"Okay everyone, it's time for meditation."
Along with everyone else in the room, I closed my eyes and started the meditation exercises. I breathed deeply and pictured a focus. They told us when we started that each person had a different focus image and that we would have to find ours on our own. It had taken me two and a half years to find mine, a glowing spider web against a starry black background, but once I did it worked perfectly each and every time and I was able to slip into the light meditative trance that the monks claimed was necessary to do most spiritual magics.
At the moment, I was sitting in one of the magic workrooms of the orphanage I had been at for the past three years. The room was filled with the children there who had magical potential, but hadn't shown their abilities yet. I was the oldest one in the room by far, except for the monk who was leading us in meditation of course. The others were all little, since all of those who had been with me when I started in the training had already manifested powers of some sort and moved on to more specific training.
I wasn't quite sure if I even believed the monks when they said that I had magical potential. I certainly had never done anything weird as far as I could remember. I could fall into a meditative trance, but anyone who was trained correctly could do that. I wasn't sensitive to spiritual energies like the rest of the children in the class. I'd never shown any kind of power. Still, the monks said that I had "great spiritual power" and that my best path in life would be that of a mage, or religion.
Fat chance I would ever choose religion. I stayed with the monks in the orphanage because they were nice to me and provided me with a home, not because I believed in their god. Sure, because I chose to stay at the orphanage I had to at least keep my ears open to their prattle, but it wasn't worth going out to live on the streets of the city. I'd had enough of that three years earlier.
That was what was going through my mind as I relaxed, self-entranced. I was supposed to be searching myself for my possible gifts, since the monks claimed that self-discovery was the best way to find out what kind of spiritual power one had. I'd been doing that almost every single day for the past half a year though, ever since I found my focus, and I was getting tired of it. So instead I spent the time dwelling on my situation, and what else I might possibly do with my life. After all, I had better things to do than study magic or religion.
My mind danced around thoughts of my possible futures, all laid out on the glowing web of my focus image, when the old monk's voice cut through my peaceful trance state and brought me back to reality. "Miss Katherine," he said sharply.
He didn't speak again until after I had opened my eyes and turned to look up at him questioningly. He towered over me despite his short, wizened frame, because I was sitting cross-legged on the floor and he was standing over me, frowning disapprovingly. "You are to be searching for your spiritual potential, not dwelling on the future, young lady. I will not tolerate laziness, mental or physical, from my charges. Do you understand?"
I nodded, and his mouth flattened out into a grim line as he pressed his lips together harder. "I asked you a question, young lady. I desire a proper answer."
"Yes sir," I said. I tried my hardest to keep any kind of disrespectful tone out of my voice. I knew he would still know it was there, but it looked bad if I couldn't control my tone enough to keep it hidden.
"Very well then," he replied. "Carry on."
He then left my side to go work with one of the youngest kids in the class, a little boy who was barely even three years old and had just arrived at the orphanage recently. He had been snatched up by the more mystical and spiritual monks right away, since he apparently had more potential than the rest of the children in the class put together, except me.
The monks claimed that he was on par with me in potential, though he had already started to manifest his powers. He was in the beginner class because he had no control whatsoever. He couldn't even focus, and because of that he was a danger to himself and those around him. So the monks put him in a class where he could learn the basics and stop being dangerous.
At the moment he was having a hard time holding on to the rudimentary focus he had so far discovered. It wasn't quite his true focus, or at least that's what the monks teaching the class said. Still, it was better than nothing.
I was again left to my meditation. I'd already been caught goofing off, so this time I focused on the exact same thing I had been trying to do since I discovered my focus. I didn't expect anything new to happy, but I would just get myself in trouble if I tried to think about something a little more worthwhile.
Again, I slipped into the starry abyss that was my focus. The only thing there was my focus image, which was the way it was supposed to be, according to the monks. Supposedly I would be able to discover what kind of powers I had through studying my focus. They were supposed to be tied together somehow.
I wasn't quite sure how a spider web was going to be tied into whatever power I had though. The only things that had come to mind so far when speculating on that had been that maybe I would end up able to turn myself into a spider or something like that. It was a silly thought, but it was about the only thing that really made sense whenever I thought about it more than a little. I'd never mentioned it to the monks though, since they would know right away that I wasn't really serious about it. Anyway, I didn't particularly want to be able to turn into a spider. I didn't even really like spiders.
So there I was, sitting on the floor of the workroom in a meditative trance, staring at my spider web focus. For a moment I just wanted to stand up and scream. It felt like someone was watching me sit there and try to figure out my mind. It felt like everyone else in the world knew what my spiritual power was because it was bloody obvious, but that I was just too damned dense to figure it out. And because of that, the person watching me was laughing his ass off as I tried to figure out the obvious.
Everyone else had had no trouble figuring out their powers. No one had taken more than a week to move on to the next class once they had found their focus, except for me. I had taken two and a half years to find my bloody focus, and even then I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing. And it was frustrating.
I kept my sudden burst of frustration to myself though, since screaming in the middle of the class session would upset the children. And as I pushed away the impulse to scream, I saw something in my focus begin to change.
It wasn't the change to my focus that startled me. I was used to my focus never quite being the same when I slipped into trance. It was the fact that my focus was changing in front of my eyes that attracted my attention. It had never done that before, so I paid special attention to the part of my focus that was changing.
The center of the web was starting to get bigger. It was slowly, but surely, expanding to take up more and more of my field of vision. I could still see the more of the web, but before long the center of the web took up more than half of what I could see, and it was still expanding.
The most interesting part of the whole change was that I could see more detail in the center of the web as it expanded. It began to take on definite shapes and colors within the circular region that it took up. There were white shapes at the top and bottom, with green and brown shapes scattered on a blue background for the rest. It almost looked real enough to touch, though I knew that if I stuck out my hand I would probably just disrupt my trance enough to make the vision disappear. Before long, I noticed for the first time that the center of the web had a smaller dot near it that somehow was not connected to the rest of the web, but still managed to stay in place.
Eventually it ended up taking up all of my field of vision. It still kept expanding, which I could tell because the shapes kept getting bigger. Before long, I noticed that the green and brown shape in the center almost looked like the shape of the lands I lived in according to the maps. This puzzled me, and once I realized it my vision started to zoom in on a specific part, Aligon, the city the orphanage was in, if my realization was true.
Just before I was close enough that I could start to see the individual buildings in the city, I felt a hand land on my shoulder, startling me out of my trance. The vision disappeared, and I opened my eyes to find the old monk leading the class leaning over me, a worried, but ecstatic look on his face.
"You found it, Katherine!" he exclaimed joyfully. "Congratulations!"
"Huh?" I asked him. "Did I do something?"
"You were starting to fade away, as if you were becoming insubstantial," he said. "Which means you must have found your power. Remember what you did, since that has to be the trigger for your power."
"But I didn't do anything," I protested. He laughed gently.
"It must have been a state of mind then. Whatever it is, we'll find it now that we know what you can do. Next time you'll be in the next class up."
I didn't talk back to him. I would do anything to be able to get out of that boring class. It didn't matter that I had no idea what had just happened, or how I had done it. I hadn't even been aware that I had been doing something special. I was just a little angry with the monk for interrupting what I'd been seeing though, since I wanted to see if the city really was the same Aligon.
The monk let me leave the class then, even though the others still had at least an hour of meditating left before they would be allowed to go. I decided to take the opportunity to get away from the orphanage. I wouldn't be getting much peace once the word spread to the other monks that I had finally shown some sort of power. If I wanted to be left alone for a while, I would have to get away before they could find out.
I wandered around the poor sectors of Aligon for a while, just thinking. I was toying with the idea of finding some nice, quite place to sit down for a while and meditate. Technically we weren't supposed to be using the monk's techniques without permission until we were better trained, but it wasn't like I would be able to hurt anyone just by trying to satisfy my curiosity about that vision I'd had. Even then, there was no guarantee that I would even be able to see the vision again.
I accidentally wandered into one of the wealthier parts of the city while I was busy contemplating my next move. I didn't even notice it until I felt an angry glare directed at me, followed by several more in quick succession. My clothing clearly marked me as not having money, though I was slightly better dressed than a street rat. The rich people didn't want my kind in their part of town. We were dirty, and having us around made them look bad.
I hurried back into part of the city where I was welcome. I knew from personal experience what kind of things they could do when they felt the poor were getting out of place, and I never wanted to find out again. And besides, in my experience, the poor were much better company than the rich, even when I wanted nothing more than to be completely and utterly alone.
"Oi, Katherine!" a voice called from behind me. I recognized Jeraiah's voice right away, not to mention his cocky tone and the fact that he was using the name the monks gave me, even though he knew I hated it. In return, I decided to ignore him. Paying attention to him would just make him think he was right, and I couldn't let that happen. Besides, I did it to him all the time.
I started to walk away, completely ignoring the fact that Jer was calling to me from behind. He'd switched from Katherine to "Katey," which only made me start to walk faster. If there was anything I hated more than having him call me Katherine, it was when he shortened it.
"You're just gonna ignore me, ain't you?" he asked, his voice dejected. I knew it was just an act, but I could almost picture the despondent little pout he no doubt had on his face at the time. I smirked.
Then, before I could get any farther along, he made an annoyed grunting noise. I knew I'd gone too far, and that he was pissed. I started running, but before I could get away, I felt him grab me from behind in a flying tackle.
"You're awful, Nonay," he said as he let me up so I could turn to face him. "I was just trying to do what the monks want, and you ignored me. If I did exactly what you want I'd end up going to hell; you know that."
"Shut up," I said. "My name isn't Katherine, so don't call me that. You know I hate it." I shoved him off of me and stood up, glaring at him. He pouted, and I stalked away angrily. I heard him hurry to run after me and made a quick faux prayer that he would trip and fall flat on his face.
"But you never know, that might be your name," he said. "It's not like you remember."
"Shut up!" I repeated. "I know that wasn't my name." I continued to walk away, and he sighed. It was his usual white flag of defeat.
"Fine," he said. "You win again. Now, what were you doing in the rich quarter anyway?" He moved up to walk beside me.
"Being a bloody idiot," I commented. Of course, that sparked his curiosity, since he knew very well that I wasn't an idiot. He started firing off question after question, and I couldn't get him to shut up until he'd heard the whole tale about class and then what happened afterward.
"So you wanna do some more meditatin', 'sat it?" he asked.
"Yeah, but I can do that in my room," I said. He shook his head.
"Nah, the monks are already searchin' the city for you," he replied. "They roped me into it, which was why I was lookin' for you. Betral's all fired up. If you go back to your room, you'll be caught in no time."
"Why didn't you mention that earlier, idiot?" I asked. He grinned.
"You were a little busy yellin' at me," he said. "But, I know of a place where you can 'ide from the monks for a while. Wanna try it?"
"Where?" I asked. "They already know all of your usual hideouts. Didn't they find the last one just a couple days ago?"
"Found a new one less than a week ago," he said. "They'll never find it, 'cause I 'aven't told anyone about it yet."
"As I just said, where?" I asked, frowning at him. He looked like he was trying to avoid the subject of exactly where this new hiding place was. "Jer, I absolutely refuse to go there if you won't tell me where it is."
"It's a bit of the way into the rich quarter," he said quickly. I froze in place and turned to stare at him incredulously.
"Absolutely not!" I exclaimed. "No way in bloody hell I'm going back in there! I almost got myself beaten by the fat bastards once today. That's one too many times for me."
I started to storm back toward the orphanage. Anything was better than going back in the rich quarter again, even getting stuck with the monks for the rest of the day. Jer hurried after me, grabbing my arm. I turned to glare at him, since he should have known very well that I wouldn't want to go back there.
"Listen Nonay," he said quickly. "I can get us in there easily without bein' seen. I swear I won't get you beaten or anythin' like that. 'Onest!"
"No," I said. "So let go, dammit!"
I pulled my arm out of his grasp and started to stalk off again. He cried out a little in protest, but I ignored him. I barely got five feet away from him, though, before I heard a far too familiar voice calling, "Katherine!" from ahead of me. I saw Father Betral, the monk who was mostly in charge of my training, round the corner. He had two other younger monks with him, and they were all obviously looking for me.
I had thought that I would rather go with the monks than hide in the rich quarter, but when I saw Father Betral I realized that that wasn't true. I did not want to get stuck with him all day long, no matter how much I liked him when he wasn't trying to bring out my powers. I would much rather go with Jer, even if it meant going through part of the rich quarter and risking a beating from the rich bastards.
So, I turned back to Jer, calling, "Okay, fine show me where the damned hiding spot is before Father Betral sees me," as I started back toward the rich quarter. He went ahead of me, leading me toward a side street where we hopefully wouldn't be seen. I heard one of the monks with Father Betral shout as he spotted me just as we ducked behind a rich man's house, and I sighed in relief, knowing that they would never be able to catch up with the two of us weaving through the back streets of the rich quarter.