Nat could have believed he'd triggered his Talent, the way everyone froze. But no, there was no world of darkness enveloping him, though dusk was fast approaching. He watched Ceress blink a translucent inner eyelid.

  Interesting.

  These were all kind people, in his estimation. They were helpful, and generally informative.

  So, putting it all together, that meant they thought the answer would bother him. No, they were certainly not conflict avoidant. They thought it would — harm — him.

  Ah. Okay, time to put some misconceptions to bed, then.

  “This is where you might expect me to say something like, ‘Don't everyone try to answer all at once’.” He paused for effect. He had problems, he was socially inept, but he was far from stupid.

  “Allow me to correct a few misapprehensions you might be suffering under.”

  Moira started to say something, but Nat's anger was not going back in the box so easily. “No. Everyone shut up and listen for a moment.”

  He continued. “I have spent my entire life in a hospital. Moira, I don't know what you even are, so I don't know your frame of reference for this, but allow me to adjust your understanding of me.”

  “I am being accepting because you all seem like kind people, who are trying your best, and your concerns seem valid. But you have no idea what I think, what I know, and — other than you,” indicating Ceress, “Nobody has asked yet. Do you imagine that your expertise and, what, an hour or two of conversation somehow means you have a proper understanding of what I've been through?”

  “My entire life has been at the whim and suffering of others — I am an inconvenience in their busy lives. I have had limited agency. People do things without my consent. I wake up, not knowing where, or when I am. Early on, I raged against this, each and every time. If I appear easy going and accepting to you, understand that it is, in part, because to me, you simply do not matter. You will be here for a few days, weeks, or months. And then you will vanish. Like everyone else in my life. If I do not like you, I can simply outlast you.”

  His eyes had started to water and his sinuses had gotten stuffed up. Okay, that was enough, he thought. Any more than that and he'd let it all spill out.

  “Now, I'm going to ask again. And I want you to be brutally honest with me. Clearly, I don't know everything, or I wouldn't be asking. But what is it you imagine I do not know, that you are acting like will hurt me?”

  Everyone was silent for a moment. Clearly they hadn't expected the mini-rant.

  Lyn answered with a question. “What year do you think it is?”

  “Oh. I see, you think I don't understand that I'm missing blocks of time from my memory. I can assure you I am more than aware.”

  “No, and I'm sorry if I sound condescending saying this, but I don't think you do. What year do you last remember?”

  Nat's snark came out in full effect. “Here, hang on. I'm going to blow your mind with this. I don't know. I do not care. Do you seriously think I haven't noticed that everyone avoids saying years around me? That there are no calendars kept in the open? I read books, you know. I was in a coma for three years when I was 8 years old. I have had Threshold weeks that seemed to never end. I live in a special room that keeps me from lighting it on fire when I have an episode.”

  “Now, try again. Answer the question, stop playing twenty questions with me, or I'm going to stop playing along and walk back to Bell House tomorrow.”

  Lyn's tone was emotionless, but measured. “You could kill everyone there.”

  “I haven't yet.”

  “No. You simply don't remember.”

  Ceress blinked again. If she were training a Ber, this would be when things could go horribly wrong.

  Lyn started to say something else, but Ceress cut them off, and raised her hand at Nat.

  “Let me explain reference frames to you by way of demonstration. Pick up a small rock — anything will do.”

  Nat stared at her, agog. He clearly didn't expect his rant, or whatever revelation that Lyn was going to drop in her ‘I told you so’ manner to be interrupted.

  But no, she got it. The kid was a danger. Well, was he a kid? He looked young, but he had a helmsman package. She'd assumed it was relatively recent — that could be an erroneous assumption on her part.

  Time to defuse the figurative bomb that Lyn had just dropped at his feet before it went off and became a literal one.

  Nat raised his voice. “Are you serious? You think we're going to do some training?”

  Ceress dealt with feral Ber and mercenaries on a daily basis, a little light yelling was a refreshing change. She kept her tone even and regulated. “Sure. Unless you think you've got a handle on this Talent of yours. It might go off in what, half an hour now? You ready for that?”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “I've been able to turn it off since yesterday.”

  “Well, sounds like you have it under control then. Tell you what, I'll be back at the other camp, since I'm not needed here. Do us all a favor, and don't come back until after dusk, and then I'll be on my way tomorrow, bright and early, before dawn. Or, you could just pick up a rock.”

  Nat continued to stare for a few beats. Then he knelt down and picked up a stone, without breaking eye contact with her.

  “Now, put the stone in one hand, and then put your other hand half a meter below it, and prepare to drop it from the one, into the other. Drop it, then trigger your Talent as fast as you can. Slowly find the stone with your top hand, but don't touch it with any force, just enough to find it. Then cancel your Talent. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Nat sounded confused — curious — but calm.

  Ceress once again raised an eye ridge. That cooldown was much too fast.

  Nat did as he'd been asked. From Ceress's perspective, the stone simply dropped from one hand to the other, where it landed in his dark, frozen palm. Then he unfroze, and gripped the rock.

  “Wait, so… it just hung there, in the air. And now it's in my hand.”

  “Right. So what's happening there is you're skipping ahead while we're frozen, and then afterward, you freeze, to us, for as long as we froze to you. Sort of. Helmsman think faster, so you perceive time a little differently, but for every second we freeze for you, you freeze for us. Except.”

  “Except?”

  “Except when something would harm you. Then you'll freeze for long enough for the damage to be mitigated to where it won't outright kill you, if it's possible. Unless.”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless something makes it impossible for it to be mitigated. For instance, a huge impacting mass, an extremely hot fire, or an aetheric weapon or Skill.”

  “Why would that matter?”

  “Well, with constant pressure of mass, at some point the Talent will give out. You get squished — obvious, right? With fire, it doesn't allow you to expel heat — you're generating body heat in there the whole time, and it builds up, so you roast alive. And aether's interesting. Aether exists in space, but not time, so if I were to say, light this claw.” She did so, and held the blue fire out towards him. “Okay, now activate your Talent very briefly, but do not get any closer to me.”

  He did so, becoming stone for just a blink of an eye.

  “The flame moves in the darkness — and I could feel it. Just like how I can see Lyn's eyes. And wait — also Moira's arc?”

  “Oh yeah — survival tip: if you fight a Ber and you see anything like that? Run before you deactivate it.”

  “Okay, I'll bite. Why?”

  “Well, imagine that I get close enough to grab hold of you, in that frame of yours, while you were frozen? Reactivating it would burn you alive.”

  “That… sounds horrible.”

  “Yeah. It is. I don't think we've properly met. Hi — I'm Sal'Ceress, a Brek'ka, or you may have heard some Humans call us ‘breakers’. Please don't do that — unlike silverpaw, which is considered neutral — breaker is slightly pejorative. My species was re-engineered to cut ships apart. Sometimes in a dry dock or scrapyard, other times when they were being actively inhabited by people. One of our specialties is, specifically, killing helmsman. Kill the helmsman, and the ship is just a floating target.”

  Moira's voice came from Lyn's hand. “What the hell is wrong with this universe?”

  “See, Moira, this is why I don't mind having you around, even if your chats with Lyn are totally going to get us all killed or lobotomized one of these days.”

  “Gee, thanks. Your words of… grudging tolerance… really make me feel welcome.”

  “I live to serve. No — literally — that's the entire problem.”

  “Well, if nothing else, at least I feel less alone in the world as an entity created literally to serve at the pleasure of another species.”

  Nat looked towards Moira's arc at that last part. “Wait, Who? AMA? Like the Ber'Duun?”

  Moira's cheerful tone didn't waver, “Oh, no. Humans.”

  “Humans? Who on Enkoet could even manage that, let alone do it?”

  Moira deadpanned. “Oh, different Humans.”

  Lyn interrupted, “Okay folks, dusk is soon, and we need to set up. Ceress, anything else you want to show Nat before you head back?”

  “Oh, sure, one last thing. Grab a unique looking rock — color, shape, something you'll recognize.”

  Nat picked up a bright orange stone, well-rounded by the river. “Okay, got one — what next?”

  “Activate your talent and then throw it away from you. You'll probably need to move a little air out of the way first. Enough to give it a fair toss.”

  “Isn't that dangerous?”

  “You'd think so, right? Humor me.”

  Nat did as he was told, and was a statue once again for a little longer this time before he suddenly unfroze.

  “Okay, that's hard work. Where is it?”

  “Down at your feet.”

  “Wait, what? But I threw it fairly hard.”

  “Yep, you're in an isolated reference frame. Inertia doesn't transfer out — or in. The moment it left your hand, the stone returned to our reference frame, where it had no inertia. So it just dropped to the ground. Otherwise you'd have just blown a hole in a mountain.”

  “Why do you even know all this?”

  “See again my job description. You can't kill what you don't understand. I'm familiar with most of your limitations. It's a powerful Skill — well, Talent for you. But it's more defensive in actual utility.”

  Lyn chimed back in, “Okay, I think with that it's time to grab our safety blanket and hope for another uneventful evening.”

  “Sure thing. See you back at camp — yell for Soot if there's a problem, she could hear it from here.”

  A few minutes later and the usual hand-holding in the waning light was re-established. Nat felt a little awkward, with the earlier conflict, but needs must, as it were.

  Moira decided to break the silence while they waited. “So, Nat, you said you could see Lyn's arc while you were using your Talent?”

  “Yep, the electrical arc is very dim, and moves very slowly, but it does move — and then there's a second… line? Wave? Something superimposed on it, much brighter.”

  “That would be the theromagnetic wave form. Can you see it normally, if you look?”

  “No, it's probably too dim normally.”

  “And you can see it, while in your Talent?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Would you mind activating your Talent for a split second, and confirming for me?”

  “Sure, can do. Is that okay, Lyn?”

  Lyn seemed more relaxed than earlier to Nat's eye, “No problems here. Moira can fix it if something goes wrong.”

  “Okay, here goes.”

  [Slip]

  Nat was once again in his dark, soundless void. Though he could see Lyn's eyes, and Moira's arc, faintly. He was thus surprised when he — not quite heard — Moira's voice. Not text, but a rich, feminine sound. It was like hearing his own internal voice — one he didn't use often, but he could, and did sometimes.

  Nat, can you hear this? Answer like before, only with — Howdy, Moira — if you can. Nothing else, please.

  Huh, that was obviously Moira, but not in text form?

  [Nat: Howdy, Moira. ]

  Oh, my. Don't answer. Say nothing, please. I'm going to teach you how to manipulate a theronic waveform so you can talk back this way. Privately. We have a lot to talk about.