*COMPLETE* There are whispers across the kingdoms that the Paragon, that strangely gifted person who can wield all four Skills, has been found.
They're wrong, of course. No one has caught the Paragon. Allayria should know: she's it.
But Allayr...
She leaves after they fall asleep. Her dozing had been fitful, and when she finally scrambles to her feet she finds herself out the door, out into the vast, blinking city night.
Allayria does not know where she goes, only that she seems not quite awake and wordlessly anxious, as if something outside of language is pressing in at the corner of her mind, making normal thought impossible. She yearns for the strange smells, the absorbing kaleidoscope of light breaking out of windows and doors, bleaching away the low, incessant humming in her mind. In a city swelling with life, it is so quiet. When her hand whips back, jerked around the wrist, she turns to see her bag caught on a doorknob. She hadn't realized she brought it.
Is this it, then? The thought intrudes strangely on her wordless exploration, and she frees the bag. Is it time to leave?
But when she turns her attention to that idea she becomes even more confused. What has laced itself into her heart is a painful sense of belonging, a siren song of comfort in the empty sea, and the thought of leaving now, even with the suspicions and uneasiness, is agonizing.
So she walks. She walks past gambling dens, past shuttered homes, past closed shops, and pleasure houses. The light of different lives passes over her, painting her in the twilight, and she begins to feel herself easing into a fluid rhythm. Touch, smell, aches, pains—they dissipate as she becomes a sensory creature, absorbed in light and sound.
She only notices him when pin-pricks rise across her arm, intuiting the close proximity of his own. They shiver up her neck, forcing the slow turn of her head. Ben walks beside her, as if they had prearranged this venture, as if they both knew they would find each other here.
"The rush of heat, the slow hum of metal and man are jangling your thoughts and making you restless," he says, his tone smooth and lulling as they turn down another street. "You're sensitive to it; much more so than most Smith-callers."
He stares at her with a keen knowing—but also, Allayria suddenly thinks, something else. Something, even as her brow twitches into a furrow, she cannot make out.
"I can help you," he continues, and the timbre of his voice is soft, melodic. "I can teach you to funnel it, and lock it away."
He smiles at her confusion, a slow, handsome smile, and the lights and sounds seem to dim for a moment as he says: "I've spent all my life learning about Skills. I don't need to be a caller to know how to help you."
They stop and he holds out his hand to her. His fingers are warm, and despite their coarseness, gentle.
"We Skill from our minds," he says, turning her hand so her palm lays skyward. His thumb runs down the long creases in it, leaving more pin-pricks in its wake. "We direct the flow of elements or the minds of lesser creatures by an intuitive, forceful will. Simply thinking: 'Bend.' or 'Attack.' does not work; it's the wordless, full comprehension of the command that bends nature to your will. You have to see where it is going and how it will happen for anything to occur. But the created bridge between mind and object is not a one-way street. As you manipulate your materials more, they have more purchase in you."
His thumb runs to her fingertips, brushing over each in turn.
"Calling means opening yourself to your environment. In time, you will begin to see the patterns hovering just below eyesight—the slow undercurrent of those connections between others and their calling. Even non-Skillers such as I can see it, if we train ourselves to. In time you will be able to see others' strength and flexibility, and measure them against your own."
He reaches up, pressing down at the base of her palm, across the cords beneath her flesh. It seems to her that the city dims and the ringing ceases. She's suddenly aware of herself; of the breath coming in and leaving her lungs; of her feet gripping her rough sandals; of her hand, lying in Ben's. His face, pale in the orange lamplight, is shaped and hewn in shadows, but his eyes are dark and alive.
"I don't think you will find an equal," he continues. "You have an extraordinary amount of Skill, Allayria."
She swallows against the dryness of her throat.
"So how do I do it?" she asks, her voice cracking from lack of use. "How to I block it all out?"
He shows her the pressure points, on her wrists and behind her jaw, lingering with steady fingers at each point, allowing her to feel the slow quieting of the world around her. As they walk back he talks about mental blocking, how to wipe the mind clean and construct the walls inside it to temporarily block the connection.
"You are a Smith-caller, so visualize plates of steel molding themselves to the entrance, creating a door that only you can open," he says. "Close the door and hold it close until you don't need to lean against it anymore."
It's only when she lies back down in her cot and goes over it, slowly, methodically, that she begins to feel it work, if only a little. Thoughts and questions intrude upon her door building, breaking through the slates and leaving fragmented holes.
When she gives up for the night she simply presses a thumb against her wrist and shivers at the touch.
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Note: another non-story header art. I just felt like it matched the chapter. :)
A full view of it can be found on my deviantart account here: http://asimsluvr.deviantart.com/art/X-379427104
