Fanfare

Concentration

Trenna can't even attempt to understand the implications of what Pierce has told her. Her mind is spinning out of control, a vortex of thoughts that just drags everything else into it so that she can think of nothing else. It is all consuming and painful in its intensity. It is, quite literally, her world.

"Concentrate, Trenna!" Kieran bellows at her, before collapsing into a coughing fit. She glares at him before sighing and going to the faucet in the corner, filling a glass with water and giving it to him. He swallows it gratefully before letting the glass go. He thumps his arm down on the armrest of his wheelchair. The glass hovers disconcertingly by his side, but Trenna doesn't spare it a glance. After a week of vomiting up the market's poison in her room and spending every other moment here with Kieran, she's been able to get used to his eccentricities.

"See that?" Kieran says. The glass spins slowly in the air, droplets of water at the rim catching at the light and sparking like diamonds. "That is power. That is control. It doesn't just appear in a second. This," he moves the glass across the room, not even looking at it as he sets it down on the table by the faucet. "This takes years. For some people, it takes a lifetime. For others-"

"It takes weeks. I know, I know. You're a miracle, a mastermind." Trenna whirls a finger in the air as she flops onto the floor. "Yay. So what? What's the point of this? How is this knowledge going to help me?"

Kieran looks at her, his face scrunched into the usual bear-like expression. She gives him a blank stare and he sighs, tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair. "The first time we met, I recall asking a young girl why she even wanted to control her magic in the first place. She could see in the dark! The world was always bright to her! Isn't that magnificent?" he asks sarcastically. Trenna's mouth twitches as she holds back a smile. "Do you know what she said to me? She said, if I recall correctly, 'I miss being able to tell the difference between light and dark.'" He raises an eyebrow at her. It's hard to tell if he is actually raising an eyebrow, or if he's just narrowing his eyes further. She likes to think he's raising an eyebrow; it suits his character, as she's come to know him. "That girl was one with determination. You, you have- hey! Stop that!"

Trenna reaches up from her position on the floor, as if to grab at the feather, but it only flies away from her grasp, higher into the air. Scowling, Kieran reaches for it, but it only flies further from his fingers. He scowls and uses his magic to blow it across the room, out of Trenna's reach. "Sorry. Did I interrupt you?" Trenna asks lazily, levering herself up on her elbows.

Kieran scowls, scrunching his face up further. Trenna can't help but squeal as her feet are pulled from beneath her, and she finds them pressed against the ceiling, as if her shoes are glued to the rock. She can feel the blood rushing to her head, and she matches Kieran's scowl with one of her own. "Seriously? Put me down. Now."

"Are you going to listen?" he asks.

"Are you going to stop treating me like a two year old?" Trenna asks, crossing her arms over her chest. Kieran lowers her to the ground after a tense moment. She settles onto the ground in front of  him, her legs crossed, listening and ready. The old man's mouth quirks.

"Right. Now, close your eyes. Imagine darkness."

"Imagining darkness," Trenna says, closing her eyes and resting her hands on her knees.

"It's warm. Comforting. You're walking down the streets, in the shadows."

"I am in the shadows," Trenna says.

"You feel safe, happy. Now, extend that darkness. Push it outwards, like it's another limb, an arm you've only just discovered." 

"Extending the darkness."

"And-" Kieran stops, and Trenna squints open one eye. "Are you even trying, or are you just repeating everything I say?"

"Repeating everything you say," Trenna says, in the same unfocused voice.

Kieran jerks her up from the floor. She puts her hands on her hips and blows a piece of hair from her face as her blood rushes to her head. "Now who's being immature?" Trenna asks.

Kieran opens his mouth to respond, but someone walks into the room behind her, out of her view, and the man falls quiet. "Something wrong?" Kieran asks the person. Trenna tries to turn to see, but Kieran holds her in place. She hears footsteps, even and measured, and a short breath of surprised, familiar laughter which is quickly cut off.

"I could ask you the same question," he says, and the old man smiles slightly. She hears more footsteps, and tips her head back; Pierce looks up at her. From this angle, his face is sharper than usual, though she didn't think it possible. His mouth quirks at the corner. "What'd she do?" he asks Kieran.

Kieran wordlessly drifts the feather across the room, and a slim, long-fingered hand plucks it from the air. "Thanks god," the old man sighs as the feather sits on the table, set down firmly and not in the air any longer. "What did you need, then?"

"Her, actually." Though there is no one else in the room, Trenna hopes they're not talking about her.

"I'll let her down, then." She desperately, desperately hopes they're not talking about her.

"Go ahead." She feels a dizzying sensation as her feet leave the rock and she falls, falls, falls. And hits something solid and warm.

She opens her eyes to see pale eyes watching her, an amused curl of his lips. He sets her down on the floor wordlessly, and she pulls her hair back, tying it into a messy knot. She looks at Kieran through narrowed eyes, and he laughs, a bear-like growl. "Don't look at me like that, girl. It's your own fault."

She shakes her head and looks away. "What'd you need me for?" she asks.

Pierce watches her with keen eyes. "We need to see in the dark."