He closes his mouth with a clack.
“Wewillmake this work,” I tell him fiercely. “Iamsure. I amnotgoing to abandon you. And I am not leaving this house until you can perform your first kata well enough to matter.”
And Teren, finally, relaxes; his magic settles back into his skin.
Finally, I think he might be listening to me.
“Your eyes are glowing,” he says softly.
Yeah. “Clarity,” I tell him, “of mind, and of purpose, is a huge component of many sage powers, including Wrath. And also, I suspect, Comfort. To understand what a person needs so that you can offer it to them.”
Teren tilts his head. “That makes sense. I admit I never thought they had anything in common. Comfort and Wrath seem diametrically opposed.”
“But your magic doesn’t bristle when I come into a room, does it?”
He considers that thoughtfully. “No, it doesn’t, now that you mention it.”
“It’s a common misconception among layfolk,” I explain. “People like to think of emotions as good or bad, as active or passive, as all or nothing, as existing on linear axes for ease of modeling. But it’s a false dichotomy. Emotions aren’t black or white, good or bad in and of themselves: it’s what we do with them.
“Angerismy base emotional state, and that isn’t a problem. It isn’t a thing about myself that needs to change or be suppressed;it’s part of me, and I’m comfortable with it. But it doesn’t decide my actions for me. And it doesn’t have to be the only thing I feel, you see? While it shapes me, even defines me, it doesn’tcontrolme. I am the master of myself.
“And so too can you be. If you want it.”
What can I do with my wrath besides destroy?
That is the question, isn’t it?
Teren nods slowly. “Okay. Let’s try this again.”
And we do.
I show him the kata until he has the basics memorized.
Then we go through each form and with his permission I move his body to mimic it more closely. He can’t hold all of those positions yet, but feeling what we’re working toward will still help him improve.
Only once he can move through the kata on his own after that—and it takes even longer this time, after the corrections, to get him moving smoothly again rather than thinking too hard—do I talk him through running his magic through it.
This is the part I expected to be difficult, because he’s spent so much of his life trying to not use his power, but it’s the opposite—because he doesn’t have any actual skills to hold it back, his power is eager to be channeled.
Even this basic, imperfect kata is so much more effective than what he’s done before that after running through it only a few times Teren is dazed.
Fierce pleasure burgeons in me.
Idid this.
Wedid this.
We finish by deciding on an exercise program that Teren is actually cautiously optimistic about, which is a relief—maybe he will actually do it, if he believes he can. Because based on my assessment of his skill, this is only the beginning of the muscles and awareness he needs to develop.
And I realize that his education is something I need to commit to, too, to do right by him.
And I am. Committed.
A thing in this new world that I can do, that I finally feel sure about—
Though I’d felt sure of Zan, too.
Teren brings us into the kitchen to get a drink of water, and I find Zan and Nomi with two enormous stuffed backpacks.
