"Yeah, or if I did something totally different by accident!"

"I dunno what elsse you could do by accident but it'ss probably bad!" Skan runs out of patience for sitting still, and flap-runs around a bit. "Okay want me to fly you home now?" It's nearly sunset. 

"Yes please!"

Zoooooom!!! Flyyyyyyyy!!!! Skan loves flying so much, and loves showing off, and especially both at once! He also knows exactly how much he can get away with things like sudden steep dives or doing flips without scaring Aza. He gets her home pretty fast, but finds time to have lots of fun along the way. 

She whoops very appreciatively when he does tricks! And hugs him around the neck when she's dismounted, and goes in to tell her mama.

She shows up right on time for her lesson the next day.

Her teacher introduces himself as Lionwind k'Leshya. "So. You have a new Mindhealing Gift, yes? Tell me what you have learned so far." 

She has notes! About the Mindhealing book, about clockwork, and about people's gears (hers, Skan's, and her mama's, mostly, so she hasn't drawn firm conclusions about what differences if any are species-based). "What's your metaphor?" she asks as she skims these for reportable insight.

He is very impressed with her diligence and intelligence, and tells her so! 

"My metaphor is rivers. Occasionally some people are ponds or lakes instead." 

"Who's a pond or a lake instead?"

"I cannot tell you specifically who for reasons of patient confidentiality, unless I asked their permission for you to sit in with us as a student assistant - which you are not ready for, yet, that will come. In general, it tends to be people with calm, stable temperaments; people who are reliable and trustworthy while - perhaps not being the brightest or most ambitious. There is a range, rivers can be both fast and slow, and slow rivers begin to resemble lakes."

"Yeah sorry I didn't mean who specifically, just what makes somebody pondy. I was trying to figure out what about Skan is from being a gryphon and what's just him but I haven't looked at any other gryphons - and I saw a hertasi before I knew how to stop but I was trying not to look so I don't remember much and haven't looked at other ones -"

"Oh, clever girl! Yes, there are species differences, though - in general it is a matter of the average difference, there is always a range. Gryphons tend to be faster rivers with more rocks to my Sight, for example, but there are gryphons who are are more lake-like than some humans. And of course we will need to figure out how that corresponds to your Sight-metaphor. Often we Mindhealers learn very early on to - focus on, or emphasize, different aspects of the mind." 

"Yes, the book said about that! I can do it, the gears are all still there but they go through each other in funny directions and I can change which ones are more in front to me."

"Oh, very good! For our first lesson, then, I think we ought start with a Sight-refining exercise. You can do it on yourself, if that is easiest; you have my permission to look at my mind as well if you prefer that." 

"I can try both, maybe? What do I do?"

"I would like you to select a particular area to focus on, that contains one to several gears at the scale where you are viewing the mind as a whole. I want you to tell me what you think it represents, and then we will try to go in closer on it and see more detail."

She peers at her own gears, and picks out one of the problem sections that has to do with her balance problem, and she reports this. "I want to fix it but didn't think I had better try anything without asking you," she says.

"Oh, hmm." He looks thoughtful. "I think that sort of thing involves problems that need fixing at a very fine scale, and I have not personally had much luck with it, but it is often easier to do fine-scale work on ourselves and it is possible your metaphor is more conducive to it than mine. What do you see if you go in closer, so you are looking only at that part and not the rest of your mind?" 

"The teeth don't fit right. Sometimes there's a jam and a lot of force has to build up before it'll tick over. And other times they slide out of alignment till a counterweight sort of thing shoves them back together, I tried spinning around a little bit on my bed till I fell over last night at home so I could see what went wrong and that's what happened. I think if I could just make all the pieces be different shapes I would know how to make them fit, but I don't know if I can do it that way or not."

"Very good! Excellent control on the level of detail. We will need to discover if your Gift can change the shapes of gears in your metaphor; it may be that you are not strong enough yet but will be once you are older and have more practice, we will see. It would be better to test your strength on an area less critical than balance, though. Hmm. Have you discovered yet how to find a particular area by thinking of it, or having a patient think of it, and then seeing that area move or light up?" 

"I don't have any patients! I haven't tried having the people I was looking at steer me around, though. I don't think gears light up..."

"Can you try thinking of a particular memory, or habit you have, that is not of incredible importance to you? I am going to have you try to nudge it, and almost certainly you or I can put it back, but nonetheless I do not want you to try it for the first time on something very critical." 

"- I think all of my memories are of incredible importance to me!" she says.

"- You know, fair enough. I do not mind if you try on one of mine, though, I am very good at putting them back. I am going to think of one - tell me if you notice where it is?" 

"Okay..." Stare stare.