"Excellent. Your first task is to find a way to pick up that rock that you can repeat exactly the same way every time. With sufficient daily practice, most students build the muscle memory within three to six months. I'll check in on you from time to time to evaluate your progress and consistency. Once that first hurdle is mastered, we can move on to visualization practice and the exercise of the will."

"How many hours a day do people usually invest?"

"In the academies? Eight. For people like us who do not sleep, the process can be accelerated significantly. I acquired my first Memnos in three years, rather than the usual five."

"I don't sleep, but I'm very subject to boredom. Maybe I should rig up something that records me and beeps if I deviate from the pattern? That might get me into a groove quicker."

"The method doesn't matter, only the resulting form. If it works for you, do it. Personally, I find the process meditative: it's something useful to do with my time when I would normally be asleep, and it effectively prevents me from becoming preoccupied with stress. I've practiced for so long now that I can find the flow almost instinctually. In that space, there is only myself and the form."

"I've tried meditating. It doesn't really work for me. I'll put up with it to get more magic, but seeing as I'm immortal I might want to spread it out a bit. Well, we'll see."

"You would probably learn to enjoy meditation as well, if you were incapable of sleeping."

"I honestly don't sleep most of the time. Sometimes if I'm bored with all my projects and don't have a new one lined up, or I'm sick of being that little bit jittery I get on the relevant dose of caffeine, but not more than a couple times a month unless I'm on a really boring summon with a tight binding. I feel like my life would not substantially change if sleeping became impossible instead of optional except that I'd drink less coffee. I thrive on things to do. Hell's kind of short on meaningful things to do but I can still learn stuff and read and play games and perform experiments and correspond with people and see what the summoners have for me to do. And fly! Flying is great."

"Flying is great. But because I combust in sunlight, I'm often inconveniently stuck indoors. Practicing my Memni helps me avoid frustration and relax. That and books. Books are wonderful."

"Books are lovely. It'll be nice to have access to an entire new set. I usually do summoning work in exchange for lists of books and music and so on to conjure at home but it's slow going finding anything really good that way."

"I'll be happy to direct you to some of my favorite books in the card catalog."

"Spiffy."

"Would you prefer fiction or nonfiction?"

"Nonfiction to start with, get my bearings."

"I want to say history, overview maybe, but if you've got major historical figures whose lives make a good vantage point from which to observe what-all else I'll take those too."

"Excellent, this should keep me busy for a couple hours."

"May as well load me up with a whole stack."

"Yes, Eyesocket. It has a much more respectable formal name, which came along later - I believe 'Illumine' or some such - but the frontier town was founded on the site of a successful direwolf slaughter, in a small circular valley that may have been a dried-up lakebed. Hence the original name. It's really quite an interesting story: the colony was founded in large part by scientists and innovators hoping to be free of Victorian strictures, particularly the indictment of any form of autopsy as desecrating remains... but scientific skills do not a survivalist make. The colony foundered, and 'Illumine' is not worth addressing by that title anymore. Hence the common lapse back to the name of the original frontier town."

"Is autopsy illegal hereabouts today, still?"

"Not anymore, thankfully. There has been significant progress on multiple social fronts since the Empress Hikari took power. That said, people will find you distasteful at best if you admit to cutting up corpses." There's a wry twist to her voice.