Introductions

(This is the introduction of Parsippany, written from her perspective. It's the best of the drafts I wrote tonight but might need a bit more tweaking. What do you think?)

Sunshine made its way through the thick atmosphere to light the pathway as it always did, a stark orange-ish glow. I was walking towards the morning lessons I would be teaching today. I could already feel the energies of the students from the open-air classroom a few hundred feet away. This morning they felt a bit raw and roiling, like steam coming off the cooking pot, quickly dissipating in the humidity of the air. It made it hard to breathe for a few heartbeats as I internally mastered the space of my own mind and the seeming invasion of theirs. Every morning I taught was like this, the sudden thrusting of myself into the company of too many people. Even after ten years of study, it was an effort.

I was the best talent they had seen in two generations. How I felt about that fact was still changing on a daily basis. Even though our kind, Healers, tried to steer clear of expectations, I could sense it every time they slipped. It was a sharp jab at the corner of my energy field followed by their quick control and almost ghostly feel of apology. That, of course, was from the more experienced Healers. The younger ones didn’t even realize what they were doing. It was like they were trying to throw a blanket over you and steer you in the opposite direction. It was the reason I hated teaching these classes. And the reason why it was essential that I did.

My measured steps helped me focus more closely on what was really bothering me this morning. Things seemed. . . different lately, the past few days especially. All the foretelling we had done, the hours spent in meditation and seeking and I still didn’t have a solid answer as to what was coming my way. Even the elders couldn’t tell what it was, or if they did, they weren’t sharing. Their silence was not completely unexpected but still frustrating. I was overwhelmed with that feeling for a moment but quickly dealt with it and let it melt away. It was a good thing no one was close as I walked through the cloisters. It was also one of the reasons why I chose to stay fairly sequestered as much as possible. I had more talent than any of them but that meant that my sudden bursts of emotion were a bit more potent than theirs were too.

It meant I couldn’t afford to let them get the better of me, especially when I had to teach. Here I was, letting this frustration take me over because of a few unknowns. It was silly and much more indicative of an apprentice than someone of my experience. But judging myself so harshly would do no good.

I walked the last hundred feet and pulled my thoughts together, focusing them to razor sharp points that fractured on the energy of the fifty students seated on the mats at my destination. I read frustration there too, in some of them. A small, rueful smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. Nothing like first hand experience to guide the way, I suppose. My feet moved a bit more slowly the closer I got to the open air classroom. I sucked in a few dense, heavy breaths as I heard the last of the mantras and stepped silently around the corner.