"My dreams last night were of technique practice. They seem to have reminded me of a fundamental I was beginning to forget. Speed is fine, but rushing breeds error. In my haste to catch up to you over the past year I've become somewhat hasty. Today I made an effort to slow down and take my time, and that seems to have been worth it."

"That's one of my most common slips as well, actually. It's always tempting to try to move your madra just a bit more forcefully, but it often costs more in clumsiness than it gains in speed, in my experience. Learning something new is always frustrating, the binding in your spirit yet to do it nearly automatically and empower the technique, and not even the experience with the technique to move smoothly."

As he talks he slips from his cycling technique, but then moves back into it after he's done.

There's something a bit odd going on with the aura, actually. The force aura looks grey to her copper sight, a duller heavier-looking colour compared to the shining silver of sword aura, just as it should. However, it's behaving just a bit oddly, rushing towards Terem a bit more than she'd expect in the distance and slightly slower once it's close, the aura in the distance almost pushing the aura closer to Terem into him. It's subtle, like water flowing downhill just a bit faster than it should, and then a bit slower.

Smoothly... She feels she should know something about madra flowing smoothly, something important, but it's not coming to her for some reason.

She finds herself focusing on the flow of Terem's madra as she considers the word.

It's subtle, extremely subtle, but something is slightly different. It could just be that it's Force madra rather than the madra she's used to using, but... her instincts feel like something is different about the way Terem's madra flows. Something that shouldn't be happening.

When he next takes a breath and that slight oddness comes under her eye again, she says it —

"There — you — are you doing something with your madra, just there? Or is it just that it's Force madra and so it flows differently?" 

"Ah. I'm surprised you noticed that." This is either very good news or slightly bad news, and he's not sure which. "I am in fact doing something very strange there utilizing a secret of mine. I will say no more of the specifics of it; it's both a secret that aids me and quite dangerous if done even slightly wrong. If you think you've figured it out please talk to me before attempting it, even if it takes you months to run into me."

"Oh! but don't worry, I'm not angry with you for noticing and you're at no risk of figuring out the secret on your own without it being pretty obvious you'd be doing something dangerous if you immediately tried to cycle using my method. I'm rather impressed you noticed, you must have very good instincts for the flow of aura. Nobody else has."

He pauses, debating saying something, and decides he really should just say it out loud rather than hoping she's not afraid. He doesn't know whether she knows that if she'd observed a secret held by a school Jade they would absolutely be considering killing her right now and probably do so, but if she does she must be terrified. "And, ah. There's no way to say this that doesn't bring up the very fear I'm trying to assuage if you're not already having it, but I'm very much not to type to kill someone to keep a secret of mine like that. I'd rather it didn't come out that I'm doing something odd with my cycling, but I'm not about to do something to make that happen besides asking you politely, and I wouldn't even if you learned the specifics of how it works." It's not like anyone could actually imitate him at it, frankly. 

Oh shit she said really said that out loud, with her mouth parts, she hadn't even considered —

And he's so gentle he's not even going to kill her about it even though she could be pressured by some other Jade easily to reveal his secret —

She can't help it, she starts tearing up. 

"S-sorry," she manages. "I — you —" 

She tries to wipe the tears from her eyes and center herself. She is better than this she is better than this she is better than this if she makes a scene it will only make the fact she's seen something she shouldn't have more obvious, she doesn't want to draw attention from the village —

"Thank you," she finally manages, with a surprisingly heartfelt warmth in her voice.

"You're very welcome. It's- not more than what everyone should do. If some Jade or another does learn that you have some sort of information, give them everything you have, okay? No need to try to keep my secrets, I can look after myself." He's really, really not worried about his health, here. His secret is very helpful and also essentially impossible to copy. He doesn't want her dying for him. Or even temporarily resisting pressure and getting punched for him. "I really am mostly just worried that people would try to imitate me and die. If not for the fact that it's dangerous," and a few other constraints he's not going to mention, "I would be spreading the knowledge behind my odd cycling technique myself, and simply deal with the consequences." 

If she does talk, someone from a school could try to force him to reveal the secret behind his cycling technique, which in fact is substantially more effective than any of the standard ones in the Valley, or press gang him into the school, but, well. He genuinely isn't worried about that. They wouldn't send enough Jades. They probably wouldn't even condescend to send a single elder, much less multiple, and he's very confident in his ability to deal with a few regular Jades from any of the schools. And they may not even send multiple, in which case he's not even at risk of having to badly hurt anyone to secure his freedom.

Perhaps he should have just said it was something odd about his cycling technique and brushed by it all, hoped she wouldn't realize it was anything very strange? No, better for her not to accidentally reveal something that gets back to a school Jade who knows exactly the wrong amount and decides to bother him about it.

She squares her shoulders and brushes the last few tears from her eyes.

"Okay."

So it's not that he's just partial to her. Damn.

Still, a deeply caring heart willing to risk substantially to do the right thing is — hardly a bad thing for him to possess, right?

"Would that all Jades had your caring heart. I can't imagine that having a — fragment of such a dangerous secret — in the hands of another — can be very comfortable for you." 

He really does just keep giving her more reasons to like him. 

"It is somewhat concerning but my understanding of the mechanics involved suggests you can't learn enough to give other people some idea of how to do it without it becoming somewhat obvious it would be dangerous to do so, so it's not as bad as it could be."

Should he ask her if she's doing okay? Probably not, she was trying to hide that that situation greatly worried her and so not drawing attention to the fact that he could tell is probably the kind thing to do.

He's so curious about what she could see but asking exactly what she noticed is perhaps a bit fraught to do, just this minute.

She coughs. "That's good at least." 

She takes another moment just to settle her emotions. 

Her mother was right, she's being tremendously stupid. Any other Jade...

"Please give me a moment to sort through this all. I'm increasingly realizing that I'm being even more reckless than I expected, and I am lucky that I got you and not any other Jade." 

Without waiting for Terem's answer, she sits down on the rocks by the side of the river and closes her eyes. 

Trying to focus inwards, she falls back to a moment earlier in her life, when she'd just been clawed up by a spirit cougar and had to learn how not to panic in a hurry...

She's scared, yes. But as far as she can actually tell, Terem isn't the threat. The threat is someone else using her to get at Terem.

That feels leaden in her gut. The idea that she might be a weak point to him. If she's Iron and he's Jade, and they - get together - then she'll forever be his accessory. No matter how talented she is, if she can't make that Jade leap, then she'll always be a vulnerability to him. 

She wants to cycle madra, but she's away from the aura of the cart. It itches, like a thorn in her side.

She breathes, slow and steady, as if she were cycling, but refrains from pulling at the madra in her core. 

Either she has to enter the scary world of Jades, be someone who people fear and respect, or she has to give up on Terem. That's always been the decision in front of her. It was never really quite this real before now. 

She's embarrassed about that. She thought she had committed to the decision but it's a hard path, trying to catch up with this prodigy and his secrets. She knows so little, compared to him. And it stings. It especially stings to admit that her mother was absolutely right to tell her to be careful. 

Her eyes slip open, and she looks sideways over at Terem, without turning her head. 

What kind of person is this man. She loves him but she doesn't know him. He's scattered, easily gotten talking, less careful with his secrets than he should be, arrogant for good cause, kind, clever... But she still has the sense that he's holding the majority of himself back somehow. His attitude seems unguarded, but the more she learns about him the more surprises she encounters... 

She loves him, though. And he seems worthy of love. Is that not enough?