Of truth and light

**Then we are agreed. The world is full of dangers we must prepare for, and they're not all magical.** Keleero hoped he'd managed to steer them out of the spiral they'd been caught in. It was far more of a challenge to teach magic this way, he had to admit, if only to himself. Guiding someone who he'd just met, who'd lived a life far different from his own before coming here. Still, he had to try.

And Flint just offered up a new path for this conversation to go.

**'Just happens'? You mean, you can't reach out with your sense for magic, search things out with it?** Here was something solid he could possibly aid with. Feeling magic may not be among his own skills, but he'd plenty experience guiding those who had it. Especially in his younger days.

That said, it began to truly sink in for Keleero that Flint hadn't had his own education on magic and all its variations. The youth could shape fire and sense magic, as well as send, that much was obvious, but he wasn't flashy about such things. Who knew what other talents he might be unaware of having?

**How would you describe your magic skills? It's clear you're a fireshaper, but that you also have a sense for magic. Is there...anything else?**

Keleero took in what Flint said with a slight, concentrated frown. He shouldn't be surprised that Flint hadn't bothered trying to control his magical feeling - not with all the other things he'd surely had to focus on just to survive in his home - but it made it a challenge to formulate and motivate why and how they should train that skill. Hearing sending referred to as 'think-talk' was briefly amusing, and a good deal tragic, but it barely registered along the other concept Flint brought up heartbeats later.

**The 'delays'?** The word clearly had meanings wrapped around it, but Keleero couldn't fully take in what Flint meant. It wasn't a magic Keleero had ever heard of, not in those terms at least. Something everyone had for generations? What in the world... **I'm not sure I fully grasp what you mean by 'delays'. Could you use other words? Show me?**

Keleero received Flint's sending with some trepidation. He'd expected utter chaos, based on how Flint had been describing his world, and it was almost more unsettling to experience the parts of it that looked, for a lack of a better word, 'normal'. Though the presence of trees did little to distract from the thing Flint had been attacked by. Something out of a nightmare. A good thing Keleero was used to nightmares, so despite the horror of it he could keep his expression neutral.

But that neutrality was nearly lost when Flint made clear what kind of magic he was in possession of. Fireshaping. Magic feeling. And now...

**Where I come from,** Keleero sent after a moment of fretful contemplation, **we call that "blocking". It is an unusual skill.** A dangerous skill that could send you falling from the sky should you anger its user.

Keleero fought back the urge to lie, to trick Flint into misunderstanding this aspect of his gifts, to keep him from gaining more power over others. Because that's how Keleero thought of most magic, but blocking in particular. Lying wouldn't be wise. Surely Keleero wasn't the only elf here familiar with this form of magic. Flint would find out the truth eventually, and if he learned Keleero had lied... No, unthinkable. They needed to be allies. They all needed to be allies, at least for now. So it would have to be the truth and it would have to be Flint's choice as to what they focused their practice on.

**Blocking is a skill you can improve like any other. So now you have three: shaping fire, sensing magic and snuffing magic out. Which do you wish to focus on today? Practicing them all at ones can wear you out, so my advice is we concentrate on one at the time.** He made sure to keep his mind voice distant and emotionless as he shared, only letting a little of himself seep out into the sending. He couldn't lie in sending, had never had the knack for it, but he'd worked hard for many, many centuries to keep his emotions to himself, even when touching minds.

Part of Keleero was fascinated by how Flint thought of his different magical skills. Other parts were still busy fretting over the dangers of blocking and the challenge of teaching magic to someone with such different life experiences.

**I assure you that you have not one but three types of magic.** It seemed best to focus on the here and now, on the facts. He could let himself despair over this new potential danger later, alone. **It might feel like instinct to you, like breathing, but both blocking and sensing magic are skills unique to some elves, not all. Just like you can't learn to walk if you don't have legs, you can't learn to block someone's magic if you aren't born with that skill. And just like you won't be able to use your legs to run unless you practice running, simply having the potential to block someone's magic will not let you block all magic. You need to practice the skill or it will remain merely instinct, easily brushed aside by more powerful magic.**

Keleero fought to not bring up examples. Not of blocking. He had no pleasant or neutral examples of that, at least not that he could recall. He'd have to shift the subject.

**For example, in my old home,** he shared a brief glimpse of the well-shaped grand central hall of Steepside, with its many carvings, elves and how sunlight was allowed to flow in from the top of the very mountain itself on days with good weather, **we had a number of elves born with the skill to sense magic. One of our strongest,** he shared a brief likeness of a female elf, the image of her made vague and blurry in his efforts not to share his mother's name and all the complicated feelings he had tangled up in her memory, **could even sense what magics young elves would grow up to develop and could tell you exactly when and by what magic an object had been changed. She could search things out by 'feeling' for the magic that had touched it. But she'd only won that impressive control and skill through centuries of practice.**

Hopefully that had been clear enough of an example. Keeping his emotions hidden while sharing this deeply was becoming exhausting. **That is the sort of skill training I could offer you. Would you like to try practicing improving how well you sense magic?**

**Some deem think-talk, what most of us call 'sending', to be magic, but since it's so common place most don't.** Keleero couldn't really defend this distinction, only share what he himself had learned throughout his life. Who knew why this separation between sending and other forms of magic had happened among his people - and seemingly other peoples as well. No-Sting and Swift-Wind's tribe had apparently feared magic, but not sending. The world was full of such little mysteries lost to history.

**I can tell raising children was very different in your world that it was in mine.** Not a judgement, just a statement of fact. **Learning a child's magic ahead of them developing it allows you to prepare for when they finally gain that magic. This lessens the risk of things going poorly during their youth. Unless nature works very differently here, there will be children among us eventually.** He had to suppress a shudder at the thought of Recognition. Another reason to try and keep to himself as much as he could, while still finding allies. Rocky terrain, that. **And while there might not be dangerous magic in the same amounts as you've experienced, I didn't say there's none. Instinct is good to have, but it can't be all you have. Learning to control your magic better won't ruin your instincts, it will simply give you more ways to use your magic, to benefit you.** A beat. **And others.**

He paused, caught up with his own words and mentally went back through what Flint had said.

**...what did you mean by Ivy marking you? A honorary mark, like Mahrak's tattoo?** Not likely, with what Flint had already told of Ivy and her opinions of magic, but better to err on the side of good memories and not immediately assume bad ones.

**That is up to you. It's your magic so you choose where we focus the training.** A promise Keleero was happy to be able to keep. It felt downright revolutionary to make said promise in the first place. **Though be aware that learning to master one form of magic will also aid you in mastering other magics, just as other, non-magical skills can bleed into and aid each other. Don't dismiss your magical feeling or blocking too soon - they can come in handy in making your fire easier to understand and control too.**

Keleero leaned back to find a more comfortable position to sit in. He was about to ask how Flint wished to proceed in more detail - there were many aspects to shaping-magic one could practice - when the explanation for the face tattoo came.

**Ah. To separate who was who. I see.** Sadly, he did. Twins were a rare thing in Steepside, but not unheard of, and telling them apart took practice. Practice Ivy clearly hadn't stuck around long enough to master.

**You and your brother, you look alike?** He assumed they were twins from what Flint had just shared, but that could of course be a wrongful guess on his part. Would make sense though, seeing as Flint's parents seemed to have been in the same place only briefly, based on what information Flint had shared of them.

Keleero didn't move a muscle, but he let himself shiver on the inside as Flint chose blocking as his focus for this lesson. Be calm. It's good to have someone in the group who can keep rogue magic in check. Especially if you're still on the same world as before the beacon took you away. Stay calm!