It's searing in a way that is familiar and different. But the reaction is the same, her body drips with the sweat of pain, beading on her brow through the effort of clenching her teeth, in taking long but shallow breathes in a way that is familiar. Because there is a lot for him to learn, if he did, and the further he goes, the less it makes sense. Cybernetics put in at age twelve that weave metal wires like copper nerves between bone and sinew. The growth of bones remade, all magic that is dense as a stone and makes her heavy as earth. The sickly way her body is wasted and whole, wounded and perfectly healthy. Where magic, science and the things beyond the black of the stars have all lived inside such a little frame. Where she has died and come alive and been powerful and weak, over and over again to the point that she has given up even asking what she is, anymore.
What is most telling, perhaps, is not the sound or her scrunched face of concentration. But that she has gouged the ground below her in long claw mark that ribbon off the floor like a carving tool.
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It's searing in a way that is familiar and different. But the reaction is the same, her body drips with the sweat of pain, beading on her brow through the effort of clenching her teeth, in taking long but shallow breathes in a way that is familiar. Because there is a lot for him to learn, if he did, and the further he goes, the less it makes sense. Cybernetics put in at age twelve that weave metal wires like copper nerves between bone and sinew. The growth of bones remade, all magic that is dense as a stone and makes her heavy as earth. The sickly way her body is wasted and whole, wounded and perfectly healthy. Where magic, science and the things beyond the black of the stars have all lived inside such a little frame. Where she has died and come alive and been powerful and weak, over and over again to the point that she has given up even asking what she is, anymore.
What is most telling, perhaps, is not the sound or her scrunched face of concentration. But that she has gouged the ground below her in long claw mark that ribbon off the floor like a carving tool.
"Keep going."