:Come cuddle with me?: Yfandes suggests, sending a waft of affection. She's been waiting at the edge of the courtyard, curled up on the mossy ground. 

He shouldn't need a break right now but he visibly does anyway. "Yeah, okay. Just for a minute or two." He goes to sit with Yfandes, and she's warm and soft and real and right here, and he can keep his senses focused on her and off his memories. She's good and soft and kind and he loves her.

Once his heartbeat has slowed down and his head's a little clearer, he says, "I can try again with you watching my mind, now." 

:Good. I am ready: Moondance is there in his head again, but not doing anything this time, just quietly observing.

"Okay, here goes." He centers, tries to ground, and again the feel of his magic responding to his will is too much like the times he screwed up with it and he jerks away.

:I do see. I think: Moondance's mindvoice is very soft. :You fear something? ...You fear your own strength, perhaps. I sympathize: Something dark flickers briefly in the overtones and vanishes. :Perhaps I show you, once or twice, that your mind sees it is safe?: 

Abras goes still. Someone doing something in his mind, especially doing something with his magic, is a different story from just looking or communicating things. But it's not that different, right, and if he wanted to do it without help he should have been better at it. And realistically there's no way Moondance is planning to harm him, so he's just being a coward about it. So he nods again, says "Good idea," and waits.

Moondance whistles again and the green-gold ribbon is back. Briefly. It catches onto his will, not grabbing so much as coaxing, and he finds his magic reaching down, coming firmly into contact with the humming flow of life under the ground.

It feels...stable. Solid. Good. 

Moondance backs off. :That is all: 

Okay. That. Was fine. It was fine, he's fine, nothing's on fire or exploding. This time he can focus on the memory of what it's supposed to feel like and make it happen again.

:Good. Very good!: Moondance gives him a sunny smile. :You are less likely to do accidental magic, not more, when grounded. Must needs practice it often:

(He's speaking, well, Mindspeaking Valdemaran a little more fluently – like someone who was more familiar with it a decade ago, but whose vocabulary was initially rusty.) 

"Okay. I'll make sure to practice a lot. Should I just keep doing that now, or do you want to go over something else next?"

:We may move on, I think. Next is to weave a shield. This is harder to explain in words – you prefer I try, or go in your mind to show it?: 

"I would prefer to try words first, if that's alright."

Nod. Moondance looks up at the sky, thoughtful. 

:A basic personal shield stands between you – your mind, your Gifts – and the world: he starts. :You had shields on you before, by others' help, no? It ought feel the same, but of your own substance and under your control. Some picture it as a garment they weave over their body; others picture armour, or an eggshell, or even the shelter of an ekele. Start centred and grounded – then reach into your centre, and pull just a little of your power, like drawing out a thread... Then weave the first layer of a barrier. Tell me when you think you have it?: 

Abras thinks of . . . no, not his room with the door to the garden, no no what's got fewer memories . . . the secret room in his father's house, with the door blocked off so the only access was through the window. A place where he could hide from the world. Now he can use it to protect the world from himself. He pulls at his magic, slowly, gingerly, like he still half-expects it to explode out from under him. The result is whisper-thin and haphazard from repeatedly almost dropping it.

Moondance prods at it. Very gently, so as not to break the fragile beginnings of a shield. :Do you feel that?: Pause. :A good start. You will need many more layers: 

"Are all the layers the same? What properties can a shield have other than how many layers are in it?" He starts trying to add a second layer on top of the first.

Moondance chuckles. :There are many kinds of shield, but must not get ahead of ourselves. For a personal shield, you need not impose any particular will on the magic you draw: He hesitates for a while. :If you prefer I not come into your mind – you might instead come into mine, and watch as I drop and rebuild my personal shielding? All you need do is: he frowns, clearly trying to find the right description, :you feel where my mindvoice comes? That is a link between us. Simply follow it and lean in closer: 

"Only if you're okay with that? I can just practice on my own a bunch if you'd rather not, it's fine."

:It does not bother me at all. We do this often, here: Moondance...does something...and the sense of where his mental voice is coming from seems to deepen, his not-quite-physical presence growing brighter and nearer. :Watch, I am unshielded now: In addition to the words, there are wisps of not-quite-verbal thoughts and feelings that seem to float near or around him. No sign of self-consciousness. 

"Okay." It must be nice, Abras thinks, to have nothing to fear and nothing to hide. He follows the mindvoice towards its source, slowly so Moondance will have time to shield again if something goes wrong.

Moondance, at least, does not seem to think anything is going wrong. 

:Watch as I shield: he sends. :I keep my shield meshed with yours, so we stay in rapport: And his mind does a motion that's impossible to describe in words – metaphorically, it's sort of like drawing out some heart of molten copper into wire, but at the same time it's more like a plant of some kind growing up from a deep still pond – and his magic encircles him, one layer, then another, slowly shaping a barrier that hugs him like a second skin. The barrier delicately meets the edges of Abras' own much clumsier attempt, leaving the link between them so that Abras can see from the inside what's happening. As the shield weaves denser and tighter, Abras has the sense that Moondance's perception of the world is dimming, his magical senses of it blocked. 

:There: Moondance sends finally. :Clearer than words, I hope. You try again, now?: 

"Yeah. Wow, I don't see how anybody could explain that out loud. Is there a way to do it that doesn't mess with your senses, or are all shields hard to 'see through' like that?"

Moondance laughs, and does something to ‘thin’ his own shield so it’s mostly ‘transparent’. :How much it does so is your choice. You will learn to shift it on instinct, but, that control does need practice:

And he pulls back. “Try your own now?” he prompts out loud.

He focuses, pulls on his magic. It's a bit like a child's blobby first attempt to spin yarn, or like trying to extract one noodle from a bowl of noodles, but he can wrap what he gets around himself. It's "tighter" in some "places" and "looser" in others, where his grip on the magic slips for a moment, but it's more substantial than the last attempt.

:Not bad at all: Moondance pokes at a thin spot. :Reinforce here? And here?: He leans back, genuine pride in his eyes. :This is quite good for a first attempt! You will need practice constantly at first, but it will become second nature soon enough: