“Grint, do you want to go ….” the words stopped abruptly and were followed by a loud, gasping intake of air as my mom gaped at what she saw as she and my dad walked into my room Nineday morning. That sound was shortly followed by another gasp and a grunt.

While there are definitely more embarrassing things that they could have walked in on, having my parents walk in on my latest training session was quite a shock for all of us. Mom caused the whole thing when she gasped in surprise at the rock floating in the air. Me, I gasped because it turns out interrupted concentration causes a minor energy feedback, causing my utterance in response to the brief pain. Dad’s grunt came from the shock he got when I dropped my roughly two pound pet rock on his foot. Again, it’s totally my mom's fault.

“What in the green lovely earth was that, Grint?” Dad’s nearly florid speech was his method for dealing with the pain of two pounds dropped from about chest height onto his toes. At least I wasn’t in big trouble, since I didn’t even get the full name treatment.

“I’ve been working with the magic, dad, like I told you. And I’ve figured out some other things that work, beside the flame bursts and electro snaps.”

“Oh, honey, we just thought you wanted to be left alone after you made that big stench in the root cellar.”

“No, mom, that worked, but it was something I don't want to repeat. I’m pretty serious about working on my magic these days. I know you guys have thought it’s just a fad and I’d grow out of it, but I’ve figured out a few things. Things that surprised me. I can tell you about them, if you want to talk about that silly magic stuff.” I grinned to take any sting out of those words, since they were an intentional echo of years of their comments, and I didn’t want to be too disrespectful. I can’t say I wasn’t trying to be a little snarky, but then my parents might not recognize me anymore if I didn’t have some sass, it had been my go-to method of communication my whole life.

“Seems like it. I’ve never seen anyone do that. As your dad asked, what was that?”

“I’ve been calling it psionics, the use of the power of your being, but it's pretty much what we've called magic, I'm just using it with a different focus.”

“Your mind and spirit take energy from your body, and we call that magic, but you are visualizing and focusing on different things. I've found that the visualization and focus are important. Just like we’re trained to control our hot heads and our spikes of emotion to control the magic, if you control your visualization, you can get different effects. Some of the effects don’t even require the preliminary build up like those do. For example …. “

I levitated the rock from beside my father’s foot with a gesture. I didn’t need the gesture, but it felt like it made things somewhat easier and seemed like it drained me a bit less. Perhaps it provided the energy flow a bit of a catalyst, or it didn't have to go as far, or there was something to the somatic component that made the visualization more clear. I brought the rock over to my hand as it rose. “No buildup required. Takes a bunch more energy than walking over and picking it up, but it can be very handy.” OK, that’s a bad pun. But it’s staying. I am who I am.

“I can also do something like the flame burst. It’s faster to start, but not as much heat in an instant, like instead of holding it back and then releasing inefficiently all at one time, I release it as I gather it, and I don’t lose the energy required to make a container to ‘hold in’ all the heat somewhere without hurting myself.”

Mom started to speak up, but I held up my hand, and surprisingly she let me continue.

“I have one more trick… you’ve already caught me using that one, mom.”

I took a deep breath, I didn’t want to admit the next part.

“I did have a sunburn that day you asked me about it. I fixed it.”

“You...WHAT?!?!?” It was an odd chorus, as my parents raised their voices, almost in unison, pitches rising, one started lower, but they both ended up pretty high.

“You’re going to have to explain that better, son.”

“I’m not sure I can. I fixed it. I meditated while concentrating on ignoring it, pretending like it wasn’t there, and then a little while later I was a bit tired, a bit chilled, and not a bit sunburned.”

My parents just stood there, looking pensive. Mom finally broke the silence.

“Well, I thought something was up, but I was thinking you were having some reaction to ....” Great. CSL 22, I’d better head this one off.

“Mom! No. Just…. Just… no. I have been a bit odd all my life, I know that. I’ve probably gotten a bit odder over time, but that’s just me. I’m odd. Probably always will be, but I don’t like feeling out of control, so I’m not going to ever be taking any of the pills, elixirs, or miracle oils you're so worried about.”

Not even for the promise of better magic. There were always rumors in the magic club about some studies at some undisclosed location where there was supposedly some serum that would make you stronger. If such a thing existed, I suspected it was some kind of psychotropic drug… it didn’t make you stronger, it just made you not care about the costs and damage you were doing to yourself as you burned out your ability.

“I just didn’t know how to explain it. I clearly still don’t, but I also can’t keep deceiving you, even if I use the truth to do it. It just won’t work out.” Honesty will be my policy, but there will still be exceptions for a few major things. I’m still never going to be able to explain the status sheet or the fact that I’ve quite a bit more mileage on me than my chassis suggests. Those things aside, if I can’t trust my parents, then I’m completely toast.

“I want to share these discoveries, but I’m really not sure how. Or what might happen if I did. I’d love for you guys to think about that, too. You’ve got so much more experience than I do in this world. I want to shout it from the highest tower. But I can see how it might cause some issues. I’m pretty sure there are several more big issues I can’t even see…” I trailed off. Pensive had become worried, and worried scared me a bit.

“I think you’re right about big issues, Grint.” Dad was grimacing. “This could upset lots of people who already think magic is not right. Imagine if it were actually useful. That would challenge their core beliefs, and the challenge might not go unanswered.”

Wow. Three complete sentences from my dad. I’m pretty sure that’s a record, and for the record, terrifying.

“I didn’t even know there were people who thought that way. I mean, I know you two thought it was useless, but you weren’t against it.”

“Right. Well, there aren’t lots of people dead set against magic, but the ones who are that way… they’re unusually dedicated to suppressing the practice.”

Great. Politics was going to get involved and make a mess of everything. I'd had enough of that in the last world. This… was just friggin fantastic.