[Emmett]

It had become clear to me that the College of Water spent an inordinate amount of effort researching, analyzing, and debating the topics of transgender Magi, transcasters, whether they were one and the same, and methods to combat the associated difficulties.

Across the vast continent of Taikur stand thousands of sentient bipeds called humans, obviously, though some texts refer to all humans as men (using he-men, she-men, and they-men to disambiguate). Humans have a body, a mind, and a spirit. The body, the physical body, is, as fauna, sexed as "male" or "female" via differing features, giving priority to primary features such as genitalia over secondary/tertiary features (because primary is oft concealed). The mind contains the thoughts, intellect, and accumulated experiences of a person, and is widely understood to be just that and nothing more. It is the spirit that gives a person their gender, as well as personality, emotions and character. The spirit acts in concert with the mind to produce a person's values, and is always either masculine or feminine. This gender is what makes someone a man or a woman.

Well, sort-of. Technically, "man" and "woman" are not genders but instead facings, describing how one, well, faces society. "Masc" and "femme" are the actual names of the genders, but good luck finding someone who doesn't use them interchangeably outside the College of Water. It is theoretically possible for gender and facing to differ, but again, unless you're talking to someone actively involved in research, mentioning this just comes off as confusing and contradictory. Even among the diehards it is by no means concluded whether the two can even differ.

Anyway, most people are born in a body whose sex corresponds to their gender and their facing. This is to say, most men are male and masculine and most women female and feminine. Conversely, most males are men and most females are femme.. If you know one, you know the other two ninety five to ninety nine times out of a hundred. It is where this congruence fails to hold that things get interesting.

A blanket term, "trans", is formally applied to any situation outside the overwhelming majority, though most people just use it to mean transgender. To say someone is transgender is to describe their gender (spirit) and sex (body) as opposed. Or rather, that's how the books define it; most people invoking it actually describe a facing/sex schism, which is readily apparent in social norms: A person is only regarded as a man or woman once they take active measures to express that facing, and the individual involved must actively seek to transition to retain said regard.

To transition is to carry out any process to re-align sex and facing. Such measures are called transitions, may be complete or partial, and serve as the standard by which transgender status is identified. This is because all trans people carry an ever-present, all-consuming dissonance in their mind that plummets them into despair, mounting higher and higher, until death or transition rectifies the issue. Conversely, the overwhelming majority who aren't trans don't have this dissonance, and would in fact acquire it if they attempted transition.

Several documented methods of transition exist, but the single most reliable method is using Dark-Aspected Water Magick to transmute the entirely of the subject's body at once, permanently and finally. This method guarantees synchrony between the new body's sex and the person's gender. This method, while perfect for Dreamers, imparts temporary agony in a Magus, after which their Magick is forever gone.

Every other method I had discovered carried downsides, whether they be not fully eliminating the dissonance, crippling the body, imposing delayed-onset mortal illness, or eliminating sexual potency. But I had not bothered with those details: I was interested in the spellcasting side of things, so I focused on transcasting instead, feeling I had enough of a background to put the pieces together.

Transcasting is very specifically defined as a Magus casting outside their facing: a man casting as a woman would (my case) or vice versa. It is often described as "casting as the opposite gender," but that definition is still contested. Many debates abound on whether transcasting implies transgender: specifically, the cause of transcasting is not yet settled. However, it is widely known that Magick considers someone to be the gender they cast spells as, so the simple hypothesis follows that transcasting implies a spirit of the associated gender. This is still being researched, and the existence of Two-Spirits heavily confounds (both supports and rejects) this hypothesis.

Two-Spirits are those Magi who cast using both masculine and feminine styles. This should be impossible: Magick is the expression of the self, through the substrate of the Spirit, which has only one immutable gender at all times. Yet, Two-Spirits defy this logic. The current theory suggest these Magi actually have two distinct Spirits, one masculine and one feminine, hence the name: the literature notes some Two-Spirits can attune their Æther to two different Elements, but only one per casting style. Remember: Spirits can only ever attune to one. 

Two-Spirits are assumed to exist in the Dreamer population as well, given everything else that generalizes to humanity from the Magi, but the books make no such confirmation.

I glossed over some explanations for where the second Spirit came from, as it no longer quite pertained to me: I was a transcaster, and the two were not related. I set the book down, and scrawled out some final notes.

"Hey Grace?" I asked quietly. We were in a Library, after all.

"Yes, Emmett?" she asked with uplifting calm in her voice, not taking her eyes off the paper she was writing on.

"Thank you." I looked over my notes. "I think I have a better idea of what this transcasting business entails now."

Grace had tasked me to read the more introductory materials to develop my foundation of gender theory while she pored over the more advanced texts and distilled the information into a concise handwritten primer for me to study and learn from.

"I'm glad; I'm almost done with the study plan." Grace finished writing a sentence and picked up the small stack of papers, poring through them and glancing over the many open tomes, seemingly checking her work. "I mention it several times in the worksheets I made, but feminine Magick is extremely sensitive to emotion." She stacked her sheets of paper together and slid them to me. "Remember, we cannot suppress it. The techniques for doing so require closing the spirit, which is antithetical to our Magick."

I took the stack and glanced at the front page.

"The meditation exercises are not optional," Grace warned, "I don't care what you have to do, find the half and later full hour every day to do it. If you're serious about wanting to get back at the Emissaries, you have to be able to exercise mindfulness in the throes of trauma. And I pray to the heavens and havens you find yourself an Element."

Of course. If I were truly an empty, then any hope to avenge my village, my parents...

Those ambitions would be dead in the water.

I gave a solemn nod. "Thank you very much, Grace. I won't let this effort go to waste."

Grace's lips curled upward ever to slightly. "You don't have to be so somber you know."

I shook my head. "Then why'd you go this far above and beyond for me?"

"Because I owed you a favor. Speaking of." Grace closed up the books she had been looking over and stacked them to the side. "My favor to you is concluded and my debt discharged."

I nodded, and started to gather my things.

"Where are you going?"

I stopped and looked at her.

Grace gently placed her head in her palm. "I said 'my favor was concluded', not 'get out of my sight'."

"Uh, then, um, what are you still wanting to talk to me about?"

She took out a few other books, and some papers. "We have about an hour left before 8PM rolls around, we're in a Library, and we don't have anything else planned. We could spend the time on our assigned classwork."

Oh right. We were still students.

I nodded, and we spent the remaining hour going over our more worldly courses, away from the wonder and ruin of Æther and Magick. I went home and slept rather soundly, letting myself rest after a Sunday of forceful self-discovery, an Enday with a literal Nightmare, and a Monday of many studies.

Tuesday was much calmer, and the anaerobic focus of Physical Fitness got me thinking a little.

Tense, Relax. Tense. Relax. Even the breathing was controlled for these exercises. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Push out. Pull in.

I thought back to every instance of the hand-glowing spell. I thought back to....

Not Jessica. That was an aberration.

I did, however, think about the experiment Ansel had me undertake, how the simple torchlight grew into a column of flame, and how I would snuff it out by tensing my muscles and thoughts.

Locking down my airways so air couldn't go in or out.

And finally, I thought about yesterday's MMA match. Ansel's Magick against mine. That inner shout of will, drawing forth a buffer to catch the incoming strike.

Okay it didn't, but that was the intent. Anyway, I focused on how I had pointed my thoughts, my focus, outward at that critical moment. That push of intent, that breath, I had recalled the feeling of, and took some time to savor it.

"Hey!" Larsen yelled, "No cheating with Magick Sinclair!"

"Wait wha-" I looked up and noticed some Æther dissipate from my hand holding the handle of a heavy block of metal overhead. "Ah, sorry Ser! Didn't know I was casting!" I put in some panicked reps without the spell, both to prove I could do so without cheating and to appease my instructor.

"You sure you're not lying now that I caught you, maggot?!"

"Ser-" Ansel raised his voice.

"Joking, soldier! Carry on!" Larsen laughed and went to badger some other hapless student instead about form or technique or something.

"Th-thank you, Ansel," I said, my reps becoming more normal.

Ansel gave a wide grin and pulled his weight back down. "No prob Em!"

I had finished up my exercises, went to the cafeteria for a meal, and retreated to my dormitory.

I took off my robe and turned to the stack of papers Grace compiled for me back at the Library of Water. I sat at my desk, cleared it off of everything else, and begun my reading:

Emotion is the essence through which Æther is gathered and Magick is wrought. Thus, meditation will be your bread, and shadowdancing your water. You will need to invest at least one and a half hours, preferably two to three, to these exercises to develop your foundation.

Shadow-dancing? I skimmed through the packet a bit, and saw some sketches of hand positions, and one or two full body sketches, and went back to where I was.

The meditation exercises described in the packet are relatively simple, each having the shared goal of clearing the mind and letting ones thoughts exist: not obsessing, not trying to drive out, simply noticing. The difficulty involved is elegant in its subtlety: left unchecked, the mind habitually yields to the spirit, abdicating its own role. The spirit is vital, yet woefully flawed, being the harbinger of impulse and ideals. It is criminally easy to exploit the spirit to turn a person against themself, against friends, against lovers, against even their causes.

The method of defending oneself involves the mind, the driver to the spirit's navigator, but to do so, the mind must overrule the spirit. Just like the sword and shield cannot occupy the same space, so too can mind and spirit clash. Therefore, to act effective, the mind must receive the entirety of the emotional assault, and to do that, the spirit must be rejected and kicked aside. Obviously, this is much easier said than done, but doing so means you can temper your passions with reason and sharpen your will upon the world.

When everything is in chaos, and one must do everything possible to survive, sometimes the hardest thing really is, to let go.

This art was to become the focus of an hour of my day, every day. The passage recommended I clear a dedicated space for meditation, but admitted it wasn't' truly necessary. For now, I chose to sit cross-legged in a corner. There were proper postures, but according to Grace wrote the natural seated position would suffice.

It was the hardest hour of my life. I was seated there, with nothing to do, nothing to say, nothing to think about. The blanks filled in, about Magick, about the Golden Palette mission, about Jessica, about how Grace acted before and how she acted now. My heart raced, and my breath quickened.

Stop, I bade my mind, Relax, This is supposed to be relaxing. Fuck.

I wasn't sure what to think about Grace. She had helped a lot, sure, and she had justifiable reason to threaten my life, but she threatened my life. Directly. With a weapon, made of Magick.

My thoughts swarmed back to Jacqueline, and how she would always warn me that if she ever so much as caught wind that I'd harassed a woman-

"I will bind you to the stove and cut that useless prick slow as I can. I've been treated like shit by many men before you, and I'd sooner be skinned alive in the hells than raise another jack-off," were the words she had said.

It was a far, far cry from when I still had-

My memories shifted to the warmth of my mother's arms around me, the smile on my face...

T h e   d e c a y   h a n g i n g   i n   t h e   s t a l e   a i r-

It was not even twenty minutes in and I had broken posture to be a crying heap of flesh on the floor.

This would be a regular feature of the meditation attempts for quite some time.

At some point later, I stirred and stretched myself against the surprisingly-stiff bed. I took a bit of time to feel around, and realized I was on the floor. I groaned, and pushed myself slowly back up to my feet. I looked to the timepiece, at the needle approaching the "4" position, and shook my head.

Well, at least I had three to four hours to look things over and do some homework before classes. I remembered passing out halfway through my meditation session, but I needed to function so I ignored that and worked on my homework and read more of Grace's packet.

3PM rolled around, and I found myself matched up with Ansel once more.

"You seem pretty confident Em," he said, "Have anything tricky for me?"

I smiled, held my left foot forward ever so slightly off the ground, and held my hands out in front of me, palms open.

"Shadow-dancing?" He responded with a stance of his own, crouched down, hands touching the ground and leg chambered. "I mean, you can give it a shot." He burst at me in a full sprint.

I crossed my left foot over and planted it down to anchor a spinning hook-kick.

To my horror, Ansel lunged deep under my attack and swept my left foot off the ground.

My right leg flailed over him and the left side of my body crashed onto the ground below. "Urgh!"

"Mad props for trying something new Em," Ansel said, "But shadow-dancing requires obscene amounts of practice before you can field it in a fight. It really shines as a meditative art." He held out a hand toward me.

I took it, and climbed back to my feet in short order. "Huh. Grace drew out a few exercises, katas I think she called them, to help get a feel for ones Æther or something."

"Yeah that makes sense." Ansel stepped back and gave a smile. "Several femme casters I know swear by it, even to the point of fighting with it. Word of advice: anything that turns your back to an opponent is super dangerous to actually throw at one."

"Oh?" What he said made some sort of sense: the back is a weak spot. There was a reason traitors went for the back rather than the front. Yet, Ansel was no traitor.

"Your stance is either weak in that moment, or you have no vision to what I'm doing." Ansel took a step back and returned to his stance. "Usually both. Even if you were much more practiced, I had a lot of room to move around without reaction. I'm surprised your Squadmate would start you off on such an intermediate form. Keep using it in your private exercise, but you're going to want to pick up something simple for your foundation. Here, copy me."

I stepped forward, bending my knees a little bit, and held my closed fists up in front of my face.

"A little lower, you still want to see what I'm doing."

I lowered my fists a little, and kept my eyes locked to his.

"Jab, Cross, Hook, Upper," said Ansel, throwing a different punch to punctuate each word. "Four basic strikes from this position. Simple, direct, blunt, to the point, and deadly. Remember what Ser Larsen said: your body's twitchy when things get real. Simple means reliable. Go ahead and try."

We spent the rest of the hour practicing what Ansel called the Art Of Four Shrikes. We went slow at first, with him pointing out how I could parry incoming attacks to the sides or sometimes upward, but he slowly went faster and faster until time was called. We didn't get to full and proper combat speed, but I was learning something completely new.

"I have a few errands to run, but wanna catch dinner together around seven?" Ansel asked me out of the blue.

"Uh um sure!" I blurted out.

"Awesome, see you then!" Ansel waved and bounded off toward the central campus.

"Emmett!" Samael called from behind, walking toward me with an envelope. "We're heading to Stormingcalm." He held it out toward me.

I took it, and nodded. "Ah, thank you. I'll look it over."

"Make sure you do, and keep practicing; I actually want to see you start to get useful." He turned and left.

My eyes drifted to the pocket of paper holding paper, and my hands tore the flimsy excuse of a shell open. I unfolded the sheet and gazed upon the words inside:

Mission Name: Fayt In Your Hands
Mission Category: Service - Retrieval
Mission Requestor: Sargon Michaels
Mission Squad Assigned: Upstarts (led by Samael Michaels)

Mission Description: Former CVAC Faculty Simon and Charity of House Fayt have misplaced their wedding rings in a cavern below a scenic cave route used for tours in the resort village of Stormingcalm in Can Vahs. I request a squad from the Can Vahs Arcane Colleges to dive into the depths of Lovebite and retrieve the rings on behalf of House Fayt.

Mission Parameters: Squad MUST Arrive at Stormingcalm before 8PM on Friday. Squad MAY find lodging for the night but MUST begin retrieval operation by Saturday at 8AM. Squad MUST consult with Simon Fayt OR Charity Fayt OR any two Members of House Fayt OR any four former Professors OR any three Professors other than Sponsor BEFORE beginning retrieval. Squad MUST complete retrieval by 3PM on Saturday. Squad MUST attend a dinner with House Fayt on 5PM Saturday. Squad MUST retrieve BOTH rings. Both Rings MUST remain intact. Squad MUST NOT engage in combat. Squad MUST NOT damage any terrain.

Mission Additional: Additional remuneration may be awarded to Squad at Requestor's and/or House Fayt's discretion, and need not be monetary.

Mission Approved by Myrrdin Feylance on Tenth of Ninth and scheduled to begin on Thirteenth of Ninth.

Another underground exploration mission, huh? This was bound to be interesting. I pocketed the mission brief.

It was several footfalls later that I noticed my heart was pounding, my cheeks were warm, and a smile slapped itself on my dumb face. Why was I this giddy about Ansel inviting me to eat with him?!