Breakthrough

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Alianora
"The Path of Daggers"
Posts: 997
Joined: May 2nd, 2016, 8:32 pm
PC: Liaran Sedai, Blue Ajah
SC: Amaranie Sedai, Indigo Ajah
TC: Kalyan Rihera, Yellow Ajah

Breakthrough

Post by Alianora » June 24th, 2019, 9:49 pm

Kalyan Rihera, Soldier
Under the shade of one of the trees in the Tower's gardens, Kalyan sat cross-legged on the ground, leaning his back against the tree trunk. He glared at the open book that he'd balanced on his lap. He really was trying to pay attention to reading the sections that had been assigned, but the dull history text was just so boring. Bending his head over the pages, Kalyan attempted once again to force himself to focus, but his eyes skimmed over the words over and over without really understanding any of what he'd just read. He blinked, sighed, then closed the book, ready to give up.

He raised his head to look at the flowers that surrounded him, a much more pleasant sight than the pages of his assignment. Why must every class be so boring? He liked reading, when he chose the books, but everything his various instructors wanted him to read seemed to threaten to put Kalyan to sleep. Brown eyes stared out at the garden, wishing life here were a little more exciting and a little less like endless work. Even his channeling classes, which he'd thought should have been fun, were boring. Rarely could he manage to empty his mind as he was told to, and even if he did, he never noticed anything different, though all of his classmates did. Sometimes, Kalyan feared that he never would get it, and he tended to handle that by ignoring the work he was supposed to be doing in favor of the more familiar and comforting sights the gardens offered.

The tree he sat under was one of many that were arranged in a ring, flowers growing at their bases. They were yellow, purple, and white on long stems, not quite in bloom yet, and like so many of the plants that grew at the Grey Tower, they were nothing like Kalyan had ever seen back home. His hands moved to lay at his sides, resting on top of the grass. He smiled and let the feeling of the blades of grass tickling his skin and the smell of the earth beneath remind him of home. It was a pleasant diversion from studying, but one that ended far too soon when the sound of an angry voice interrupted him.

"Just what do you think you're doing, Soldier?"

Kalyan blinked at the sight of a clearly unhappy Asha'man with cold blue eyes looking down on him. He fumbled at the pages of his book, having no idea what the man meant. There was no rule against him being here, or choosing to study here.

"I'm studying?" Kalyan mumbled uncertainly as he attempted to pretend he'd been doing that all along. He looked down at the book, trying to find the section he was supposed to be read, but was quickly distracted by the Asha'man speaking again.

"I can see your weaves, child. Now stop, or I'll have to shield you."

Kalyan didn't understand what the Asha'man meant. He hadn't broken any of the Grey Tower's endless rules by being here, certainly not the prohibition against channeling, which he couldn't even do when he was trying his hardest during class. He frowned, not understanding why he was being accused of something he hadn't done.

Looking up at the man, Kalyan wished he'd go bother someone else who actually was breaking the rules. The Asha'man, still looking down at him, didn't move, but Kalyan was struck by a sudden feeling of loss, of being blocked from contact with something he hadn't realized was there. Kalyan shook his head, confused by what he felt, and something in the Asha'man's expression changed.

"You really had no idea what you were doing, did you?"

The man in black lowered himself to the ground besides Kalyan, and when he spoke again, his voice was without a trace of his previous anger.

"Look here," the Asha'man said, pointing a finger towards one of the many groups of flowers Kalyan had been admiring earlier. The Soldier, still feeling vaguely disoriented, did as he was told, but didn't quite comprehend what he was seeing. A group of white flowers sprouted from the ground near where his hand still rested, but where they'd been the same height as the others before, they were now much taller, the petals open, unlike any of the others surrounding them. It was as if that one bunch of flowers had been growing through an entire season, but none of the others had.

"That is what you just did," said the Asha'man, and as Kalyan studied them, he thought of home, where the trees he tended had always done well regardless of the weather or conditions, and of the Asha'man who'd brought him here claiming he'd done something to the fruit they produced. Confused and speechless, he stared at the other man.

"Tell me, who's your channeling instructor? Has he ever told you that you have a block?" Kalyan shook his head.

"It's Dedicated Aron. He never mentioned anything like that."

Without changing his expression at all, the Asha'man explained the concept of a block, and how it would have to be broken before Kalyan could channel as he wished. The process sounded miserable, but Kalyan knew better than to complain. Instead, he listened, trying to understand, until the Asha'man stood and beckoned Kalyan to do the same.

The Soldier got to his feet, the almost forgotten book in his arms as he followed the Asha'man through the gardens. "We're going to talk to the Master of Soldiers about getting you a different instructor, someone who knows more about breaking blocks than a Dedicated would. Oh, and you're going to report yourself for channeling without permission. You might not have known you were, but it's still a rule you broke." Kalyan stifled a groan as he obediently followed the Asha'man to their destination.

His backside was still sore a few days later when he arrived in the gardens to meet his new teacher, and he couldn't help feeling nervous. He didn't know what to expect, and the smile on the face of the black-haired Asha'man awaiting him was an unexpected surprise. The man nodded as Kalyan bowed.

"You must be Soldier Kalyan; I'm Asha'man Rhys. I know you have a block, but what we're going to do is work on your channeling out here instead of in a classroom. I know that you were channeling here the other day, so I know that you can do this. Once you're more aware of what you're doing, we should be able to get a better idea of what's blocking you from the Source, and how I can help you break it."

Kalyan winced at the idea of even more time spent sitting around, thinking about a flame. How is that going to help? He still had no idea what exactly he'd done the other day, and didn't have much hope that these lessons would go any better than his earlier ones with Dedicated Aron. Sighing, he closed his eyes and followed the instructions Asha'man Rhys gave him, struggling to clear his mind of everything except a small, flickering flame.

Imagining a flame was easy, thinking of nothing but that much less so. With his eyes closed, it seemed as though the warmth of the sun were more noticeable, and the smell of the flowers around him was a distraction. He could even pick out the scent of apple blossoms in the air, reminding him of more enjoyable times spent out in the orchard back home, often accompanied by one or both of his little sisters. The memory was far more interesting to him than the flame, and the image disappeared from his mind as he thought of home. A sharp voice cut into the daydream, pulling him out of it, and Kalyan opened his eyes to find Asha'man Rhys watching him.

"You're not paying attention, Kalyan. Do you want to find saidin? If you do, you have to focus."

He had heard those words many times before now, and would continue to hear them as his lessons wore on. Every day, he met the Asha'man in this place in the gardens, and every day, he fought to empty his mind. At first, Kalyan failed at this task every single time.

"Focus on the flame, Kalyan. Not your work, not your chores, not even me. Nothing but the flame," Rhys Asha'man would tell him with what seemed like endless patience. He tried, again and again, and as time passed, it became just a little easier, if not exactly easy. A day came when he closed his eyes, feeding every thought, every daydream that threatened, into the little flame as he pictured it. He could barely sense something bright hovering just outside the blankness of his mind, and instinctively, Kalyan reached for it.

Heat rushed into him, and it felt to Kalyan as if he held the flame he'd been thinking of for so long within his own two hands. For a moment, he had the ridiculous thought that that flame might just consume him, and reminded himself how small it was. He would not allow it to grow. When he opened his eyes, the sense of light and heat inside himself was still there, but somehow felt more controlled, and Rhys Asha'man was beaming at him. The sight was odd on a man who was usually so patient with him as to appear entirely emotionless.

"That's it, Kalyan, you're holding saidin. Good work. Now let go, and try again."

Why would I want to let go? He'd never felt so alive, and he didn't want to give it up, but with a glare from the Asha'man, Kalyan immediately obeyed. Though he was disappointed when he couldn't find it again during that day's lesson, that first success made Kalyan more determined to learn, eager for the chance to repeat the experience. His ability to focus and force himself to pay attention improved, and he came to a point where he could seize saidin at least once during almost every lesson.

It was wonderful, and Kalyan was proud of himself, until one particularly rainy day that made going outside for his channeling lesson impossible. Kalyan was disappointed, and walked slower than usual to reach the classroom in the Tower where Asha'man Rhys had relocated his lesson. The small room he entered contained a variety of potted plants, all dragged there by the Asha'man to emulate the gardens outside where he normally taught Kalyan's lessons. They were pretty, but they'd never done anything for his channeling that Kalyan could tell, and he worried that today wasn't going to go any better than the other few lessons he'd had in this same room. The Soldier sighed as he sat down in his chair by the window. Resting his hand against the small flower pot on his desk, he began the first of many attempts to reach the Source.

The lesson dragged on, and while Kalyan kept trying, saidin refused to come to him. It didn't seem to matter how hard he focused, or how much effort he put into trying to seize it. The best he could manage was a quickly fading awareness of the One Power, one that was gone before he could even think of reaching for it. Even that was rare, and after yet another failure, he looked up at the Asha'man for help.

"I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. It's like.....the One Power doesn't work for me here," Kalyan complained. He didn't think that was actually possible, but that was how he felt. At some point, he'd moved his hand so that it was now in the pot, fingertips dug into the soil. He blinked and pulled it out, wiping his fingers on the pot's edge.

Rhys Asha'man only nodded. "You've been working hard today. Remember, your block is preventing you from touching the One Power whenever you wish. You might think you've made no progress, but I think I have an idea of what the nature of your block might be."

"You do?" Kalyan said eagerly, and the Asha'man smiled.

"I do. I'm giving you the next few days off from these lessons. I'll let you know when I'm ready to start again."

Kalyn would rather have gone outside to keep trying, even if it was storming, but didn't dare complain. Instead, he bowed before leaving the room.

A few days later, he was again slowly walking the halls of the Grey Tower, following the directions he'd been given to a different part of the gardens. They were quite complicated, taking Kalyan through more than a few hallways he didn't normally use, and he was relieved when he finally made it outside. He stepped into a small clearing, surrounded by trees, with Rhys Asha'man waiting for him in its center.

The location was different, but the instructions he was given were the same, and after settling himself on the grass, Kalyan began the familiar exercise of trying to picture a flame. As usual, it took him some time to divert all of his attention to an image in his mind, bui after several tries, Kalyan was able to keep his eyes on the grass and focus. He stopped thinking, and when he became aware of the One Power, seemingly waiting for him, Kalyan reached out and grabbed it. He looked up towards the Asha'man, expecting to be told to let go.

"Don't let go just yet, Kalyan," Rhys Asha'man said instead, and while surprised, Kalyan was happy to obey. He looked around him, admiring the brighter colors of the green grass and blue sky, and thought he could even hear the sound of his own breathing. It was always like this, when he held the One Power, and if it weren't for all the warnings he'd been given of the danger, Kalyan didn't think he'd ever be willing to let go.

Saidin still filled him when something happened that Kalyan couldn't describe. One minute, he was studying the cracks in the rough bark of a tree, and in the next minute, the tree was gone. Kalyan blinked, shook his head, and blinked again, noticing that he couldn't feel the blades of grass poking against his palms either. He moved quickly to lay them on his legs instead, and a glance at the area where they had been revealed.....floor tiles?

Alarmed, he looked to Rhys Asha'man for help, but the Asha'man smiled at him as if nothing at all was wrong. Not only that, but he wasn't alone. A few other Asha'man stood clustered by him, and all of their eyes were on Kalyan.

Wide-eyed, the Soldier looked around the tiny room where he now sat. Plain grey floor tiles, dull grey walls, and..was that a bunch of mops and buckets in the corner? It looked very much as if he were suddenly sitting on the floor of a storage closet. It didn't make the least bit of sense, but when Kalyan looked at Rhys Asha'man again, the other man's smile only grew wider.

"This doesn't quite look like the gardens, does it? Notice anything else different?"

Kalyan stared at him for a few moments more before realizing what had just happened. Somehow, he was sitting inside....and as instructed, Kalyan had not let go of saidin. That sense of power, and life itself, was still within him, waiting to be used.

"What.....?" said Kalyan. "How......?" Still stunned, he didn't even know what to ask. The other Asha'man turned and left the closet, leaving Kalyan and Rhys Asha'man alone.

"Nothing more than weaves of Illusion," Rhys Asha'man said cheerfully. "All I had to do was bring you here, convince you that we were outside....and let the weaves go. You shouldn't have any trouble from now on, but I do want you to let go and try to reach saidin again".

Kalyan let go, but somewhere inside himself, he already knew that the Asha'man was correct, and that the glory of saidin] would now be his.

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