November 12th, 2129
Working with Aya up in the Spire had become almost commonplace now, though you could tell that she was still a little unsure of herself. As a Potential, she'd become far more confident in her abilities. But as a young woman, well, you couldn't imagine you'd be doing much better. There was something eating at her, since midway through the year. Pushing her about it had felt wrong, so you'd let it be. Today it was higher in your apprentice's mind. Much higher. Something had happened.
In many cases, and with many people, you'd have taken a subtle approach. With Aya, sometimes you needed to be blunt, or at least clear. She had a way of being truly artistic in her ability to avoid a subject, even one that was weighing on her deeply. Especially when it was interfering with her ability to keep up with her work, which this surely was. You knew the feedback loop that could create. No one deserved to be caught in that.
"Let's have a break, ok?" You said, carefully taking the Artefact she was almost finished with from her hands as she shuddered out of her focused state-of-mind for the third time in the afternoon. "Come on," the furnishings had grown out a bit since you'd started using the place. There were a few plush chairs sitting by a table off to one side, turned away from the city below. It was a place that allowed contemplation, without distractions.
Aya perched herself gingerly on one of the chairs, unwilling to relax back into it, and one hand fretted with the patterned cuff of her sleeves. She was nervous. You could understand, choosing this as the place to take a break hadn't exactly been subtle. But as you'd come to realise, Aya wasn't really one for subtlety.
"What's wrong, Aya?" She shuddered in place, as if she was trying to jump back and yet stopping herself from doing so. Her eyes were very wide as they looked up at you across the table, not with shock, but something else. Fear, yes, and a hint of something that was very close to shame. You'd had your guesses, that confirmed it.
"I'm just," she wrung her hands, lips compressing into a wavering frown. "I'm worried about what's coming. About what it's going to do to us," she shivered again, and something in her gaze was very bright. "I've read about it, everything I can, but I still can't make sense of it all. Why it's needed. Not from us, but…" she trailed off.
"Aya," you said gently, almost wearily. "Aya, if we could make sense of that," you gestured up at the sky neither of you could see, "we wouldn't need a War Office."
"I know that," she said, her voice tearing a little at the edges as she slumped. "But it's, in the books and vids, it's abstract. We all knew it was coming but for it to be here, maybe even in a few months, and," dark hair whispered as she shook her head. She knew she was hiding from what she wanted to ask, not that it made saying it any easier. You might have done so earlier in the year, but that was who you were, not Aya. More precisely, it was who you were now.
Which made the way she finally asked the question all the more telling.
"Are you worried about her, too?" It came out in a rush, and you reacted before she could try to take it back, as you knew she would. "I mean, um, of course," or perhaps you were a little late. No matter. There was no need to guess who 'her' was, of course.
"She's my daughter," there was little else that you could say, yet the young woman beside you needed more than that. "But she's your friend, too. Friends are the family you choose, Aya. That you don't want to lose her is only human."
"No," there were tears in her eyes as she shook her head. "I know that, but, it's just," she broke off, the words too difficult for her to say. There were many things you might have said. That Iris was the least likely to actually die among all of those who would be present among the FSN for Third Sol. That she was your daughter, and that no child of yours would ever willingly stand by whilst humanity was threatened. Instead, you simply waited, reaching out without movement to give Aya the space she needed to speak.
"She's just as young as I am," she said at last, "younger, even. And I know she's incredibly unlikely to be hurt, physically, I mean. But people die in battles, and I don't know how she'll react to seeing that. I don't think she does, either." Her dark eyes bored into your own, the intensity of that gaze no surprise after the years spent learning who Aya Yuuki was, and what she valued. "How do you even prepare for that?"
"You don't," you said simply, the words coming from a place deeper than thought. Aya blinked at your reply, leaning back in her chair as if shocked by your reply. You shook your head wearily. "You can try, Aya. Sometimes you even get close." You could feel the lines in your expression, the memory in your eyes. "But you're never truly ready for it."
"But when it does happen," you continued, remembering something you been told before Second Sol, by one of those who'd died in it. "You have to remember that it's about more than the death itself. We go up there to protect our home, and all the people in it. Sometimes," you swallowed the pain that tried to stop you speaking, "that requires sacrifice. That doesn't make it better, when someone falls. But it makes it mean something."
Aya was staring at you, her eyes a little wide. "I don't want Iris up there, Aya, the very idea terrifies me. That we might lose her, despite everything we've put in place. That I'd lose her." Again the pain swelled, and you let it wash through you, out into a breath that had nothing to do with Practice. "But I know I can't stop her. No matter how much I want to, I just can't."
"But you can stop me," Aya said, in a very small voice. "That's why," she trailed off, and you saw her fingers turn white as she gripped the armrest of her chair.
"Aya," you began.
"No," she didn't snap, not quite, but her eyes flashed with tears and simmering anger as she shook her head, hard. "You've kept me focused on Making, on what I might be able to do in three or four or five years. But I'm not stupid, Amanda. You've not been teaching me anything I can use right now, that would let me take part in Third Sol."
"That's true," you sighed, you'd wondered when she would put that together. "But there's more to it than you think. I don't want Iris, and I, to worry about you in the immediacy of battle, yes," that admission shocked her a little, not the reason, but that you included yourself in the worried parties.
"But it's not just that," you continued, before your apprentice could speak. "Yes, you're gifted in a way that could have allowed you to fight in Third Sol, if I'd trained you for it. But if I'd done that, you'd only barely be capable of it, and we need people like you for more than just this fight."
There'd been a reply ready for you to pause, but the last statement stopped it cold. "What do you mean?"
"Can't you tell?" You asked gently. "You have a gift, in how your Focus lets you see the world. In a battle, Vega can do everything I could have taught you to do with the experience of decades. But you're not like her, Aya. You know what I can do, how I can connect to the Circles, and that's something that so few others can. But you could. I've seen it in you, the same connections. And that's so much more important than what you could do on the battlefield a year or three from now."
"Then why are you going?" She demanded. "I can barely understand what you talk about when try to describe your links to the Circles. If I'm so important, don't I need a teacher to make sure I get there?"
"Because I have this," your Aegis flowed out across you, a wave of turquoise and silver that wrapped you in the strength of your soul. "And because I must be there. There is no one else who can survive it who is also capable of connecting to the Circles, and I cannot imagine that that strength will not be needed."
"I thought you still hadn't worked out how to use your Focus like that?" It was a fair question, but it missed the true point, and you both knew it.
"Not yet, no," you nodded, "but I still have to be there, Aya. You don't need your Focus to tell you why." You could trace the song that had granted you Purify now, but somewhere along the way you'd realised that it was too forceful, too loud. If you were to face the battle ahead, you needed something that was yours. The work left behind by the Elder First had helped you begin to create that, but you needed more time. Aya knew that. She also knew that you were right.
"Then what am I meant to do?" She asked, and you fought not to wince. The way she asked that question reminded so much of Mary, in some ways, that it was almost physically painful.
"Be here when your friend comes home," you told her, glancing back towards the windows and the sky far above. "She'll need you."
A Healers Fire: 74 + 34 + 20 (Arsenal of Wisdom) = 128 + 226 = 354/250
Lyrics of Fire: 53 + 34 + 20 (Arsenal of Wisdom) = 107/2 = 53 + 104 = 157/???
Mentor = NO ROLL
(Iris gains trait Caliburn. Iris trait 'Mothered by the Heart' revealed. Aya placated. Limited offensive Focus use for Amanda Hawk unlocked.)
