Skan continues to sometimes sigh and complain that he's stupid, since he's quite far behind Azabel on academics, and isn't learning fast enough to close the difference. He haaaaates mathematics but is convinced by his father to study diligently anyway, when informed that it can be important for fighting wars. 

He stills talks a lot about learning to fight enemies, possibly because this seems to be most of what gryphon children like talking about amongst themselves. 

"You aren't stupid, I think, it's just I'm very smart. I'm smarter than most everybody."

"You are very ssmart!"

Skan is somewhat reassured by this, and spends a while bragging to his gryphon friends about how his friend is the SMARTEST. 

This is very gratifying. She studies very hard to maintain her title.

Skan wins prizes in gryphon races and obstacle-courses and aerial acrobatics. He is incredibly fierce when he roughhouses with other gryphons, but with Azabel he nearly always remembers to be gentle and not run fast when she can't keep up. 

That's good because she doesn't grow out of not being able to run at all. She walks slowly, even when startled, because if she doesn't she'll go sprawling and bloody her nose.

Skan feels very badly for his friend, he would be so upset if he couldn't go fast! He will solicitously walk close to her so if she trips he can dart ahead and catch her on his soft feathers, and he's always willing to fly her somewhere if she doesn't want to walk. 

Having a gryphon friend is very convenient. Sometimes she just likes to lean on him and read, sometimes aloud, glancing over now and then to see if he's paying attention or if he's imagining fancily tactical battles in the air with imaginary enemies instead. It's almost funny how his mind keeps winding its way back to the subject, like a -

- like a gear, turning, always rotating back into the same position, like -

- huh -

Skan is right there, the breeze ruffling his feathers, his beak hanging very slightly open the way it always does when he's daydreaming, and he looks exactly like he always has...

- And yet there's more, somehow, more to be seen than there was before, it's as though her eyes are sliding in and out of focus on it, the way you can look out a window or look at the window and suddenly see the reflections of the room behind you. It's not a room, though, it's...intricate interlocking parts, wheels within wheels, gears, laid out so clearly and straightforwardly, Skan isn't at all the sort of person who's ever pretended to be anything other than what he is. Which she already knew, of course, but she can see it, now, in a way that isn't metaphorical or at least not entirely, it's right there... 

Skan is oblivious. He's imagining a battle where he does that cool diving move where you pull up at the last second right before you'd hit the ground and break every bone in your body, and the other gryphons are losing to mysterious enemies (as usual in his fantasies, they're dark and hazy and not entirely filled out, as though made of black smoke) except he's there, heroically intervening to save the day. 

Aaaaah how does she stop. She is pretty sure she is being HEINOUSLY RUDE.

It's really not clear! Closing her eyes doesn't help, then all she can see is the turning gears. Trying to unfocus on it mostly makes it swim in and out of focus even faster. 

Skan notices that she's distracted and seems upset, tears himself free of the daydream; gears spin, wheels suddenly switch direction, the whole pattern shifting direction. "Aza? Are you all right?" 

"Is there a Gift that makes you see clockwork because I think I have it only the clockwork is you and I'm scared I'm going to poke the clockwork that is you but I don't know how to stop looking I'm sorry -"

"I'm clockwork? What doess it look like?" Skan bounces a bit; now that he's so big, he's learned to do it gently so as not to knock Azabel, who's way smaller than him now, right over. 

"Well, like a lot of gears and springs and things, only they mean things - I don't know how to stop -"

"I don't know what Gift that iss! Maybe we sshould find a grownup." 

"Yeah I think so." She holds onto his feathers for balance, not accustomed to walking with double vision.

He's tempted to fly, but maybe that's a bad idea if she might poke his clockwork by accident, whatever his clockwork is, he never heard of mages seeing clockwork inside people.

He spots an adult with a group of mage-students practicing shields in the courtyard, and jumps up and down to get his attention. "Hello! We have a quesstion!" 

The man comes over, looking puzzled and a bit annoyed to be interrupted. "What is it?" 

"I think I have a new Gift and I don't know what it is and I don't know how to stop!" she says shrilly. Oh wow this guy is also clockwork.

He is clockwork which is running smoothly, with more layers and folded-away inner parts than Skan, and he seems unconcerned and kind of bored. 

"Well," he says a bit impatiently, "are you seeing or hearing things that you couldn't before? Is it just people or can you see energy all around us?" 

"Just people - people being gears and springs and things that I can see -"

He stops, blinks, looks more concerned than before. "Gears, and springs? That - are they emotions, can you tell what feeling I am having, or can you tell what people are thinking -?"

"Not exactly? Um, I don't think this is thoughts or feelings it's - the thing that makes those. I could guess if that one there started spinning really fast it would be because you were scared but it could be something else, it would depend..."

"...Huh. I have never heard of a Gift feeling like that! I think perhaps I had better take you to Urtho, he knows how to test for Gifts, and he has seen even the very rare ones. One moment." He calls out to his class, informing them that they're dismissed, and then jerks his chin at Azabel, gesturing for her to follow him, and starts walking. Fast. 

"Hey!" Skan calls after him. "Misster! You have to ssslow down! Azabel can't run."