Embric nodded silently at her questions, both of them, before tilting his head slightly toward Aine, as if it would help him hear her answer better. With the gyrfalcon perched on his shoulder, he couldn’t very easily see her.

After a moment of consideration, Aine began her answer, starting with the easiest question. “The weather was the same.” Dark eyes landed on the maned wolf. “We have taken to only practicing on days like these, where the sunlight will hide any accidental flares of light.” After decades of practice, the gyrfalcon had enough control over her element to limit such occurrences, but when the task was to throw everything she could at a tree and see what happened, the chance of that control slipping in a potentially disastrous way was not outside the realm of possibility. Better to remain safe than sorry, even if it reduces the amount of time they could spend experimenting.

“It felt…” Voice trailing off, Aine clacked her beak as she tried to find the words to describe the fleeting sensation that she had experienced only once. But for the exhaustion she had felt afterward and the obvious damage to the trees before them, she might have thought she imagined it. “We can manipulate light as easily as speaking,” She began again, once she had collected her thoughts. “Creating illusions, flares of light, and the like require almost no effort.” Both the gyrfalcon and the maned wolf knew this to be true; she reiterated it for the humans’ benefit.

“One of the very first techniques I taught you, Savi, was how to keep Xan’s skin from turning bright red and irritated, like Embric’s does.” Pale skin did not last long under the unforgiving Dresmond sun. Learning how to deflect the element of light that caused sunburns had been imperative to the teenage Embric’s comfort. “If you recall, it requires a little more focus and control than simply manipulating the light that we can see. I believe I compared it to redirecting a small but steady stream of water.” If altering visible light was as easy as adjusting the direction of a trickle of condensation falling down the side of cool glass on a hot Aestas day, then preventing the sunlight from hurting Embric was the equivalent of redirecting the stream of water that would result from someone lifting the cup and gently tipping it to the side. “It will bend to your will; it simply necessitates a bit more effort.”

Aine paused. “This…” She looked toward the saplings with their rust-colored leaves. “This felt like that, except even more difficult to control. Extremely so. Like trying to tell a waterfall where to flow.” She shifted on Embric’s shoulder and clacked her beak once more. “What it is, it’s there. It’s always been there. It’s a matter of separating it from the background and convincing it to go in the direction we want.” After a moment, she added dryly, “Perhaps a different analogy would be easier to understand. Consider trying to convince a large group of young children, who have all been fed too many sweet fruits, to line up, one behind the other, and run in a single direction. But each of those children moves with the speed of a waterfall - and listens about as well as one, too.”

For all that they had spent working together to unearth, master, and teach the different applications and aspects of Aine’s magic, Embric felt that his understanding still paled in comparison to hers. In some cases, he might have had the ideas that lay the foundation for exploring a particular avenue, but as the one actually wielding the element herself, his dyr knew far better the way in which her magic worked and whether his suggestions were worth testing. Where she had an intuitive sense of the limits, he understood just enough to attempt to stretch those boundaries as far as they could go, so that together, they could take full advantage of the tool at their disposal. However, when it came to explaining what exactly Aine did or how it felt, he was almost as lost as Xan.

Still, sometimes, he had his moments.

“To borrow your water analogy,” He relayed through Aine, the gyrfalcon shifting to keep her balance as he folded his arms in front of his chest and brought a hand up to thoughtfully scratch his beard. “And please, correct me if I’m wrong, either of you,” He interrupted himself a moment later to address the dyrs.

“I will,” Aine responded unnecessarily, tone dry. She knew that Embric knew that she wouldn’t hesitate; his words had been more for Savi’s sake than hers. Holding a conversation with four parties but only two speakers was a little odd, but years of silent communication with other members of Zevran’s group meant that she and Embric had plenty of practice with it.

At her response, latter directed his gaze skyward for a moment and let out a long-suffering sigh, before shaking his head slightly. “Of that, I have no doubt,” Embric said. “Regardless, to borrow your water analogy - we can feel running water even with our eyes closed, Xan, and we can judge how fast or how slow it’s moving based on touch. If redirecting different elements of light is like manipulating the flow of water, then perhaps it is something like that? A single stream of water, but the water isn’t moving at a uniform speed.” He paused, trying to think of an example. “Like a river, where it moves faster toward the middle and slower along the edges. Except instead of being able to see that, you have to stick out your hand and feel it.”

Aine tilted her head to peer at him with one eye. “Surprisingly adequate.” But her words didn’t have any bite to them. “And, for the most part, accurate. If we were to put ourselves into this river scenario, we would be standing in the middle of it. Light is all around us, constantly moving, but not in any organized manner; if left alone, it moves in every direction, and any particular part of the metaphorical river can move at any speed,” She explained to both Xan and Embric. “Savi and I can alter that. The way we redirect it focuses the flow, for lack of a better word, in a single direction, and we can find what part of the river we want to adjust based on how fast it’s moving by us.” She clacked her beak. It was not a perfect analogy, but trying to explain the intuitive knowledge and ability that she and Savi had to their humans was like trying to describe a tree to someone who had only seen a shrub.

She moved on. “Whatever we used to kill that sapling,” She observed, turning now to look at the plant. “Has not lingered.” Unlike the heat that radiated from a fire or even the man on whose shoulder she perched, the dead tree offered nothing usable. Her next words were thoughtful. “Whatever I sent toward it must have passed through and killed whatever life it encountered on its way.”

There was a pause. “The tree didn’t die immediately,” Embric felt the need to add. “At first, only that scorch mark was there, which I think Aine said was due to heat, not whatever this new—“ He gestured vaguely, unable to find a word for it. “—is?” Scratching his beard again, he took a deep breath. “At any rate, we have a few steps to achieve before this is usable without worrying about accidentally hurting ourselves or others.” If it could kill a tree, it could probably kill an animal, too - though perhaps they ought to confirm that before relying on it to fight back. Embric decided that he would perform that test alone. “I feel our first task is to figure out how to easily find the source of that destruction, then how to use it to reliably reproduce this effect. We’ll need to practice to make sure we can properly control it as well.” A smaller beam would limit collateral damage in any fight. “Then I would say we would have another weapon at our disposal.”

At her series of questions, Embric could only offer a shrug and slight shake of his head. Xan was frustrated. At least under his tutelage, her experience of learning magic had been less experimental and more within the realm of known fact. When she and Savi had had questions or had trouble understanding a concept, Embric and Aine had been able to provide solid answers – or, more realistically, guide them to figuring out the answer themselves. Any mystery was due to her lack of understanding, not to a general lack of knowledge on the matter. This was different. Here was her first glimpse of pushing across the boundary of what was known and venturing into the unknown, and Embric, with many years of having done just that, had forgotten how difficult shifting from student to scientist could be. Xan was hardly the first to struggle with weathering the transition from having all the answers readily available to having to find the answers herself.

Blue eyes shifted to Savi as Aine relayed the maned wolf’s answer to Xan’s succinct summary of the situation. “I know it’s not much to work on,” He said, as if there was anything more to work on than the knowledge that such an effect was possible. “But, I think, if you focus on the faster-moving parts of the river, it might lead to some success.” At any rate, Aine seemed to think that was a worthwhile idea, though Embric was well aware of the fact that they hadn’t been able to reproduce this effect either. They knew as little as Xan and Savi.

Nodding at the update on her own attempts for discovering a new use of their element, Embric agreed, “It is exhausting, but if you both feel as though you’re close, you probably are.” He paused. “Don’t push yourself too hard, Xan. If trying to work on both of these ideas proves too difficult, focus on your own – Aine and I will be working on ours. We can always show each other the new techniques later but only if we don’t exhaust ourselves trying to discover them.”

“You give such good advice,” Aine told him. “I wonder when you’ll start following it yourself.”

Embric ignored her in favor of sharing his own observations on Tazmin. “She is,” He confirmed, thinking it rather unfortunate that she was around at all. It would have been far more convenient if the redheaded monster had decided to inadvertently assist him with that particular problem. “She was bad before, but something has made her even worse.” Favor, perhaps, from the Eldouir? But they were fickle monsters, and any favor they might bestow upon someone was temporary and false. And it wasn’t as if they’d cared before how many Dresmondi terrorized each other. “I don’t believe she could know already if she was pregnant.” That it was even a possibility was more than enough to turn his stomach. “But, yes, avoiding her now is even more important. Savi, how good is your hearing?” Embric had the advantage of Aine acting as his eyes in the sky, but Xan and Savi had no such ability. By the time they saw Xan, she could very well have seen them. “Her dyr, the hyena, has a habit of moving in a particular way. Prancing, almost? Would you be able to listen for those footsteps?”

Something had changed in Xan. Granted, something had changed in all of them many times over since he had last spent so much time in her company, but with the way he felt almost more familiar with his memories of her than he did the actual young woman standing before him, Embric noticed the differences in her most of all. He didn’t know what had truly sparked the change - their collective experiences of the past few years, Hiram, Tazmin - but he had seen it in the tavern with Ermir and he saw it again now, as she expressed her frustration with their limited knowledge.

Or, at least, he thought it was that.

Always eager to master new techniques, Xan - and by extension, Savi - might have had an impatience that led them to occasionally push themselves too hard in the past, but as he watched her, a teacher once more, Embric thought that this urgency felt different. There was a note of desperation, or perhaps something darker, that had never been there before. It was unusual. But everything about this was unusual, no matter how much he pretended that they were both trying to learn just another skill. Never before had they needed to kill.

Embric nodded carefully as she decided to only focus on her task. “Okay,” He agreed. “If you need any help, you know where to find me.” So did Tazmin. So did Adeline. His jaw clenched at the thought. Trapped. With nowhere to run and only so many places to hide, they were all so trapped. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand Xanthe’s restless frustration. He understood it all too well. Embric, however, tried not to linger on it, lest the urge to act, if only to remind himself that he wasn’t as powerless as he felt, drive him to do something foolish. Like challenge the Eldouir at Tribute. Or walk into their home to ostensibly visit his dog.

“Good.” It was in response to both parts of Savi’s message. “Keep an eye out for redheads, too,” He added a moment later, perhaps somewhat unnecessarily. “They’ve started spending more time in Elderkeep, which means this—“ A gesture toward the tree “—just became significantly more dangerous.” If they were caught practicing lethal techniques with their element, he had no doubt that uncomfortable questions would be asked. He could only hope that Xan’s ignorance of his nearly-silenced dreams would protect her as much as it would protect him. “Have a story ready in case you’re found, and make sure you can get them to believe it. As much as you can, hide what you’re doing; we don’t want them noticing or paying any attention to us.” Before we’re ready.

Though Xan only knew about herself, it went without saying that they had both garnered far too much attention already.

After Embric nodded at Xan’s reassurance, a contemplative silence fell. They could talk all they want, but in the end, they could not progress any further until they each worked their way through the long hours of hard, dangerous work that awaited both of them. And then they would need to teach each other how to use their respective techniques. And then they would need to practice until they were comfortable. And then, perhaps, he could suggest acting against Tazmin. Dangerous, but not Eldouir dangerous, the brute of a woman made a natural practice round for what would hopefully become the real deal of bringing down the redheads, one monster at a time.

Assuming they all survived that long, at any rate. Nothing, not even life, was a given in Elderkeep.

Savi’s voice in his head interrupted Embric’s thoughts, and his gaze, which had drifted to stare blankly at the base of the dead tree, returned to Xan. A matching smile, faint and slightly sad, ghosted across his own lips. That both of the girls - the young women, really, for neither had been children in many years - under his care had needed to learn how to fight yanked at his heartstrings in a way that might have had a knot forming in his throat had such poignant regret not become a near-constant companion during the quietest moments of the night. Back in Ermir’s tavern, Xanthe had called them all Kushti and berated them for not acting as such. She couldn’t know that Embric hadn’t felt like Kushti in years. Peace, compassion, warmth - Elderkeep had stolen it all, so he had raised his daughter to be a fighter instead of a farmer.

“She’s very good,” He agreed, some mixture of pride and grief bubbling up in his chest. “She’s been kicking my ass for years now.” Gone was the child who had lost almost every wrestling match against her older, bigger brother. In her place stood a teenager who fought with the unrefined ferocity of one whose only weapons were her fists. Embric raised an eyebrow at Xan as she challenged him, in not so many words, to their own spar. “You won’t hurt me?” He echoed, a note of disbelief in his voice. “That sounds like something someone who’s planning on thoroughly beating me up would say.” But he obligingly moved closer all the same, raising his own hands as Aine, wanting no part of a physical altercation, lifted off from his shoulder.

Embric frowned slightly. “But I am bigger than you,” He protested, eyeing Xan now for height. Naturally, he had noticed that he no longer had to look down to look her in the eye, but surely he still had a little height on her.

Aine chittered, turning from her perch near Savi to peer at the two humans. “In your dreams, Embric.”

Brow furrowed slightly, he turned to give Aine a look, and it was at that moment that Xan moved in to attack - not that a lack of distraction would have made much of a difference. The sudden yank on his shirt had him stumbling forward, hands automatically grabbing at Xan in an attempt to balance himself. He needn’t have bothered. Her leg hooked behind his, and suddenly he was falling backwards. Colliding with the ground knocked the air from his lungs, giving Xan the chance to grab his arm. With much of her attention and weight on his right arm, he turned to the right and, if necessary, tried to wiggle the rest of his body out from under her. Success meant that he would immediately try to climb on top of her, bending his trapped arm so that it, alongside his left, could grapple Xan in turn.