Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

«Listen, Ako,» he said, rising from his seat. «I spent most of last night reading through the assignments and I’m not the best person to hold a philosophical discussion with right now. Can we table this for another day?»

«You shouldn’t have procrastinated until the very last day,» Akoja said. «That’s almost as bad as what those three did.»

«No it isn’t,» Zorian disagreed. He hefted his backpack in one arm and rose from his seat. «And it’s impolite to preach like that. See you around, Ako.»

«Wait!» she said. Zorian could suddenly feel a wave of nervousness emanating from her, and the fact she was wringing her hands under her desk and looking anywhere but in his direction completed the impression. «I… can we talk? Not now, but… I’d like your opinion with something.»

Crap. This had never happened before in any of the restarts. What set her off? He really hoped this wasn’t a love confession, he couldn’t afford that kind of drama right now.

«Can it wait until next week?» he asked. «I will be really busy the next few days.»

«Yes,» she immediately agreed. «That’s perfect. I need to gather my thoughts on the subject anyway. I’ll… I’ll tell you when I’m ready.»

«You wanted to see me?» Zorian asked as he peered into Ilsa’s office.

Ilsa gestured him to come inside, too busy sipping on her tea to give a verbal response. Zorian sank into the visitor’s chair and promptly handed her all assignments he had collected from the students. She took a glance at them before setting them aside and taking another sip from her cup.

For a minute or so, she just kept silently scrutinizing him. Finally, she put down her cup and sighed.

«I wanted to talk to you about your experimentation with mind magic,» she said, drumming her fingers on the table. «I’m sure you’re aware of the rather illegal nature of most mind-affecting magic, but since it’s the product of an inborn ability rather than access to restricted spells and literature, some allowances can be made. The Empath Association goes to great pains to make a distinction between empathy and mind reading, and to claim one is just a logical extension of the other is… novel. And more than a little controversial. Nonetheless, my discreet inquiries into the subject have discovered there is indeed a known link between the two abilities so your story holds water.»

«Technically, empathy and mind reading are indeed different. Empathy is a passive skill with no mental intrusion involved, while mind reading requires one to actively invade the mind of another,» explained Zorian. «It’s just that every empath is capable of mind reading with the right training.»

«Oh? Interesting,» said Ilsa. «I’m surprised more mages haven’t stumbled upon the fact, then.»

«I thought about that, actually,» Zorian said. «The aranea are born with the ability. They speak to each other telepathically as their normal mode of communication, they have telepathic scuffles as kids, they use it to hunt their prey, for just about anything. It’s natural that they would refine and build upon the ability, exploiting it to its logical extreme. Human empaths, on the other hand, are rare and isolated, so most of them have to rediscover the wheel alone, so to speak. It doesn’t help that few people are willing to let someone read their mind, so any ‘training’ is almost certainly illegal. So most people who discover their latent telepathic abilities are either going to keep mum about it or become outright criminals. There probably is a fair number of empaths who have discovered the fact, but they certainly aren’t going to admit it to anyone.»

«Excellent reasoning,» Ilsa praised. «And actually, it is the issue of training partners in particular that I wanted to talk to you about. I understand your sister has already agreed to help you with your training, but I am given to understand that having a wide variety of targets to practice on would be preferable, yes?»

«Yes,» agreed Zorian.

«Believe it or not, one of the students has issued a request for someone to help them train their mind magic expertise. Understandably, none of the teachers are eager to have a student mess around with their heads. But simply refusing it is… politically unfeasible.»

«You want me to step in and take a teacher’s place,» Zorian surmised.

«It would benefit both of you,» Ilsa said. «You both want a target to practice on, and you’re both more qualified to help one another when it comes to mind magic than any of the teachers the academy has at its disposal.»

«And if the other student protests this?» asked Zorian. «I mean, they may have wanted someone to practice on, but that doesn’t mean they’re willing to let someone else practice on them in turn.»

«Then it wasn’t a simple case of the academy refusing a request out of hand, now was it?» Ilsa said, giving him a conspiratorial grin. «But I very much doubt the student in question would make a fuss about that. What do you say?»