Sophie curtsy to her. It felt wrong. Unnatural. But she could never tell Sophie why.

It was a necessary secret.

"It's probably best if we sit," Oralie suggested, hoping to put the poor girl at ease. She knew Sophie felt awkward around the Councillors--and given her fellow Councillors' poor decisions in regards to Sophie, Oralie couldn't really blame her. Even so, she wanted Sophie to know she was in the presence of an ally. Oralie had always wanted her to succeed--to flourish.

"Does my telekinesis surprise you?" Oralie asked after she floated a chair closer to Sophie and sat down. She hadn't missed the fact that Sophie's eyes had widened as she'd watched.

Sophie sat up straighter as she replied, "I know it shouldn't. I just don't see people use it very often."

Oralie smoothed the sleeves of her gown. Sophie had hit a nerve with that innocuous comment. Elvin skills had been sorely neglected for far too long. "I'll confess, I find myself wondering more and more what price we pay for emphasizing ability over skill. How much stronger would our world be if we embraced the powers that unite us instead of narrowing our focus to that which sets us apart?"

"I... don't know," Sophie mumbled, sounding uncertain.

"Sorry," Oralie told her, "I've gotten off topic, haven't I? I brought you here to walk you through a countdown exercise."

"Countdown?"

"It's painless, I promise," Oralie assured her, fighting back a smile at the nervousness that had crept back into Sophie's features. "Think of it as a way of guiding your mind to a different sort of awareness—one without pressure or judgment. A method of acknowledging what you're experiencing and allowing yourself to feel it. These types of exercises are essential in empathy training, since Empaths must learn to separate our own emotions from those we're reading—and not judge, condemn, or interfere with either feeling. But as I said earlier, I think, with a few tweaks, this kind of exercise could also be very useful for helping you isolate how each of your abilities functions and learn to better control them—especially your enhancing, since that's another touch-based power. Did you know Empaths have to train ourselves not to automatically read the emotions of everyone our hands come in contact with?"

Sophie shook her head. "I always thought it was like my telepathy, and you had to concentrate in order to take a reading—at least around elves."

"We have to concentrate if we want to translate what we're feeling," Oralie corrected, "but the basic act of sensing emotions is somewhat second nature, and it takes practice and training to teach ourselves to leave the feelings where they are and not pick them up."

"Pick them up?"

"That's part of the visualization technique we use. It's like"—she reached up and ran her fingers along the tourmalines in her circlet—"I'm touching this circlet right now—but that doesn't mean I have to do this." She lifted the circlet off of her head and set it on the table beside her.

Hopefully setting aside her circlet would set Sophie at ease. She wanted Sophie to know that she was an ally--always and forever.

"And picking up an emotion is different than translating it?" Sophie asked.

"It is. We can feel without understanding. But it's far better to leave the feelings where they are—particularly if they're intense or negative. Empaths need to set limits to save ourselves from the emotional overload we'd suffer if we had to feel all things from all people at all times—but I've sidetracked us again, haven't I?" she asked, feeling herself blush. Sometimes it was hard to keep her focus when Sophie was around--there was just too much she wasn't saying. Things she could never say. Not to mention how passionate she was about proper Empath training--especially since most people didn't understand its complexities.