Magic Under Construction: TOMU 492
Feb. 28th, 2011 04:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinStarted: 2/28/2011, 4:00 PM
Status: Food break.
Last Update: 8:30 PM
Word Count: ~2350
Hours Writing: 2
[2 hours in. I'm averaging really close to 1,200 words an hour on this, which is awesome. Probably another hour of writing to go, but I've got to eat something.]
So, we had our slumber party after all... it wasn't non-stop laughs or anything, but it was a better time than I could have expected or hoped for. It was what I needed, if not everything that I needed... and it was what I could get.
There were some digressions into serious topics. Dee, in particular, seemed pensive. I pointedly put off any talk about the distant future, i.e., our plans for the summer or next year. Anything much further past tomorrow was too far away for me to deal with at the moment.
This sort of inevitably led to lulls in the conversation, though, and the silence was more than just deafening... it was suffocating. It crept in through the corners of my mind like shadows in the corner of a room and threatened to drown me.
"I think that we should play a game," Two announced in one of those lulls, to my immense gratitude. "That is what people do at parties."
"What kind of game would you like to play?" Amaranth asked.
Two looked around the room.
"We could play musical chairs," she said. "But we would have to take turns because there are only two chairs in here."
"How about truth or dare?" Ian said.
"I don't feel that we should be encouraging risky behavior," Amaranth said. "Also, I've seen that game turn meanspirited really quickly, when people have different levels of boundaries."
"Ah, we're all friends here," Steff said.
"I'd like to keep it that way," Amaranth said. "And to keep anyone from doing anything they regret later... and that includes making someone else do or say something they don't want to."
"Two truths and a lie?" Ian said. "That way no one has to share anything they don't want to. No pressure."
"This game is of a confessional nature?" Dee asked.
"Sort of," Amaranth said. "I suppose it can be... it's really more of an icebreaker, usually. When it's your turn, you say three things about yourself, two of which are true and the other one is a lie. The others try to guess which is the lie. And the one who guesses goes next, or else we can just go in a circle. I've read about it being done both ways."
"Is there a winner?" Dee asked.
"We could keep score, I suppose, but not usually," Amaranth said. "It's a fun, getting-to-know-you sort of thing."
"Interesting," Dee said. "It puts me in mind of some of the exercises we performed during our pre-initiation stages. There, though, the goal was as much about self-knowledge and personal revelation as it was about communicating anything to others."
"Guys, I hate to be the downer, but I'm really not sure I'm in the mood for revelations," I said. "This just isn't the night for that kind of game."
"Well, maybe we should make tomorrow night game night," Amaranth said. "That way we'll have time to think up some things that we can all enjoy."
"Stone soldiers?" Ian and Steff said at the same time.
"I'm not sure that everyone is equally interested in war games," Amaranth said.
"Oh, come on, Amy," Steff said. "It's really right up Mack's alley if she'd just give it a try." She looked at me. "I mean, there's the historical aspect..."
"History is more than just a series of battles," I said. "I'm not actually that interested in military history in particular."
"Right, but there's also a strong fantasy aspect," she said.
"Maybe we'll give it a try," I said. I really wasn't too interested, but if nothing else, talking about it had filled the gap. Being annoyed over the war game fad that was spreading through the campus was better than the alternative, and it wasn't like I was even all that deeply annoyed. This was a familiar sort of annoyance, and it was a pleasing familiarity.
It reminded me of trudging up the hill towards my house, when I was a little kid... I'd hated that hill, but I'd loved the feeling of trudging up it because it meant I was going home.
There was a thought worming its way around in the back of my brain, though, now that the subject of personal revelations had come up. I'd planned on seeing a mental healer that weekend, if possible. I hadn't sent the a-mail inquiry yet for obvious reasons. The question was, would there be any point? It seemed like I could use that kind of help even more... but now on top of whatever difficulties my heritage posed to a subtle artist, there was a big glaring hole in the fabric of things that I really needed to talk to someone about.
But on the other hand, it wasn't like my other issues actually were any smaller or less important even if they were metaphorically dwarfed by the events in the basement office. So, when the conversation began to run out of impetus the next time, I was the one who spoke into the stretching silence.
"I was going to send an a-mail to the mental healing center," I said. "See if they can see me this weekend."
"They do take walk-ins," Steff said. "I mean, on the weekend you might be waiting for a while, depending on when exactly you walk in, but they don't turn anyone away, as long as you've got a student ID."
"I believe that's exactly what Mackenzie is concerned about," Dee said. "Being turned away."
"Well, that is sort of always in the back of my head," I said. "The fear that I'll be turned away, I mean... except when it's in the front of it. But I just... well, I want it to go smoothly."
"They're professionals, Mack," Steff said. "You're not going to be the first person they've dealt with who has freaky things going on inside her head. I mean, there's got to be students with elemental natures, statistically... probably most of them are from families that have counted themselves as human for generations, so it's not like the staff will have so much as an asterisk after a name to warn them."
"Still, I'd rather they have the warning than not," I said. "I'm not really interested in testing the abilities of a given healer to roll with punches, you know?"
"If it makes you feel better to have an appointment, then you should do that," Amaranth said. "I mean, there's got to be a limit to what anyone can do for you if you're not comfortable with the process, right?"
"I believe that is an accurate summation," Dee said. "It required more than one session before I was able to make any progress. Though part of that may be that my healer was strangely uncomfortable with nudity for someone who deals with people so intimately."
"Well, I'll try to keep my clothes on," I said.
"Why don't you go ahead and send the a-mail now?" Amaranth suggested.
"It's the middle of the night," I said.
"And tomorrow it will be the middle of the day," she said. "This way, it'll be waiting for them when they get in, first thing in the morning, and maybe you can get an answer that much quicker instead of having it hanging over your head all day."
"I suppose so," I said, and I took out my mirror. There was no question of going downstairs to use one of the gazing balls in the first floor ballroom... the Law goons had vacated the premises too recently for it to really feel like it was part of Harlowe and not some foreign embassy of officialdom.
I composed a message that I hoped was both polite and to the point. After some quick edits to get rid of some ellipses and otherwise clean it up, I sent off the following:
I had been torn about leaving it at "extraplanar", but realistically I probably could have just said my name and left it at that... it wasn't like they would have read "Mackenzie Blaise, the half-demon" and gone, "Oh, so you're that Mackenzie Blaise."
"Well, that's done," I said. I'd only just snapped the mirror's case shut when it let out a delicate chime that I'd never heard before. I almost dropped it... or rather, I did drop it, but Dee's hand ended up between it and the floor. She handed it back to me without a word. "Thank you," I said.
"You're welcome."
I opened the mirror back up and discovered that chime meant I had a priority message waiting for me. It said:
I stared at it like I expected it to explode, which I sort of did... maybe I was feeling a bit paranoid, but paranoia was not necessarily an irrational response after everything that had happened recently. An instant reply at what was... if anything about the message could be trusted... close to three in the morning? I felt a fleeting urge to reflect to Lee and see what he thought about it, except that it was three in the morning.
I supposed I had my excuse to talk to him in the morning proper, though.
"Do any of you guys know this Theodora Lundegard?" I asked, doing my best not to look right at Steff when I said it.
[][][][]
"Did you have some kind of instructions on me?"
"What, like 'handle with care'?" she asked.
"I just mean... you got back to me awfully quick," I said. "I wondered if anybody had told you to, you know, be available."
"That's my job."
"At three in the morning?"
"I tend to stay up late Friday nights," she said. "A habit from my student days that I never grew out of. I saw your a-mail right before I went to bed. I knew if it was urgent, you'd be waiting for my reply so I wouldn't have to wait around to see if you responded. Mackenzie, even if I had been given some instructions concerning you, my priority would still be simply to help you. Not 'just the same as' any other student, because you're not any other student, but neither is anyone else."
"Are you able to read my mind?" I asked.
"Possibly, with practice and care," she said. "If there's something you want me to delve into your psyche for, we'll have to do that over the course of many sessions, and I'll need another healer to act as a... well, spotter, I guess. There is a procedure for it."
"Have you ever done it?"
"Not as such, no," she said. "We used the technique recently in another situation involving a potentially dangerous mental contact, but it didn't directly involve a half-demon."
"How confident are you that you could do that without getting hurt?"
"I'm confident that we could stop it before any harm was done," Teddi said. "I couldn't promise you results, in other words, but exposing myself to risk isn't responsible healing. Is there something along those lines that you would like to investigate?"
"No," I said. "I was just... well, when you said 'just the same as any other student', you kind of echoed what I was thinking."
"The subtle arts don't
[][][][][][][]
She was wearing a metal band across her forehead, sort of like a very minimalist crown. There was some kind of crystal set into the middle of it, covered with a network of metal lines.
"It's a filter of sorts," she explained, seeing me looking at it.
"To filter out my infernal nature?" I asked.
"It does that," she said. "But you know, a filter isn't the same thing as a wall... we sometimes define filters by what they keep out, but really what distinguishes one filter from another is what it lets through."
"And what does that one let through?" I asked.
"Emotions, mostly," she said. "When I'm wearing this, I'm more strongly empathic than I am without it, even as I have less access to thoughts and images. I might use it as a diagnostic tool with any patient, or when someone has privacy concerns but still wants the advantage of my insight."
"But you have to wear it, around me," I said. I could see where she was trying to put me at ease by suggesting she wasn't just wearing it because I was a half-demon, but the fact that there were other reasons she might use it with someone else didn't actually change the reason she was using it with me.
"If it bothers you, I could take it off," she said. "But wearing it allows me to relax, and I think I can help you best if I'm relaxed. But if you'd be more comfortable without..."
"I'd rather know that you're safe," I said, and she nodded.
"Do you worry about that often?"
"Your safety?"
"People's safety," she said. "Other people, I mean. Around you."
"Maybe not enough sometimes," I said, thinking back to my hungry spell earlier in the year... and the wacky hijinks with my pitchfork. "I could do a lot of damage, being careless. And I am careless."
"So have you done much damage?"
"Some."
[1.5 hours in.]
So, we had our slumber party after all... it wasn't non-stop laughs or anything, but it was a better time than I could have expected or hoped for. It was what I needed, if not everything that I needed... and it was what I could get.
There were some digressions into serious topics. Dee, in particular, seemed pensive. I pointedly put off any talk about the distant future, i.e., our plans for the summer or next year. Anything much further past tomorrow was too far away for me to deal with at the moment.
This sort of inevitably led to lulls in the conversation, though, and the silence was more than just deafening... it was suffocating. It crept in through the corners of my mind like shadows in the corner of a room and threatened to drown me.
"I think that we should play a game," Two announced in one of those lulls, to my immense gratitude. "That is what people do at parties."
"What kind of game would you like to play?" Amaranth asked.
Two looked around the room.
"We could play musical chairs," she said. "But we would have to take turns because there are only two chairs in here."
"How about truth or dare?" Ian said.
"I don't feel that we should be encouraging risky behavior," Amaranth said. "Also, I've seen that game turn meanspirited really quickly, when people have different levels of boundaries."
"Ah, we're all friends here," Steff said.
"I'd like to keep it that way," Amaranth said. "And to keep anyone from doing anything they regret later... and that includes making someone else do or say something they don't want to."
"Two truths and a lie?" Ian said. "That way no one has to share anything they don't want to. No pressure."
"This game is of a confessional nature?" Dee asked.
"Sort of," Amaranth said. "I suppose it can be... it's really more of an icebreaker, usually. When it's your turn, you say three things about yourself, two of which are true and the other one is a lie. The others try to guess which is the lie. And the one who guesses goes next, or else we can just go in a circle. I've read about it being done both ways."
"Is there a winner?" Dee asked.
"We could keep score, I suppose, but not usually," Amaranth said. "It's a fun, getting-to-know-you sort of thing."
"Interesting," Dee said. "It puts me in mind of some of the exercises we performed during our pre-initiation stages. There, though, the goal was as much about self-knowledge and personal revelation as it was about communicating anything to others."
"Guys, I hate to be the downer, but I'm really not sure I'm in the mood for revelations," I said. "This just isn't the night for that kind of game."
"Well, maybe we should make tomorrow night game night," Amaranth said. "That way we'll have time to think up some things that we can all enjoy."
"Stone soldiers?" Ian and Steff said at the same time.
"I'm not sure that everyone is equally interested in war games," Amaranth said.
"Oh, come on, Amy," Steff said. "It's really right up Mack's alley if she'd just give it a try." She looked at me. "I mean, there's the historical aspect..."
"History is more than just a series of battles," I said. "I'm not actually that interested in military history in particular."
"Right, but there's also a strong fantasy aspect," she said.
"Maybe we'll give it a try," I said. I really wasn't too interested, but if nothing else, talking about it had filled the gap. Being annoyed over the war game fad that was spreading through the campus was better than the alternative, and it wasn't like I was even all that deeply annoyed. This was a familiar sort of annoyance, and it was a pleasing familiarity.
It reminded me of trudging up the hill towards my house, when I was a little kid... I'd hated that hill, but I'd loved the feeling of trudging up it because it meant I was going home.
There was a thought worming its way around in the back of my brain, though, now that the subject of personal revelations had come up. I'd planned on seeing a mental healer that weekend, if possible. I hadn't sent the a-mail inquiry yet for obvious reasons. The question was, would there be any point? It seemed like I could use that kind of help even more... but now on top of whatever difficulties my heritage posed to a subtle artist, there was a big glaring hole in the fabric of things that I really needed to talk to someone about.
But on the other hand, it wasn't like my other issues actually were any smaller or less important even if they were metaphorically dwarfed by the events in the basement office. So, when the conversation began to run out of impetus the next time, I was the one who spoke into the stretching silence.
"I was going to send an a-mail to the mental healing center," I said. "See if they can see me this weekend."
"They do take walk-ins," Steff said. "I mean, on the weekend you might be waiting for a while, depending on when exactly you walk in, but they don't turn anyone away, as long as you've got a student ID."
"I believe that's exactly what Mackenzie is concerned about," Dee said. "Being turned away."
"Well, that is sort of always in the back of my head," I said. "The fear that I'll be turned away, I mean... except when it's in the front of it. But I just... well, I want it to go smoothly."
"They're professionals, Mack," Steff said. "You're not going to be the first person they've dealt with who has freaky things going on inside her head. I mean, there's got to be students with elemental natures, statistically... probably most of them are from families that have counted themselves as human for generations, so it's not like the staff will have so much as an asterisk after a name to warn them."
"Still, I'd rather they have the warning than not," I said. "I'm not really interested in testing the abilities of a given healer to roll with punches, you know?"
"If it makes you feel better to have an appointment, then you should do that," Amaranth said. "I mean, there's got to be a limit to what anyone can do for you if you're not comfortable with the process, right?"
"I believe that is an accurate summation," Dee said. "It required more than one session before Dr. Lundegaard and I were able to make any progress. Though part of that may be that she was strangely uncomfortable with nudity, for a healer."
"I'll try to keep my clothes on," I said.
[][][][][][][]
"Did you have some kind of instructions on me?"
"What, like 'handle with care'?" she asked.
"I just mean... you got back to me awfully quick," I said. "I wondered if anybody had told you to, you know, be available."
"That's my job."
"At three in the morning?"
"I tend to stay up late Friday nights," she said. "A habit from my student days that I never grew out of. I saw your a-mail right before I went to bed. I knew if it was urgent, you'd be waiting for my reply so I wouldn't have to wait around to see if you responded. Mackenzie, even if I had been given some instructions concerning you, my priority would still be simply to help you. Not 'just the same as' any other student, because you're not any other student, but neither is anyone else."
"Are you able to read my mind?" I asked.
"Possibly, with practice and care," she said. "If there's something you want me to delve into your psyche for, we'll have to do that over the course of many sessions, and I'll need another healer to act as a... well, spotter, I guess. There is a procedure for it."
"Have you ever done it?"
"Not as such, no," she said. "We used the technique recently in another situation involving a potentially dangerous mental contact, but it didn't directly involve a half-demon."
"How confident are you that you could do that without getting hurt?"
"I'm confident that we could stop it before any harm was done," Teddi said. "I couldn't promise you results, in other words, but exposing myself to risk isn't responsible healing. Is there something along those lines that you would like to investigate?"
"No," I said. "I was just... well, when you said 'just the same as any other student', you kind of echoed what I was thinking."
"The subtle arts don't
[][][][][][][]
She was wearing a metal band across her forehead, sort of like a very minimalist crown. There was some kind of crystal set into the middle of it, covered with a network of metal lines.
"It's a filter of sorts," she explained, seeing me looking at it.
"To filter out my infernal nature?" I asked.
"It does that," she said. "But you know, a filter isn't the same thing as a wall... we sometimes define filters by what they keep out, but really what distinguishes one filter from another is what it lets through."
"And what does that one let through?" I asked.
"Emotions, mostly," she said. "When I'm wearing this, I'm more strongly empathic than I am without it, even as I have less access to thoughts and images. I might use it as a diagnostic tool with any patient, or when someone has privacy concerns but still wants the advantage of my insight."
"But you have to wear it, around me," I said. I could see where she was trying to put me at ease by suggesting she wasn't just wearing it because I was a half-demon, but the fact that there were other reasons she might use it with someone else didn't actually change the reason she was using it with me.
"If it bothers you, I could take it off," she said. "But wearing it allows me to relax, and I think I can help you best if I'm relaxed. But if you'd be more comfortable without..."
"I'd rather know that you're safe," I said, and she nodded.
"Do you worry about that often?"
"Your safety?"
"People's safety," she said. "Other people, I mean. Around you."
"Maybe not enough sometimes," I said, thinking back to my hungry spell earlier in the year... and the wacky hijinks with my pitchfork. "I could do a lot of damage, being careless. And I am careless."
"So have you done much damage?"
"Some."
[1 hour in. Needs moar introspection/narration/emotional reaction, but dialogue's good]
"I think that we should play a game," Two announced in one of those lulls, to my immense gratitude. "That is what people do at parties."
"What kind of game would you like to play?" Amaranth asked.
Two looked around the room.
"We could play musical chairs," she said. "But we would have to take turns because there are only two chairs in here."
"How about truth or dare?" Ian said.
"I don't feel that we should be encouraging risky behavior," Amaranth said. "Also, I've seen that game turn meanspirited really quickly, when people have different levels of boundaries."
"Ah, we're all friends here," Steff said.
"I'd like to keep it that way," Amaranth said. "And to keep anyone from doing anything they regret later... and that includes making someone else do or say something they don't want to."
"Two truths and a lie?" Ian said. "That way no one has to share anything they don't want to. No pressure."
"This game is of a confessional nature?" Dee asked.
"Sort of," Amaranth said. "I suppose it can be... it's really more of an icebreaker, usually. When it's your turn, you say three things about yourself, two of which are true and the other one is a lie. The others try to guess which is the lie. And the one who guesses goes next, or else we can just go in a circle. I've read about it being done both ways."
"Is there a winner?" Dee asked.
"We could keep score, I suppose, but not usually," Amaranth said. "It's a fun, getting-to-know-you sort of thing."
"Interesting," Dee said. "It puts me in mind of some of the exercises we performed during our pre-initiation stages. There, though, the goal was as much about self-knowledge and personal revelation as it was about communicating anything to others."
"Guys, I hate to be the downer, but I'm really not sure I'm in the mood for revelations," I said. "This just isn't the night for that kind of game."
"Well, maybe we should make tomorrow night game night," Amaranth said. "That way we'll have time to think up some things that we can all enjoy."
"Stone soldiers?" Ian and Steff said at the same time.
"I'm not sure that everyone is equally interested in war games," Amaranth said.
"Oh, come on, Amy," Steff said. "It's really right up Mack's alley if she'd just give it a try." She looked at me. "I mean, there's the historical aspect..."
"History is more than just a series of battles," I said. "I'm not actually that interested in military history in particular."
"Right, but there's also a strong fantasy aspect," she said.
"Maybe we'll give it a try," I said. I really wasn't too interested, but if nothing else, talking about it had filled the gap. Being annoyed over the war game fad that was spreading through the campus was better than the alternative, and it wasn't like I was even all that deeply annoyed. This was a familiar sort of annoyance, and it was a pleasing familiarity.
It reminded me of trudging up the hill towards my house, when I was a little kid... I'd hated that hill, but I'd loved the feeling of trudging up it because it meant I was going home.
[][][][][][]
"Did you have some kind of instructions on me?"
"What, like 'handle with care'?" she asked.
"I just mean... you got back to me awfully quick," I said. "I wondered if anybody had told you to, you know, be available."
"That's my job."
"At three in the morning?"
"I tend to stay up late Friday nights," she said. "A habit from my student days that I never grew out of. I saw your a-mail right before I went to bed. I knew if it was urgent, you'd be waiting for my reply so I wouldn't have to wait around to see if you responded. Mackenzie, even if I had been given some instructions concerning you, my priority would still be simply to help you. Not 'just the same as' any other student, because you're not any other student, but neither is anyone else."
"Are you able to read my mind?" I asked.
"Possibly, with practice and care," she said. "If there's something you want me to delve into your psyche for, we'll have to do that over the course of many sessions, and I'll need another healer to act as a... well, spotter, I guess. There is a procedure for it."
"Have you ever done it?"
"Not as such, no," she said. "We used the technique recently in another situation involving a potentially dangerous mental contact, but it didn't directly involve a half-demon."
"How confident are you that you could do that without getting hurt?"
"I'm confident that we could stop it before any harm was done," Teddi said. "I couldn't promise you results, in other words, but exposing myself to risk isn't responsible healing. Is there something along those lines that you would like to investigate?"
"No," I said. "I was just... well, when you said 'just the same as any other student', you kind of echoed what I was thinking."
"The subtle arts don't
[][][][][][][]
She was wearing a metal band across her forehead, sort of like a very minimalist crown. There was some kind of crystal set into the middle of it, covered with a network of metal lines.
"It's a filter of sorts," she explained, seeing me looking at it.
"To filter out my infernal nature?" I asked.
"It does that," she said. "But you know, a filter isn't the same thing as a wall... we sometimes define filters by what they keep out, but really what distinguishes one filter from another is what it lets through."
"And what does that one let through?" I asked.
"Emotions, mostly," she said. "When I'm wearing this, I'm more strongly empathic than I am without it, even as I have less access to thoughts and images. I might use it as a diagnostic tool with any patient, or when someone has privacy concerns but still wants the advantage of my insight."
"But you have to wear it, around me," I said. I could see where she was trying to put me at ease by suggesting she wasn't just wearing it because I was a half-demon, but the fact that there were other reasons she might use it with someone else didn't actually change the reason she was using it with me.
"If it bothers you, I could take it off," she said. "But wearing it allows me to relax, and I think I can help you best if I'm relaxed. But if you'd be more comfortable without..."
"I'd rather know that you're safe," I said, and she nodded.
"Do you worry about that often?"
"Your safety?"
"People's safety," she said. "Other people, I mean. Around you."
"Maybe not enough sometimes," I said, thinking back to my hungry spell earlier in the year... and the wacky hijinks with my pitchfork. "I could do a lot of damage, being careless. And I am careless."
"So have you done much damage?"
"Some."
[In the beginning: This stuff is obviously not the actual start of the chapter, and may be rearranged/re-ordered in the final version, but this is another case of starting with the strongest part and building from there.]
"Did you have some kind of instructions on me?"
"What, like 'handle with care'?" she asked.
"I just mean... you got back to me awfully quick," I said. "I wondered if anybody had told you to, you know, be available."
"That's my job."
"At three in the morning?"
"I tend to stay up late Friday nights," she said. "A habit from my student days that I never grew out of. I saw your a-mail right before I went to bed. I knew if it was urgent, you'd be waiting for my reply so I wouldn't have to wait around to see if you responded. Mackenzie, even if I had been given some instructions concerning you, my priority would still be simply to help you. Not 'just the same as' any other student, because you're not any other student, but neither is anyone else."
"Are you able to read my mind?" I asked.
"Possibly, with practice and care," she said. "If there's something you want me to delve into your psyche for, we'll have to do that over the course of many sessions, and I'll need another healer to act as a... well, spotter, I guess. There is a procedure for it."
"Have you ever done it?"
"Not as such, no," she said. "We used the technique recently in another situation involving a potentially dangerous mental contact, but it didn't directly involve a half-demon."
"How confident are you that you could do that without getting hurt?"
"I'm confident that we could stop it before any harm was done," Teddi said. "I couldn't promise you results, in other words, but exposing myself to risk isn't responsible healing. Is there something along those lines that you would like to investigate?"
"No," I said. "I was just... well, when you said 'just the same as any other student', you kind of echoed what I was thinking."
[][][][][][][]
She was wearing a metal band across her forehead, sort of like a very minimalist crown. There was some kind of crystal set into the middle of it, covered with a network of metal lines.
"It's a filter of sorts," she explained, seeing me looking at it.
"To filter out my infernal nature?" I asked.
"It does that," she said. "But you know, a filter isn't the same thing as a wall... we sometimes define filters by what they keep out, but really what distinguishes one filter from another is what it lets through."
"And what does that one let through?" I asked.
"Emotions, mostly," she said. "When I'm wearing this, I'm more strongly empathic than I am without it, even as I have less access to thoughts and images. I might use it as a diagnostic tool with any patient, or when someone has privacy concerns but still wants the advantage of my insight."
"But you have to wear it, around me," I said. I could see where she was trying to put me at ease by suggesting she wasn't just wearing it because I was a half-demon, but the fact that there were other reasons she might use it with someone else didn't actually change the reason she was using it with me.
"If it bothers you, I could take it off," she said. "But wearing it allows me to relax, and I think I can help you best if I'm relaxed. But if you'd be more comfortable without..."
"I'd rather know that you're safe," I said, and she nodded.
"Do you worry about that often?"
"Your safety?"
"People's safety," she said. "Other people, I mean. Around you."
"Maybe not enough sometimes," I said, thinking back to my hungry spell earlier in the year... and the wacky hijinks with my pitchfork. "I could do a lot of damage, being careless. And I am careless."
"So have you done much damage?"
"Some."
Status: Food break.
Last Update: 8:30 PM
Word Count: ~2350
Hours Writing: 2
[2 hours in. I'm averaging really close to 1,200 words an hour on this, which is awesome. Probably another hour of writing to go, but I've got to eat something.]
So, we had our slumber party after all... it wasn't non-stop laughs or anything, but it was a better time than I could have expected or hoped for. It was what I needed, if not everything that I needed... and it was what I could get.
There were some digressions into serious topics. Dee, in particular, seemed pensive. I pointedly put off any talk about the distant future, i.e., our plans for the summer or next year. Anything much further past tomorrow was too far away for me to deal with at the moment.
This sort of inevitably led to lulls in the conversation, though, and the silence was more than just deafening... it was suffocating. It crept in through the corners of my mind like shadows in the corner of a room and threatened to drown me.
"I think that we should play a game," Two announced in one of those lulls, to my immense gratitude. "That is what people do at parties."
"What kind of game would you like to play?" Amaranth asked.
Two looked around the room.
"We could play musical chairs," she said. "But we would have to take turns because there are only two chairs in here."
"How about truth or dare?" Ian said.
"I don't feel that we should be encouraging risky behavior," Amaranth said. "Also, I've seen that game turn meanspirited really quickly, when people have different levels of boundaries."
"Ah, we're all friends here," Steff said.
"I'd like to keep it that way," Amaranth said. "And to keep anyone from doing anything they regret later... and that includes making someone else do or say something they don't want to."
"Two truths and a lie?" Ian said. "That way no one has to share anything they don't want to. No pressure."
"This game is of a confessional nature?" Dee asked.
"Sort of," Amaranth said. "I suppose it can be... it's really more of an icebreaker, usually. When it's your turn, you say three things about yourself, two of which are true and the other one is a lie. The others try to guess which is the lie. And the one who guesses goes next, or else we can just go in a circle. I've read about it being done both ways."
"Is there a winner?" Dee asked.
"We could keep score, I suppose, but not usually," Amaranth said. "It's a fun, getting-to-know-you sort of thing."
"Interesting," Dee said. "It puts me in mind of some of the exercises we performed during our pre-initiation stages. There, though, the goal was as much about self-knowledge and personal revelation as it was about communicating anything to others."
"Guys, I hate to be the downer, but I'm really not sure I'm in the mood for revelations," I said. "This just isn't the night for that kind of game."
"Well, maybe we should make tomorrow night game night," Amaranth said. "That way we'll have time to think up some things that we can all enjoy."
"Stone soldiers?" Ian and Steff said at the same time.
"I'm not sure that everyone is equally interested in war games," Amaranth said.
"Oh, come on, Amy," Steff said. "It's really right up Mack's alley if she'd just give it a try." She looked at me. "I mean, there's the historical aspect..."
"History is more than just a series of battles," I said. "I'm not actually that interested in military history in particular."
"Right, but there's also a strong fantasy aspect," she said.
"Maybe we'll give it a try," I said. I really wasn't too interested, but if nothing else, talking about it had filled the gap. Being annoyed over the war game fad that was spreading through the campus was better than the alternative, and it wasn't like I was even all that deeply annoyed. This was a familiar sort of annoyance, and it was a pleasing familiarity.
It reminded me of trudging up the hill towards my house, when I was a little kid... I'd hated that hill, but I'd loved the feeling of trudging up it because it meant I was going home.
There was a thought worming its way around in the back of my brain, though, now that the subject of personal revelations had come up. I'd planned on seeing a mental healer that weekend, if possible. I hadn't sent the a-mail inquiry yet for obvious reasons. The question was, would there be any point? It seemed like I could use that kind of help even more... but now on top of whatever difficulties my heritage posed to a subtle artist, there was a big glaring hole in the fabric of things that I really needed to talk to someone about.
But on the other hand, it wasn't like my other issues actually were any smaller or less important even if they were metaphorically dwarfed by the events in the basement office. So, when the conversation began to run out of impetus the next time, I was the one who spoke into the stretching silence.
"I was going to send an a-mail to the mental healing center," I said. "See if they can see me this weekend."
"They do take walk-ins," Steff said. "I mean, on the weekend you might be waiting for a while, depending on when exactly you walk in, but they don't turn anyone away, as long as you've got a student ID."
"I believe that's exactly what Mackenzie is concerned about," Dee said. "Being turned away."
"Well, that is sort of always in the back of my head," I said. "The fear that I'll be turned away, I mean... except when it's in the front of it. But I just... well, I want it to go smoothly."
"They're professionals, Mack," Steff said. "You're not going to be the first person they've dealt with who has freaky things going on inside her head. I mean, there's got to be students with elemental natures, statistically... probably most of them are from families that have counted themselves as human for generations, so it's not like the staff will have so much as an asterisk after a name to warn them."
"Still, I'd rather they have the warning than not," I said. "I'm not really interested in testing the abilities of a given healer to roll with punches, you know?"
"If it makes you feel better to have an appointment, then you should do that," Amaranth said. "I mean, there's got to be a limit to what anyone can do for you if you're not comfortable with the process, right?"
"I believe that is an accurate summation," Dee said. "It required more than one session before I was able to make any progress. Though part of that may be that my healer was strangely uncomfortable with nudity for someone who deals with people so intimately."
"Well, I'll try to keep my clothes on," I said.
"Why don't you go ahead and send the a-mail now?" Amaranth suggested.
"It's the middle of the night," I said.
"And tomorrow it will be the middle of the day," she said. "This way, it'll be waiting for them when they get in, first thing in the morning, and maybe you can get an answer that much quicker instead of having it hanging over your head all day."
"I suppose so," I said, and I took out my mirror. There was no question of going downstairs to use one of the gazing balls in the first floor ballroom... the Law goons had vacated the premises too recently for it to really feel like it was part of Harlowe and not some foreign embassy of officialdom.
I composed a message that I hoped was both polite and to the point. After some quick edits to get rid of some ellipses and otherwise clean it up, I sent off the following:
Hi. My name is Mackenzie Blaise and I am a freshman student who is having some issues I would like to talk about. I have some special needs due to extraplanar heritage that may affect my treatment. Would it be possible for me to come in some time this weekend to talk to someone?
Thank you.
I had been torn about leaving it at "extraplanar", but realistically I probably could have just said my name and left it at that... it wasn't like they would have read "Mackenzie Blaise, the half-demon" and gone, "Oh, so you're that Mackenzie Blaise."
"Well, that's done," I said. I'd only just snapped the mirror's case shut when it let out a delicate chime that I'd never heard before. I almost dropped it... or rather, I did drop it, but Dee's hand ended up between it and the floor. She handed it back to me without a word. "Thank you," I said.
"You're welcome."
I opened the mirror back up and discovered that chime meant I had a priority message waiting for me. It said:
All students are welcome in our center, Ms. Mackenzie. What time would suit you best?
Regards,
Theodora Lundegard, CMH, Ph.SA
I stared at it like I expected it to explode, which I sort of did... maybe I was feeling a bit paranoid, but paranoia was not necessarily an irrational response after everything that had happened recently. An instant reply at what was... if anything about the message could be trusted... close to three in the morning? I felt a fleeting urge to reflect to Lee and see what he thought about it, except that it was three in the morning.
I supposed I had my excuse to talk to him in the morning proper, though.
"Do any of you guys know this Theodora Lundegard?" I asked, doing my best not to look right at Steff when I said it.
[][][][]
"Did you have some kind of instructions on me?"
"What, like 'handle with care'?" she asked.
"I just mean... you got back to me awfully quick," I said. "I wondered if anybody had told you to, you know, be available."
"That's my job."
"At three in the morning?"
"I tend to stay up late Friday nights," she said. "A habit from my student days that I never grew out of. I saw your a-mail right before I went to bed. I knew if it was urgent, you'd be waiting for my reply so I wouldn't have to wait around to see if you responded. Mackenzie, even if I had been given some instructions concerning you, my priority would still be simply to help you. Not 'just the same as' any other student, because you're not any other student, but neither is anyone else."
"Are you able to read my mind?" I asked.
"Possibly, with practice and care," she said. "If there's something you want me to delve into your psyche for, we'll have to do that over the course of many sessions, and I'll need another healer to act as a... well, spotter, I guess. There is a procedure for it."
"Have you ever done it?"
"Not as such, no," she said. "We used the technique recently in another situation involving a potentially dangerous mental contact, but it didn't directly involve a half-demon."
"How confident are you that you could do that without getting hurt?"
"I'm confident that we could stop it before any harm was done," Teddi said. "I couldn't promise you results, in other words, but exposing myself to risk isn't responsible healing. Is there something along those lines that you would like to investigate?"
"No," I said. "I was just... well, when you said 'just the same as any other student', you kind of echoed what I was thinking."
"The subtle arts don't
[][][][][][][]
She was wearing a metal band across her forehead, sort of like a very minimalist crown. There was some kind of crystal set into the middle of it, covered with a network of metal lines.
"It's a filter of sorts," she explained, seeing me looking at it.
"To filter out my infernal nature?" I asked.
"It does that," she said. "But you know, a filter isn't the same thing as a wall... we sometimes define filters by what they keep out, but really what distinguishes one filter from another is what it lets through."
"And what does that one let through?" I asked.
"Emotions, mostly," she said. "When I'm wearing this, I'm more strongly empathic than I am without it, even as I have less access to thoughts and images. I might use it as a diagnostic tool with any patient, or when someone has privacy concerns but still wants the advantage of my insight."
"But you have to wear it, around me," I said. I could see where she was trying to put me at ease by suggesting she wasn't just wearing it because I was a half-demon, but the fact that there were other reasons she might use it with someone else didn't actually change the reason she was using it with me.
"If it bothers you, I could take it off," she said. "But wearing it allows me to relax, and I think I can help you best if I'm relaxed. But if you'd be more comfortable without..."
"I'd rather know that you're safe," I said, and she nodded.
"Do you worry about that often?"
"Your safety?"
"People's safety," she said. "Other people, I mean. Around you."
"Maybe not enough sometimes," I said, thinking back to my hungry spell earlier in the year... and the wacky hijinks with my pitchfork. "I could do a lot of damage, being careless. And I am careless."
"So have you done much damage?"
"Some."
[1.5 hours in.]
So, we had our slumber party after all... it wasn't non-stop laughs or anything, but it was a better time than I could have expected or hoped for. It was what I needed, if not everything that I needed... and it was what I could get.
There were some digressions into serious topics. Dee, in particular, seemed pensive. I pointedly put off any talk about the distant future, i.e., our plans for the summer or next year. Anything much further past tomorrow was too far away for me to deal with at the moment.
This sort of inevitably led to lulls in the conversation, though, and the silence was more than just deafening... it was suffocating. It crept in through the corners of my mind like shadows in the corner of a room and threatened to drown me.
"I think that we should play a game," Two announced in one of those lulls, to my immense gratitude. "That is what people do at parties."
"What kind of game would you like to play?" Amaranth asked.
Two looked around the room.
"We could play musical chairs," she said. "But we would have to take turns because there are only two chairs in here."
"How about truth or dare?" Ian said.
"I don't feel that we should be encouraging risky behavior," Amaranth said. "Also, I've seen that game turn meanspirited really quickly, when people have different levels of boundaries."
"Ah, we're all friends here," Steff said.
"I'd like to keep it that way," Amaranth said. "And to keep anyone from doing anything they regret later... and that includes making someone else do or say something they don't want to."
"Two truths and a lie?" Ian said. "That way no one has to share anything they don't want to. No pressure."
"This game is of a confessional nature?" Dee asked.
"Sort of," Amaranth said. "I suppose it can be... it's really more of an icebreaker, usually. When it's your turn, you say three things about yourself, two of which are true and the other one is a lie. The others try to guess which is the lie. And the one who guesses goes next, or else we can just go in a circle. I've read about it being done both ways."
"Is there a winner?" Dee asked.
"We could keep score, I suppose, but not usually," Amaranth said. "It's a fun, getting-to-know-you sort of thing."
"Interesting," Dee said. "It puts me in mind of some of the exercises we performed during our pre-initiation stages. There, though, the goal was as much about self-knowledge and personal revelation as it was about communicating anything to others."
"Guys, I hate to be the downer, but I'm really not sure I'm in the mood for revelations," I said. "This just isn't the night for that kind of game."
"Well, maybe we should make tomorrow night game night," Amaranth said. "That way we'll have time to think up some things that we can all enjoy."
"Stone soldiers?" Ian and Steff said at the same time.
"I'm not sure that everyone is equally interested in war games," Amaranth said.
"Oh, come on, Amy," Steff said. "It's really right up Mack's alley if she'd just give it a try." She looked at me. "I mean, there's the historical aspect..."
"History is more than just a series of battles," I said. "I'm not actually that interested in military history in particular."
"Right, but there's also a strong fantasy aspect," she said.
"Maybe we'll give it a try," I said. I really wasn't too interested, but if nothing else, talking about it had filled the gap. Being annoyed over the war game fad that was spreading through the campus was better than the alternative, and it wasn't like I was even all that deeply annoyed. This was a familiar sort of annoyance, and it was a pleasing familiarity.
It reminded me of trudging up the hill towards my house, when I was a little kid... I'd hated that hill, but I'd loved the feeling of trudging up it because it meant I was going home.
There was a thought worming its way around in the back of my brain, though, now that the subject of personal revelations had come up. I'd planned on seeing a mental healer that weekend, if possible. I hadn't sent the a-mail inquiry yet for obvious reasons. The question was, would there be any point? It seemed like I could use that kind of help even more... but now on top of whatever difficulties my heritage posed to a subtle artist, there was a big glaring hole in the fabric of things that I really needed to talk to someone about.
But on the other hand, it wasn't like my other issues actually were any smaller or less important even if they were metaphorically dwarfed by the events in the basement office. So, when the conversation began to run out of impetus the next time, I was the one who spoke into the stretching silence.
"I was going to send an a-mail to the mental healing center," I said. "See if they can see me this weekend."
"They do take walk-ins," Steff said. "I mean, on the weekend you might be waiting for a while, depending on when exactly you walk in, but they don't turn anyone away, as long as you've got a student ID."
"I believe that's exactly what Mackenzie is concerned about," Dee said. "Being turned away."
"Well, that is sort of always in the back of my head," I said. "The fear that I'll be turned away, I mean... except when it's in the front of it. But I just... well, I want it to go smoothly."
"They're professionals, Mack," Steff said. "You're not going to be the first person they've dealt with who has freaky things going on inside her head. I mean, there's got to be students with elemental natures, statistically... probably most of them are from families that have counted themselves as human for generations, so it's not like the staff will have so much as an asterisk after a name to warn them."
"Still, I'd rather they have the warning than not," I said. "I'm not really interested in testing the abilities of a given healer to roll with punches, you know?"
"If it makes you feel better to have an appointment, then you should do that," Amaranth said. "I mean, there's got to be a limit to what anyone can do for you if you're not comfortable with the process, right?"
"I believe that is an accurate summation," Dee said. "It required more than one session before Dr. Lundegaard and I were able to make any progress. Though part of that may be that she was strangely uncomfortable with nudity, for a healer."
"I'll try to keep my clothes on," I said.
[][][][][][][]
"Did you have some kind of instructions on me?"
"What, like 'handle with care'?" she asked.
"I just mean... you got back to me awfully quick," I said. "I wondered if anybody had told you to, you know, be available."
"That's my job."
"At three in the morning?"
"I tend to stay up late Friday nights," she said. "A habit from my student days that I never grew out of. I saw your a-mail right before I went to bed. I knew if it was urgent, you'd be waiting for my reply so I wouldn't have to wait around to see if you responded. Mackenzie, even if I had been given some instructions concerning you, my priority would still be simply to help you. Not 'just the same as' any other student, because you're not any other student, but neither is anyone else."
"Are you able to read my mind?" I asked.
"Possibly, with practice and care," she said. "If there's something you want me to delve into your psyche for, we'll have to do that over the course of many sessions, and I'll need another healer to act as a... well, spotter, I guess. There is a procedure for it."
"Have you ever done it?"
"Not as such, no," she said. "We used the technique recently in another situation involving a potentially dangerous mental contact, but it didn't directly involve a half-demon."
"How confident are you that you could do that without getting hurt?"
"I'm confident that we could stop it before any harm was done," Teddi said. "I couldn't promise you results, in other words, but exposing myself to risk isn't responsible healing. Is there something along those lines that you would like to investigate?"
"No," I said. "I was just... well, when you said 'just the same as any other student', you kind of echoed what I was thinking."
"The subtle arts don't
[][][][][][][]
She was wearing a metal band across her forehead, sort of like a very minimalist crown. There was some kind of crystal set into the middle of it, covered with a network of metal lines.
"It's a filter of sorts," she explained, seeing me looking at it.
"To filter out my infernal nature?" I asked.
"It does that," she said. "But you know, a filter isn't the same thing as a wall... we sometimes define filters by what they keep out, but really what distinguishes one filter from another is what it lets through."
"And what does that one let through?" I asked.
"Emotions, mostly," she said. "When I'm wearing this, I'm more strongly empathic than I am without it, even as I have less access to thoughts and images. I might use it as a diagnostic tool with any patient, or when someone has privacy concerns but still wants the advantage of my insight."
"But you have to wear it, around me," I said. I could see where she was trying to put me at ease by suggesting she wasn't just wearing it because I was a half-demon, but the fact that there were other reasons she might use it with someone else didn't actually change the reason she was using it with me.
"If it bothers you, I could take it off," she said. "But wearing it allows me to relax, and I think I can help you best if I'm relaxed. But if you'd be more comfortable without..."
"I'd rather know that you're safe," I said, and she nodded.
"Do you worry about that often?"
"Your safety?"
"People's safety," she said. "Other people, I mean. Around you."
"Maybe not enough sometimes," I said, thinking back to my hungry spell earlier in the year... and the wacky hijinks with my pitchfork. "I could do a lot of damage, being careless. And I am careless."
"So have you done much damage?"
"Some."
[1 hour in. Needs moar introspection/narration/emotional reaction, but dialogue's good]
"I think that we should play a game," Two announced in one of those lulls, to my immense gratitude. "That is what people do at parties."
"What kind of game would you like to play?" Amaranth asked.
Two looked around the room.
"We could play musical chairs," she said. "But we would have to take turns because there are only two chairs in here."
"How about truth or dare?" Ian said.
"I don't feel that we should be encouraging risky behavior," Amaranth said. "Also, I've seen that game turn meanspirited really quickly, when people have different levels of boundaries."
"Ah, we're all friends here," Steff said.
"I'd like to keep it that way," Amaranth said. "And to keep anyone from doing anything they regret later... and that includes making someone else do or say something they don't want to."
"Two truths and a lie?" Ian said. "That way no one has to share anything they don't want to. No pressure."
"This game is of a confessional nature?" Dee asked.
"Sort of," Amaranth said. "I suppose it can be... it's really more of an icebreaker, usually. When it's your turn, you say three things about yourself, two of which are true and the other one is a lie. The others try to guess which is the lie. And the one who guesses goes next, or else we can just go in a circle. I've read about it being done both ways."
"Is there a winner?" Dee asked.
"We could keep score, I suppose, but not usually," Amaranth said. "It's a fun, getting-to-know-you sort of thing."
"Interesting," Dee said. "It puts me in mind of some of the exercises we performed during our pre-initiation stages. There, though, the goal was as much about self-knowledge and personal revelation as it was about communicating anything to others."
"Guys, I hate to be the downer, but I'm really not sure I'm in the mood for revelations," I said. "This just isn't the night for that kind of game."
"Well, maybe we should make tomorrow night game night," Amaranth said. "That way we'll have time to think up some things that we can all enjoy."
"Stone soldiers?" Ian and Steff said at the same time.
"I'm not sure that everyone is equally interested in war games," Amaranth said.
"Oh, come on, Amy," Steff said. "It's really right up Mack's alley if she'd just give it a try." She looked at me. "I mean, there's the historical aspect..."
"History is more than just a series of battles," I said. "I'm not actually that interested in military history in particular."
"Right, but there's also a strong fantasy aspect," she said.
"Maybe we'll give it a try," I said. I really wasn't too interested, but if nothing else, talking about it had filled the gap. Being annoyed over the war game fad that was spreading through the campus was better than the alternative, and it wasn't like I was even all that deeply annoyed. This was a familiar sort of annoyance, and it was a pleasing familiarity.
It reminded me of trudging up the hill towards my house, when I was a little kid... I'd hated that hill, but I'd loved the feeling of trudging up it because it meant I was going home.
[][][][][][]
"Did you have some kind of instructions on me?"
"What, like 'handle with care'?" she asked.
"I just mean... you got back to me awfully quick," I said. "I wondered if anybody had told you to, you know, be available."
"That's my job."
"At three in the morning?"
"I tend to stay up late Friday nights," she said. "A habit from my student days that I never grew out of. I saw your a-mail right before I went to bed. I knew if it was urgent, you'd be waiting for my reply so I wouldn't have to wait around to see if you responded. Mackenzie, even if I had been given some instructions concerning you, my priority would still be simply to help you. Not 'just the same as' any other student, because you're not any other student, but neither is anyone else."
"Are you able to read my mind?" I asked.
"Possibly, with practice and care," she said. "If there's something you want me to delve into your psyche for, we'll have to do that over the course of many sessions, and I'll need another healer to act as a... well, spotter, I guess. There is a procedure for it."
"Have you ever done it?"
"Not as such, no," she said. "We used the technique recently in another situation involving a potentially dangerous mental contact, but it didn't directly involve a half-demon."
"How confident are you that you could do that without getting hurt?"
"I'm confident that we could stop it before any harm was done," Teddi said. "I couldn't promise you results, in other words, but exposing myself to risk isn't responsible healing. Is there something along those lines that you would like to investigate?"
"No," I said. "I was just... well, when you said 'just the same as any other student', you kind of echoed what I was thinking."
"The subtle arts don't
[][][][][][][]
She was wearing a metal band across her forehead, sort of like a very minimalist crown. There was some kind of crystal set into the middle of it, covered with a network of metal lines.
"It's a filter of sorts," she explained, seeing me looking at it.
"To filter out my infernal nature?" I asked.
"It does that," she said. "But you know, a filter isn't the same thing as a wall... we sometimes define filters by what they keep out, but really what distinguishes one filter from another is what it lets through."
"And what does that one let through?" I asked.
"Emotions, mostly," she said. "When I'm wearing this, I'm more strongly empathic than I am without it, even as I have less access to thoughts and images. I might use it as a diagnostic tool with any patient, or when someone has privacy concerns but still wants the advantage of my insight."
"But you have to wear it, around me," I said. I could see where she was trying to put me at ease by suggesting she wasn't just wearing it because I was a half-demon, but the fact that there were other reasons she might use it with someone else didn't actually change the reason she was using it with me.
"If it bothers you, I could take it off," she said. "But wearing it allows me to relax, and I think I can help you best if I'm relaxed. But if you'd be more comfortable without..."
"I'd rather know that you're safe," I said, and she nodded.
"Do you worry about that often?"
"Your safety?"
"People's safety," she said. "Other people, I mean. Around you."
"Maybe not enough sometimes," I said, thinking back to my hungry spell earlier in the year... and the wacky hijinks with my pitchfork. "I could do a lot of damage, being careless. And I am careless."
"So have you done much damage?"
"Some."
[In the beginning: This stuff is obviously not the actual start of the chapter, and may be rearranged/re-ordered in the final version, but this is another case of starting with the strongest part and building from there.]
"Did you have some kind of instructions on me?"
"What, like 'handle with care'?" she asked.
"I just mean... you got back to me awfully quick," I said. "I wondered if anybody had told you to, you know, be available."
"That's my job."
"At three in the morning?"
"I tend to stay up late Friday nights," she said. "A habit from my student days that I never grew out of. I saw your a-mail right before I went to bed. I knew if it was urgent, you'd be waiting for my reply so I wouldn't have to wait around to see if you responded. Mackenzie, even if I had been given some instructions concerning you, my priority would still be simply to help you. Not 'just the same as' any other student, because you're not any other student, but neither is anyone else."
"Are you able to read my mind?" I asked.
"Possibly, with practice and care," she said. "If there's something you want me to delve into your psyche for, we'll have to do that over the course of many sessions, and I'll need another healer to act as a... well, spotter, I guess. There is a procedure for it."
"Have you ever done it?"
"Not as such, no," she said. "We used the technique recently in another situation involving a potentially dangerous mental contact, but it didn't directly involve a half-demon."
"How confident are you that you could do that without getting hurt?"
"I'm confident that we could stop it before any harm was done," Teddi said. "I couldn't promise you results, in other words, but exposing myself to risk isn't responsible healing. Is there something along those lines that you would like to investigate?"
"No," I said. "I was just... well, when you said 'just the same as any other student', you kind of echoed what I was thinking."
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She was wearing a metal band across her forehead, sort of like a very minimalist crown. There was some kind of crystal set into the middle of it, covered with a network of metal lines.
"It's a filter of sorts," she explained, seeing me looking at it.
"To filter out my infernal nature?" I asked.
"It does that," she said. "But you know, a filter isn't the same thing as a wall... we sometimes define filters by what they keep out, but really what distinguishes one filter from another is what it lets through."
"And what does that one let through?" I asked.
"Emotions, mostly," she said. "When I'm wearing this, I'm more strongly empathic than I am without it, even as I have less access to thoughts and images. I might use it as a diagnostic tool with any patient, or when someone has privacy concerns but still wants the advantage of my insight."
"But you have to wear it, around me," I said. I could see where she was trying to put me at ease by suggesting she wasn't just wearing it because I was a half-demon, but the fact that there were other reasons she might use it with someone else didn't actually change the reason she was using it with me.
"If it bothers you, I could take it off," she said. "But wearing it allows me to relax, and I think I can help you best if I'm relaxed. But if you'd be more comfortable without..."
"I'd rather know that you're safe," I said, and she nodded.
"Do you worry about that often?"
"Your safety?"
"People's safety," she said. "Other people, I mean. Around you."
"Maybe not enough sometimes," I said, thinking back to my hungry spell earlier in the year... and the wacky hijinks with my pitchfork. "I could do a lot of damage, being careless. And I am careless."
"So have you done much damage?"
"Some."