She wakes, all at once without her usual morning grogginess, eyes adjusted to the faint glimmer of light through the crack under the door, and for a moment can't tell what woke her- no sounds coming from out in the corridor, Omar and Tariq curled together in the other bunk deeply asleep (someone put blankets over her at some point while she was out, she notices distantly), Noor at the foot of their bed twitching an ear occasionally...

The space in her head... isn't an emptiness at all, really, it's- waiting, ready, an unlocked door, an entire new direction she could stretch both her arms out into at any moment, like the ants in a beginning wizardry lesson discovering they live in a three-dimensional world for the first time...

(There's no windows and none of them own a pocketwatch.  She's nonetheless certain that it's dawn.)

What is happening in her head?

She has to know... she reaches, opening out into the new direction, straining as hard as she can to see, to figure out what it is and where it came from and why it's here-

The watching is coming from this way, she realizes abruptly, and it's not watching but knowing.  Recognition.  Presence.

It's not the infinite unconditional love she's heard priests of Sarenrae talk about, it's something... just as all-encompassing but calmer, quieter.  Not like blazing summer sunlight but warm still water buoying her up on a sleepy afternoon.

She is Known, the Presence says (except it's something less active than saying, less directed, like reading a plaque that's always been there and always will be and she's only just now found), she is Known, and she is Understood, all of her pasts and presents and futures and every speck of her from her long-gone milk teeth to the veins pulsing this moment in her neck and all her doubts and fears and insecurities and ambitions, she is known and she is accepted and nothing about her could ever make that Presence judge her or reject her or turn away.

And... there's really no One else it could be, is there.  

Nethys.

Hi.

'Hi' may not be a "standard" ""prayer form"" but it is shot through with wonder and awe and overwhelm-in-the-divine-presence and that tiny fragment of the All-Seeing that is (mostly) safe for mortal minds to interact with catches it and accepts it and reflects back acknowledgement and recognition.  You are one of Mine, it says, and I see you and I am here.

How does she do this.  How does this work.  Is she- chosen of Nethys now, that must be what this is, she's supposed to- pray, or something-

Even in the privacy of her own head she's forgotten the words to every psalm she ever knew in this one overwhelming moment, but somehow she knows it doesn't matter, and she reaches out and holds up to the god- her god- her desperate hunger for understanding and that moment of clarity when a spell snaps into place for the first time and the staggering feeling of walking into the incredible library in the Temple of the All-Seeing Eye and the certainty that there is more out there...

There's something glimmering at the edges of perception, in this space that is not a space to her sense that is not a sense, and she wants to see she wants to know- she reaches and there are spellforms there, hanging just in range of her metaphorical fingertips like fruit on a laden bough, spellforms like she's never seen them before, curved in ways that she thought they could never hold- she wants all of them she wants to devour them she wants to stuff them whole into her head and dissolve herself into them and know how they work- 

(Fortunately for both her sanity and the structural integrity of the fort, wanting this extremely hard does not actually cause it to occur, although it does happen to be a very effective way to attune oneself with Nethys in prayer.)

-she can't see them well enough, she can only barely reach them, the harder she tries to focus on them the more they slip away like stars in the corner of your eye-

-and then finally some half-remembered theology clicks into place and- she's working on the wrong problem.  She can't see them but she can hold them.  They're gifts.  Make of yourself a cup to hold divinity, and neither leak nor spill...

She does some purely internal equivalent of closing her eyes and breathing and centering herself (her physical eyes have been closed the whole time), and instead of reaching she calls.  Can she have Create Water, only clerics get Create Water, that's the best way to know for sure... focus on being a cup, being a shape that can accept a spell and hold it and carry it, and- there, she feels something coming towards her, and she tries to reach out to it too soon and it bobs away but on the second try she gets it nestled in the extra space that's suddenly part of her, and she knows instinctively how to get it back out when she needs it as surely as she knows how to move her feet.

How about that one she noticed earlier, please, the one with the prettiest internal structure?  And- is there a healing one she can reach...?  There is, apparently, and that's good to know, that she can ask for something and be granted it without being certain it exists...

Her head feels like a strained muscle unaccustomed to use, and it's so hard to resist the temptation to poke at them and take them apart, but there's still more room there, a bigger space than the first spells took up and an odd... corner?  with the same metaphorical volume as the large space but a weird squashed 'shape'.  Can she put a healing spell there, is that what that's for- no, apparently- well, what does fit there- is that Detect Magic, it looks like Detect Magic the way a living breathing tree looks like an iron staircase, and she tries to grab it and it slips away and she wants to see- steady, center, don't focus like a drill focus like a parabola, Detect-Magic-But-Cooler simplifies itself and settles in and then expands to fill the space available.  

One left, has to be first-circle, she's so not prepared for this but she can figure out what cleric spells there are later, healing healing she wants healing- and it's there and it's beautiful and she can't help herself she grabs for it, and of course it's like trying to cup your hands together to hold water and then touching the surface of the water with the hand that's trying to hold it- she tries again and again- 

-okay fine then how about Mending, clerics have a better version of Mending right- and something that might have the same bones as Mending slips into the last remaining space and expands- 

...and she's... done?  

And an hour and five minutes after dawn a breathless wizard is outside the commander's office.

"He's not there," says a passing patroller. "He's filling the cistern wile he gets his overnight report."

"The- cistern?  Where does one find cistern?"

"By the kitchen."

So then back down the stairs to the kitchen to find someone who can direct her to the cistern or the commander or both-

There he is. "Good morning. ...Create Water."

Oh, it means cistern, that makes much more sense.  

"Good morning."  She's barely met this man and he's kind of confusing and intimidating and she slightly broke his fort, and he's also the only (other???) cleric in Nethys only knows how many miles.  "I, um.  I seek spiritual counsel."

(Are there buckets or barrels laying around in here, perchance?)

There are some buckets around, yes, for filling at the cistern to bring water to other locations. "Spiritual counsel on what?"

"I, um, I-"

And then the words get stuck, and...

...and she pulls a small book out of her bag, flips it open, and presses a hand to the frontispiece.

"...Create Water."

(She's never tried aiming a divine spell before, and there's something a bit counterintuitive if you try to do it like it was wizardry.  Most of the water goes in the bucket; quite a bit goes on the floor and her boots.)

".............congratulations?" he says with extremely deep uncertainty.

"...thank you?"  

'What the fuck do I do now' is probably not the sort of question a random priest of some other god can answer for you, actually, and also she doesn't know how to say fuck in Taldane.

"I, um.  It was Nethys.  As- one would likely expect.  But I'm certain it was Nethys."

Insofar as he's legible he is no longer concerned that this is a terrible event that endangers everyone! "Congratulations," he repeats more firmly. "Have you told your party?"

"...not yet."  

There's a lot tangled up in there that she... is not, actually, going to unpack right now.

"I- I would speak privately but I have no wish to delay you in your duties.  Should I help with the cisten?"

"By all means. Create Water. You don't need a holy symbol for this one, by the by."

"...oh.  I- huh."  She closes the book and tucks it safely back in her bag.  "...I can see why it wasn't- clear-"

She hefts the bucket and dumps it into the cistern.  "Create Water."

It doesn't take six seconds to cast the spell but you can't do more than one of it in six seconds, so they have a bit of time to talk. "If you would prefer not to make the journey all the way around to Kenabres," he says, "you are now considerably more valuable on the northern front - especially if you channel positive. Your party members would be welcome too, of course."

"Create Water." 

 "...I, um, I haven't tried yet."

"...perhaps someone can catch a ptarmigan for you to test it with."

Unhappy nod.  "That... may be wise."  She darts a glance towards the patrol captain she interrupted as though his expression would tell her anything- Nethys can know the depths of her soul but that doesn't mean she likes total strangers knowing things and probably judging her about them.

"...also I fear I must apologize about the wall.  I failed to say as much yesterday."  Because she hadn't been saying anything at all yesterday, but still.

The patrol captain who was on night report duty is waiting patiently with a completely straight face.

"I've prepared Make Whole to fix it today. I'd consider it more than recompensed if you were to scribe an appropriate second circle scroll to compensate for the slot."

She winces.  "I fear I haven't enough ink, though I'd be more than willing to provide other compensation.  Create Water-"  it manifests a foot above the surface of the water in the cistern and splashes down.

"...wait, Make Whole, this is- greater Mending?  It is second circle?"