"I'm ready," Fern said, without any sort of preamble. Thehought better of it. "For training."

  Ravenna's eyes sparkled brightly. "Just what I wao hear, darling. And we're already moments away from where we o be, so this will save us some time, too! o be traipsing up and dowairs more than necessary."

  "Do you need anything else, or may I go back to sleep now?" Crimson's scratchy voice called out from the coffin, two points of glowiill staring in their dire.

  "I think we've cleared up matters to my satisfa," the dark mage returned. "Fern, darling, anything for her?"

  Fern pondered a moment. "Oh! Yes, actually - how did the verse you taught me go? I 't seem to remember; I was trying to recall it on the way here but it wasn't ing to me for some reason."

  "Ah... that was by i," the vampire expined, a little hesitant. "It seemed like too much to burden you with at the time; Mistress desires to teach you, so she should be guiding your steps, not I. But if you have need of it - and I would caution you to not repeat it carelessly - then wield a focus of your choid begin by saying 'The shadows are my friend.' The rest... will simply follow on its own. It is fixed within you firmly enough for that."

  "I... see." She thought for a moment. "I guess that's all that es to mind, for now. Rest well? And, um." Her cheeks flushed just a little. "Thank you. I did sleep soundly st night, better than ever before. That means a lot."

  "You are most wele, Miss Skysh. I shall see you tonight." And with that, Crimson's head disappeared bato the coffin, and with a grindiallic sound, it closed. In a few more moments, the seals started to reappear.

  "Well then! Now that we're finished here - let us tinue, darling." Ravenna's eyes sparkled with anticipation. "Downwards."

  If the aura of the previous floor had set Fern on edge, the floor was the opposite. The moment she followed the dark mage down into the brightly lit room with its grayish floor full of various markings, she felt... nothing. It was su absence of feeling that she froze for a moment, trying to prehend what forces were at py.

  "You must not be used to wards," Ravenna murmured, looking over at her. "This room is equipped with some of the most intricate aetheric barriers I know. Have to make sure nothis out of hand while we're testing your mettle, after all. Or doing anything else that might make problems if it escaped tai." She poi the linework on the floor. "The double white line closest to us is the outward-fag barrier; you see the 'teeth' on it if you look close enough, showing how it's oriented. Look a little further in and you see a sed ohat's the barrier to keep everything in the room. Those are always active; everything else you see on the floor in some color besides white won't work unless you've set it up."

  Fern blinked a few times. "This is... quite something. This is a training ground, right? Or is it, like, some sort of... I dunno, research b?"

  The dark mage grinned brightly. "No reason it 't be both! But today, just the former - I think. We'll see." In a few strides she crossed both the outer and inner barriers, and produced a fog wand with her ary flourish, tapping it softly on her cheek. "Yes... yes, this will do nicely. e on in, darling, the aether is fine."

  Hesitantly at first, she stepped forward and through the outer barrier, with no more than a slight ti the edge of her perception. After another few steps, however, she definitely sehe way the wards closed off behind her, after lettihrough without any trouble. The ehing was a masterwork, from what she could tell with her limited perception. "And this is always on? How you even afford to expend that much aether?"

  "Those special properties of the tower I mentioned, as you might recall. But there's o dig deep into the details, darling, not when you have so much to aplish." Ravenna's gaze fixed on her, a pensive expression crossing her face for a moment. "For now, let's have you start by honing those perception aion skills. Especially as a Darksider, you'll be using those rather extensively. After that, you begin wielding the darkness, and see for yourself precisely how it differs from the light."

  As a Darksider. Fern's brow furrowed just a little. "No esg that transition, huh..."

  "It's going to be alright," the dark mage said simply, and reached out to take her hand. "Fern... I know this is probably a lot to handle, even if you agreed to it. It's going to be alright. Better, even."

  She sighed. "I... want to believe that."

  "You had a lot of expectations ba Pinsgate, didn't you? People telling you what you were supposed to be, supposed to do, stantly. Never letting up. And it was hard - impossible, even - to measure up to all of those. Even though I know you tried, because that's just the sort of person you are. Do I have the right of it?"

  Fern nodded soberly. "As if you'd been there yourself to witness it, yes."

  "The me tell you - one of the best things about the dark is that there are no expectations like that. No oppressive structure that demands you and be silent in your suffering." Ravenna reached up with her other hand aed it on her partner's shoulder, as if readying for a danbsp; "Heroes have expectations, darling. But you're not a hero any longer; you don't have to be. You be a fallen hero instead." She leaned in, emerald eyes locked with Fern's blue-gray. "The only expectations you need yourself with will be mine; and I promise you, they will be ever so much easier upon your weary shoulders."

  The pull to just give in was so, so very strong. She didn't know if she could resist it - actually, she was beyond the point of resisting by now; the gravity of the whole situation had already drawn her past where she could escape. Everything she was, everything she had been, was about to e apart, to be remade in a flood of darkness.

  Except it wasn't even that dramati affair, was it? Merely a tipping of the scales iher dire, from where they'd been imbanced for so long. Maybe it was meant to be this way; maybe that was why even though everything was se ao her, she didn't recoil from it - because it felt somehht to her.

  Or maybe it was something about the woman standing in front of her, looking at her, into her, with an expression that showed menuine care and - as far as she could tell, anyway - than anyone else she'd ever known, even her own parents. Not that she remembered much of them after all this time, not siering into a ant to get her sigil.

  "... Do you think it will ge me?" she murmured softly, looking away from the intense gaze.

  Ravenna just smiled and gave her hand and shoulder gentle, encing squeezes. "I think if you want to ge, it will help you," she replied, slowly letting go and moving to the ter of the room, near a small bck circle outlined on the floor. "Here, e sit down while I set things up so you practice."

  Fern followed, taking a seat on the floor within the marked circle and crossing her legs, pg a hand on eaee and evening out her breathing to help her narrow her focus. Simply tu the unnecessary things, and open the inner eye, and really see the world. Something she hadn't done in a while - hadn't given herself the time to do - but fortunately still remembered from so long ago, back when she was first learning.

  "Good," the dark mage murmured approvingly, and the sound floated along, brushing up against her, just at the edge of perception. "Let's begin with something simple." A point of pure light fred to life at the far end of the room, directly in front of her, then grew into a globe - perhaps the size of a rge melon. "The natural form of light is simple. Obvious. A thing you perceive easily, because it is meant to be defined, solid, present. There is another yer to that - but first, let us regard its opposite."

  The melon of light shifted to her left, perhaps fifteen degrees or so. At first she didn't see anything; then after a moment - there, in the air, fifteen degrees to the right. Not a presenot exactly an abseher, but... "A vortex?" she ventured, peering ily. Curved lines, slightly darker than the rest of the enviro, swirled around a lighter ter area; where the tips approached the light orb, they ed a out of their arra before returning to their normal orbit.

  "Yes and no. Light is structure, substaability. Darkness, in its natural form, is motion, movement. Formless, visible only to those who observe over time; those who see more than a single, instantaneous slice of the world. It is not merely 'a vortex'; it is the movement within and around that vortex, all the energy of the disturbed and dispced aether. And that, too, has another yer; we will not delve into it yet. For now, simply observe a little lory to perceive the edge, the boundary between light and darkness, if you ."

  And so she did. Watg silently but for her slow, measured breaths, trag the lines of force with her eyes as Ravenna altered the enviro, introdug additional nodes of both light and darkness, letting her see how they ied, both in stillness and as they moved through space.

  It might have been a half-hour, maybe a full hour; Fern couldn't tell, as hyperfocused as she was. But eventually the nodes winked out one by one, and the dark mage approached her with a gss of water, which she gratefully accepted as she stood.

  "And what have you learned? Did you see the edge?"

  Feried the gss and ha back before answering. "Not distinctly, no. But I saw a lot of... interpy, I guess?" She paused briefly, a slight wrinkle in her brow. "If light is structure - form - and darkness is motion, there really be a distinct edge? It's not as if darkness is ive structure, like you could set it up in opposition. Or... could you?"

  Ravenna's eyes sparkled brightly. "Why, with questions like those, I daresay we could make a fine research mage of you, if you wanted. But that keen mind of yours will serve you just as well in any role you choose. And to give you an ao that boundless curiosity - you indeed! It takes rather more effort to bend the aether you've collected into a form other than what it most naturally mas as, so it's not traditionally doside of very specific applications. But." She lifted her fog wand, and a point of darkness gathered on its tip. No vortex this, but a tiny, pulsing void, ohat grew to the size of her fist. "You see?"

  Fern looked at the blob ily, at the deep darkness, pletely imperable-

  No. There was something inside, something moving. She peered deeper, her inner eye straining to pierce the shadows. Layer after yer of them, swirling ceaselessly around. And at the very ter...

  She blinked, and looked away, then at the edge. She saw the minute perturbations there, little fres and arcs popping out of its surfabsp; "Motion," she murmured, amazed. "A structure made of motion. Incredible. Then - if you reverse the cept, in theory you could use light in a simir way - making fluid motion out of tless structures. But the sheer effort it would require..."

  "It's hardly practical, yes," Ravenna finished, pulling her wand bad letting the blob of darkness shred itself apart in an instant of noiseless fury. "In faight never see it used; most do not. But now you have - and what you perceive, you may e to uand in eveer depth."

  Fern inhaled deeply. "... And that's the lesson, isn't it? From perception, uanding."

  The dark mage's brilliant smile of approval gave her the only answer she needed.