Gilded Ashes-Chapter 323: First Words

Saffi stepped forward, to the spot where Raizen had been standing - the edge of the platform, the open air beyond, the green depths of the canopy stretching downward into mist - and took his place.

Kenzo looked at her. Then at Raizen. Then back at Saffi. The silent question - are we doing this now? - answered itself when Saffi raised her hand.

Palm open. Fingers spread. The same posture Raizen had started with.

She reached.

Raizen watched from a few steps back, the lizard’s warm weight in his chest pocket, and waited for the visions. The flood. The terror. The snap of something ancient and vast opening behind her eyes. Something

Nothing happened.

Saffi stood completely still. Hand extended. Breathing in short bursts. Her face was focused - the precise, analytical focus that she brought to everything. Brow slightly furrowed. Jaw relaxed, eyes half-closed.

She held the position for thirty seconds. A minute.

Silence.

She adjusted. Raizen could see it - the shift in her posture, the subtle realignment. She wasn’t just standing there and hoping. She was systematically working through approaches the way she worked through problems - testing variables, eliminating options, narrowing the search. Her fingers flexed, shoulder rotating slightly. Her breathing pattern changed - deeper, slower, more deliberate.

Nothing.

Two minutes. Three. The morning light shifted as the sun climbed higher. The drizzle thinned to almost nothing. On the platforms behind them, the distant sounds of training continued - shouts, impacts, the bright flash of Eon constructs being built and broken.

Saffi’s hand didn’t waver. Not once. Her arm stayed perfectly still, perfectly extended, as if it were bolted to the air in front of her. The focus on her face didn’t break. She was reaching - Raizen could see it, could recognize the effort now that he’d been through it himself. She was pushing against something, trying to find the rubber band, trying to find the resistance.

She couldn’t find it.

There was nothing to push against. Nothing pushing back. The elastic, humming barrier that had held Raizen for minutes - she wasn’t hitting it. Wasn’t even getting close. Her Eon wasn’t forming. Actually, it wasn’t even trying to form. The air in front of her palm stayed exactly what it was. Air.

After five completely uneventful minutes, Kenzo walked to her side, close enough to speak quietly.

"Don’t force it" he said. "You’re thinking too hard."

"I’m not thinking at all" Saffi grimaced.

"You are. I can see it. Your whole body’s rigid." Kenzo flicked her shoulder with a finger. "You’re treating this like a problem to solve."

Saffi’s jaw tightened as she adjusted again. Tried to soften - Raizen could see the effort, the intentional loosening of muscles that wanted to stay clenched.

Still nothing.

Atman stepped in. He’d been watching from his spot near the trunk, and now he approached from the other side - flanking Saffi, creating a triangle of instruction that she hadn’t asked for.

"Try not reaching outward" he said. His voice was quieter than Kenzo’s. More careful. "Reach down. Into your chest."

Saffi’s eyes opened. Closed again. She shifted her focus - Raizen could see it in the way her posture changed. The tension moved from her arm to her core. She was looking inward now. Searching.

Searching.

Seven minutes. Eight.

The arm dropped an inch. Caught itself. Rose back up.

"What does it feel like?" Saffi asked. Not to anyone in particular. "When you find it."

Kenzo and Atman exchanged a glance.

"Depends" Kenzo said.

"Heavy" Atman said at the same time.

They looked at each other.

"Both" Kenzo amended.

Saffi reached again. Deeper this time - Raizen could tell by the way her eyelids pressed tighter, the slight forward lean of her torso. She was going further than before. Digging.

A bead of sweat formed at her temple. Ran down the side of her face. She didn’t wipe it. Her hand stayed up. Her focus stayed locked. She was running out of approaches but not out of stubbornness, and the gap between those two things was starting to show on her face - the faint tightening around her eyes, the tension in her jaw that said "this should be working, it isn’t and I don’t know why."

Kenzo tried a different angle. "Think about the moment before a decision. Not the decision itself - the small space before it. The instant where something inside you has already chosen but your brain hasn’t caught up."

Saffi tried that.

Nothing.

Atman offered his own version. "Close your eyes. Stop reaching. Just listen. It’s there, it’ll find you."

Saffi closed her eyes. Stopped reaching. Stood perfectly still with her hand extended and her body relaxed and her mind - as much as she could manage - open.

Ten minutes. Eleven.

The Eon never came.

No resistance. No rubber band. No warmth, no heaviness. No Eon threads, no snap, no membrane giving way to something vast behind it. Just a girl standing at the edge of a platform with her hand out, and air that stayed still, and the growing, undeniable weight of a thing not working.

Saffi lowered her hand.

Slowly. The descent was controlled - not defeat, not frustration. Just the measured withdrawal of effort from a task that wasn’t yielding results. Her face was composed. If she was disappointed, she wasn’t showing it. She stood with her hand at her side and looked at the forest ahead, and the only sign that anything was wrong was the slight pause before she turned around - a moment too long, a half-second where she stayed facing the trees because turning around meant facing three people who watched her fail.

"It’s fine" Raizen said before anyone could speak. "Not everyone gets it on the first try."

Kenzo nodded. "That’s exactly right. Most people need days. Weeks. This was just -"

The lizard shifted in Raizen’s pocket. A small movement - Raizen felt the tiny body uncurl. Felt the small legs extend. Felt the head rise above the pocket’s edge.

The lizard looked at Saffi.

Its pupils were wide and round. The pale gold, thin irises caught the light as its head turned - a slow swivel, tracking from Saffi’s face to her hand to her hand to Kenzo to Atman and back to Saffi. It held its gaze on her for one second. Two. Three.

Then it turned again, and looked dead in Raizen’s eyes.

Then it spoke.

Not chirped. Not shrieked. Not made a sound that could be loosely interpreted as communication. It opened its wide mouth, and a voice came out - small, clear, textured with an irritation so specific it could only belong to something that had opinions and was deeply committed to sharing them.

"What are those grubblewits doing? Can’t they see she’s not made for Eon?"