Page 14 of The Scent of the Ideal

“This is just post-aedis moodiness.” Which Katoh thought he should have handled by staying with Viau, but she didn’t say it. “You had a high—a lot of highs, from the sound of it—and now you’re too worn out for any more, so everything feels flat and sad. Rest will fix it, and then you should talk to him. In person. I….” She suddenly grew delicate. “I don’t think he’ll mind. Really. Not with you before him again. He cannot take his eyes from you. You didn’t see…. Well. It was something, you two together.”

“A note,” Rafi said again. “So he won’t have to bother himself more than he already has. The whole incident will be forgotten.”

Katoh sighed and got to her feet. She stood over his bed and Rafi thought she was going to touch him but she didn’t.

“You need a bath.” She condemned him with a small sniff. “Next time, let him do that.”

“Bathe me?” Rafi made a garbled sound. He’d been washing himself since he was small. “Katoh….”

She bent down to better look him in the eye. “You would be giving that to him, Rafi. Not asking him for it. Now sleep so our sensible Rafi can return.”

Rafi was being sensible. But he was also tired, so he nodded and pulled his blanket back up and slept.

After two days of resting in bed, Rafi forced himself up, filled his stomach to bursting, then did little else. The fourth day, feeling better, he composed a note in shaky flower-letters to thank Viau for being so kind. He then spent the next few weeks training with his friends, determined to sense aer in a fight the way Viau did and making sure the soreness in his body was from hitting training dummies or from Laure, who hit back.

He’d left the note under Viau’s door because Viau was gone. Recalled to the palace, it was said. Which made sense; Rafi’s aedis was over and would not return for months. If Rafi needed him again, it wouldn’t be in the near future. Viau was an important figure in the capital. He’d probably rushed back to the palace, where he’d remember Rafi only to hope that Rafi learned control or found someone else to help him.

Laure watched Rafi attack a training dummy until his limbs were useless. Katoh dragged Rafi to his favorite meditation garden, the one of stone, with less ambient aer to accidentally reach for than in a living garden. Cambray brought him some food he hadn’t asked for, flushing a bit and then blaming his miné nature. They had all surprised him by not mentioning Viau, not even Katoh, not after that first day, although she clearly had opinions.

Rafi was the one to say his name first, after a painful landing in the Arms Room.

Laure panted down at him, more confused than triumphant. “Are you still distracted? I’ve knocked you down twice this morning.” He furrowed his brow. “It’s uncomfortable to win against you. I don’t believe it. Are you falling on purpose?”

Rafi frowned back at him without even attempting to get up. “‘Still distracted?’” He didn’t like the sound of that. “I’ve been trying to… I’ve been trying to fight the way Viau does.”

Laure raised his eyebrows, but bent over to help pull Rafi to his feet since Rafi hadn’t moved. “What do you mean? If you mean you’re trying to fight better… you’ve been fighting worse.”

Rafi made an unhappy face, which Laure seemed to think was funny. He found Rafi’s recent behavior puzzling and amusing in equal measure.

Rafi had been fighting worse.

“I think Viau can easily sense aer in other people,” he revealed, “and I think he watches that to predict their movements. But I can’t—” Rafi made a noise of frustration, a growl. It wasn’t his only growl in the past few days. “When I try to focus on others, my control of my aer drops. At least, while fighting. I manage it better in moments of rest.”

Laure stared at him for a long time, finally shaking his head, only to then stare some more. “You noticed that? When did you watch him fight?”

“The day I….” Rafi shut his mouth, and took a moment to tie his hair back once again, sighing for the immediate escape of several curls. “It’s a theory. I don’t know that he does.”

“But you want to do that too.” Laure said it slowly, probably thinking it over. “You can sense my aer even while we’re sparring?”

“Yes.” Rafi dusted himself off because it was that or be stared at some more. “But not enough to predict you, so it’s not very useful.”

“Rafi.” Laure cleared his throat. “Most here cannot consciously sense it without focusing, and certainly not in a fight. You could ask him about it whenever you speak to him next.”

That was a comment likely made on Katoh’s behalf.

“Sure,” Rafi agreed easily. “Or we could figure it out on our own.”

“If it’s even possible,” Laure reminded him. “I’m in my last year and no one has mentioned it as something to try. Maybe you need to be a strong as Viau to attempt it so they don’t bother teaching it. Most of us are lucky to use aer to knock something over.”

A valid point. “He is strong, isn’t he?” Rafi was warm around his face and neck and so grateful Katoh wasn’t there. “Maybe it would be better to learn how to hide our aer instead. To control it as tightly…”

“As Viau does?” Laure finished for him. He again gave Rafi a long study.

“It’s not what you think,” Rafi insisted quietly, with a glance around for any eavesdroppers. “I don’t have fancies. I know better. He’s simply Viau. Anyone might feel—might be—wrongfooted and admiring.”

“True,” Laure agreed carefully. “But you want to be as good as he is.”

Rafi didn’t hesitate. “We should all try to be as good as he is. That has nothing to do with anything else. I told you as I told your sweetheart; I don’t have foolish dreams about shared aer and romance and mirrored souls. I intend to practice my control until I master it, and in the meantime, I should start looking for someone else to help me through aedis, in the capital if not here. Then I need not bother him again and even Katoh can be sensible about it.”