Chương 47: Breakthrough

"There's just too much to hold back," Miriam said, panting.

"Talk about your privileged problems!" Cian joked, balancing playfully on top of a fence post that seemed to have long survived the fence it had been made for.

"Aww, no, does Miriam have too much power?"

"Funny," Miriam said.

"But I'm serious. I can't even block one third of the fórsa stream, much less two thirds." She felt ridiculous, standing in the middle of rows of harvested dirt and just grunting as she tried to manipulate her power. Cian hummed.

"Is there something we're fundamentally doing wrong? Perhaps our approach is off from the start."

"Visualization doesn't help. Once I've got the stream together, it's all just fórsa. It's like trying to divert a waterfall with your bare hands." Miriam flopped down onto the loose soil.

"Hmm. Hmm. Hmmmm." Cian floated in a lazy circle around her.

"Let's take it back to basics. What is the relationship between a fórsa stream and a person's fórsa nature?"

"The stream is the power, the Nature is the shape," Miriam said by rote.

"Which I can't change, according to you."

"So… this is a silly question to ask, but I'll ask it because I have never met anyone with multiple Natures to try this on before. Let's continue to assume the shape is fixed - I have a feeling trying to solve that would be a way harder problem than this one. Is the power behind the shapes fixed?" Miriam sat up straighter.

"I mean, isn't it? I grabbed a third of my power each time and wove it into the right shape. I saw Róise yesterday - I wouldn't be thrilled about trying to un-weave it."

"It's not your weaving method that's the problem, or even the fórsa mesh. You've assigned a certain amount of fórsa to each shape. Could you try changing how much you assign? Change the volume per nature at the source, rather than at the end?" Cian raised his eyebrows.

"I don't know how you would do that, but it's a thought." Miriam considered Cian's point. Could she do that? Honestly, she'd never even thought about the fórsa stream having a source - she thought it was an eternal loop. That said, it did have an endpoint - wherever she deployed her fórsa from for techniques. Could it be both a loop and a line? She gasped.

"The rope!"

"What rope?" She stood up excitedly.

"When I was learning to make self-sustaining ropes and lashes on board the Líadan, I learned that you had to leave a void to make the fórsa move on its own. If my body is the same, then there might be a void that pulls in ambient fórsa!" Cian grabbed his own head, astounded by the revelation.

"You're right! There definitely is. So there is something there that pulls in ambient fórsa, then determines what nature that fórsa is going to be - and splits it in three." Miriam immediately dove back into her mindspace - a much sparser place than it used to be. There was now only the unbroken line of her multicolored fórsa stream, stretching off into the endless distance. Time to see if it was really endless after all.

She traced along it, once again doing the ice-skater slide in time with the pulse of her fórsa, moving back to where it began. Then she saw the Void. The name she'd given the vacuum in self-sustaining fórsa sounded sinister, but in her mind it was anything but. It was represented by a gentle white light, like a small colorless sun. Forsa here was invisible, but out of it grew each of her three colors: Blue, green and black.

"It's here," she said.

"The place where the fórsa is sorted into Natures."

"That's so awesome!" Cian crowed.

"Can you see what is determining the shapes?"

"No. It's just invisible, then suddenly three visible colors." Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Maybe you just need to decide to see it. It's your brain after all," Cian suggested.

"I mean, if you know it's there and invisible, it's because something in your whole… thing… decided that is how it should be. Just decide differently." Miram was starting to sweat. The constant concentration on the complex visualization was taking a toll.

"It.. must be some sort of prism. It breaks the white light into each of these three colors."

"Prisms don't produce black. But that doesn't really matter," Cian said hastily.

"Yours can do whatever it wants in your own mind." Miriam couldn't see the prism, but she knew it was there. In her mind, she tapped it. Solid. It would never move from that spot. It was like trying to uproot a statue. But maybe she could rotate it? Miriam pushed with all her mind, moving the prism as far as it could go in one direction. She gasped as a flood of Water poured through her, as fast as her own pulse, cool and bracing.

"I think that might have done something!"

"Let's try it out!" Cian gestured to the field eagerly. Miriam stretched out her hand, recalling her earliest lessons with Eoin. Just make a little water. A gush of liquid coalesced in her palm and rocketed into the dirt, quickly forming tiny puddles. Miriam looked desperately at the water, looking for signs of vines or rot. Nothing but pure water, seeping into the dirt. Miriam whooped loudly, jumping as far as she could into the sky.

"We did it! Oh gods, Cian! I wasn't sure we'd ever figure it out."

"You did it!" Cian corrected, his eyes alight with victory.

"Oh, who am I kidding? You only did it because I'm the best trainer in the world!" Miriam practiced swiveling the prism for the rest of the day. It didn't take her long to get the hang of and before long she was creating dry, healthy vines, more pure water, and, for the first time, Blight in its pure form - just a heavy miasma of ruin until it found something to corrupt. It took her a little longer to switch between them than she'd like, but she thought speed would come with time.

"This is such a better outcome than I ever hoped for!" Cian said, leaning back onto nothing.

"I assumed you'd at best be able to only deploy a third of your power per Nature. With this method, your entire incredible supply of fórsa is at your disposal for whatever Nature you choose!" Miriam couldn't stop grinning.

"Guess I'm the bear for real now, huh?"

"You'd better believe it," Cian said, his face split wide in a grin.

"Now it's time for the next step!"

"Which is what?" Cian snapped his fingers and a red-clothed version of himself appeared.

"Combat training!" ✧✧✧ Miriam had often relied on the experiences she had lived in her former life to help her overcome challenges in the Tir. Much as she had when she was younger, she felt confident that whatever the challenge, she would be up to the task. Only now she felt she had earned that confidence. None of that prepared her for combat training.

"I thought you'd be better at this," Cian said, rubbing his chin as he floated in the air. Miriam growled with frustration.

"Why? I was a grandmother in a small town. We had guns! Hand to hand combat was not something I needed to know. Besides, you're an all-powerful island made of sentient fórsa. I don't think it's fair. The birds were way easier." The red Cian was just dancing around her, always just out of her reach. Not once did Miriam feel like she was anywhere close to scoring a hit with any of her Natures.

"Of course! They were lower in the Ring than you. This handsome lad here -" The red Cian waved "-is exactly at your level. And fair is completely meaningless here. The monsters that wait for you past Scior aren't going to ponder about what's fair before they tear your throat out."

"If he's at my level, why can't I get a hit in?" Miriam scowled at her opponent, who shrugged.

"You're at the same fórsa density. You don't have the same skill," Cian answered.

"This is a good lesson, actually. There is a certain point above which no amount of skill will save you when facing an opponent from an upper Ring. But within a few Rings' difference, skill matters a lot."

"So you're just saying I'm bad at fighting."

"I'm saying we need to go back to basics. Train you from the ground up. Going forward we'll spend some of the day weaving denser fórsa, some doing combat drills and some with live sparring. Once she's on the right track I might bring Róise in to help - or maybe Cormac? When I think your foundation is solid we'll head out into the jungle and start working on real combat situations." Cian nodded with satisfaction.

"I think we're going to have a lot of fun, don't you? Miriam?" Miriam wasn't listening. Instead she found her attention inexplicably pulled towards the north. There was nothing in the village or the trees beyond she could point to that drew her focus away, but she definitely felt a pull of some sort. Just like when she stood on the shores of the Golden Swamp and felt the pull of the ocean.

"Miriam?"

"What? Oh… sorry, Cian. I drifted off there I think. I must be tired," she said, stretching her shoulders out.

"What were you saying?"

"I was outlining a course of study. We have a long way to go, but if you persevere I think you can get there." Cian watched her warily. Her eyes did seem a little unfocused, almost dreamy.

"Oh. Great, yeah." Miriam said absently, her gaze drifting off again to the north. Cian's lips tightened with worry.