Ranvir entered the indoor training hall. He hadn’t heard of them until Kirs mentioned them to him earlier this week. They didn’t normally allow first years to reserve them, since they needed the space and a pre-stage’s strongest abilities weren’t all that destructive, anyway.

It was only around the third year that student really started using the rooms, but for third, fourth, and fifth years there was a serious struggle to get access to them and they were usually reserved weeks in advance. Unless all but the first years were out visiting the front lines.

Ranvir walked the length of the small room. He hadn’t been sure what to think when Kirs had mentioned them. It wasn’t any bigger than the outdoor arenas they sparred in for weapon training. The room itself was maybe sixty feet by sixty feet, with a low ceiling. He doubted Sansir would even have a foot of head space.

He, however, he wasn’t doing that kind of training today, instead he was focused on something else. He’d been practicing with slipping small objects, like his obsidian piece ‘out’ of space. Technically, from what he understood of space generator records, he was creating a pocket space.

Where he had to section off a piece of space, then separate it from real-space surrounding it, generator could be more direct. As in, they just made the pocket space outside of real-space. Figir had precious few notes on the phenomenon, simply stating that generators were better at it than a manipulator and there so many other opportunities for discovery outside of that field of practice. But he could practice that technique anywhere. He didn’t need a training room for that. This was Kirs’ research into the weird tether reactions, culminated in this trial run.

He put his basket down in the middle of the room. At the top lay his brown cloth package. He still hadn’t tried on the robe but he wasn’t that worried. It was a robe. They couldn’t fit that badly, especially when he’d given his measurements.

Setting the robe aside, he took out four small candles and a tinderbox. Next, he grabbed a leather pouch of obsidian grit, the fine dust sparkling in the light of the bright-torches that lit the room.

Finally, the last pieces of the basket were removed, the part he dreaded the most. A stoppered waterskin, a bowl, and a washing cloth.

He started with the things he could do first and didn’t involve washing in water that he didn’t know had ever been hot. Laying out a circle of the obsidian grit, the sound of the dust hitting the large tiles of the floor soothing.

From the rituals the masters that performed the tethered ceremonies, Kirs had taken the candles. Before the kids arrived, the Master would set up candles in accordance with the four corners of the room. Ranvir took two tries before he got the first candle lit. To the master, this represented the candle, which would begin it all. From this, he would light other candles like he would light the children’s tether. To Ranvir, it was the start that would light the tether in his soul, bring it to life.

Lighting the other candles, the master would sit with them from dawn, until the first of the children arrived outside the ceremony hall. Ranvir had other steps he needed to take care of, however.

Ranvir felt the itchy yellow desire to shake himself as he knew what came next, but fought against it, trying to keep the mood that the ‘ritual’ preparations were settling on him. A self-conscious, light pink feeling filled him as he stripped to his underclothes and put his uniform aside. He hesitated with his necklace, the three rings catching the light of the bright-torches. Biting his lip, he set them aside. Despite shivering in the room's cold, Ranvir took his time folding the uniform neatly and properly. He had to fold his pants twice, because he didn’t get them right the first time.

Opening the waterskin, he poured out the contents into the bowl. Kirs had gotten the water for him. There was a little altar at the academy for the Triplet Goddess, but not always a priestess or a priest to manage it. He didn’t know when she’d gotten the water, but as a bit of it splashed onto him from the bowl, it definitely wasn’t hot.

Taking a deep breath, he dipped the washcloth in the water and started scrubbing himself down. The moment the icy water touched his forearm, the air tried to force its way out of Ranvir. He fought it down until it slowly seeped out in a slow trickle instead of a rush. Once more, he repeated on his other arm, forcing the air out slowly.

He washed himself in slow deliberate patterns; he regained control over his body. The feelings of embarrassment and nervousness muted until they were indistinct gray masses and the emotions faded into the background. He scrubbed himself clean in the cold water, his mind on his breathing as his physical reaction took more and more of a backseat.

This part of Kirs’ ritual she had lifted from converting to the Triplet Faith. Here they cleansed the applicant of sins and readied them for Her blessings.

By the time he was finished, his mind had narrowed to a single point. Slowly, he unfolded the package and put on the white robe. It wasn’t a fancy cloth but simple and sturdy wool. There were no decorations on it either. The only affectation was the bleached white fabric, as that was what the applicant wore for the ritual.

Putting on the robe, he maneuvered into the circle, keeping the hem out of the flames almost as an afterthought. Once seated, he closed his eyes. The scent of the candles filled his nose as he closed himself off to the light. Taking in long deep breaths, Ranvir remembered Kirs describing this part of the ritual. She had taken this from old wedding ceremonies.

The bride and groom would sit in a ring of obsidian for fifteen minutes all the way to a full one. Despite them being in separate rooms, if done right, they were said to be able to feel each other. Even then, they would feel a tremor in their soul. An old depiction of tether behaving unusually was described as soul in turmoil, so Kirs believed that was what they felt.

Ranvir inhaled slowly, letting the breath settle before exhaling in a long motion. He kept the pattern for a while. He didn’t keep track of time, continuing so long as he felt necessary.

When he went searching for tether-space, it was a wholly new experience. Normally, he would find the space and lever it open, either with a finger or through force of will. But now, he found the gateway cracked, ready for him. Even sensing caused it to open and invite him inside. It was the difference between heaving a heavy brace off a door and stepping in through an open door.

The threads of his tether leapt into his mind with stunning clarity, like he’d never seen them before. The three quarter finished loop spinning slowly. He could now make out the filaments that made up the individual threads of his tether, each of them flicking slightly as if caught in a wind. Threads of a thread.

Almost absentmindedly, he flexed the threads lightly apart before wrapping them tightly around each other. Then he embraced the pressure, flowing through tether-space and back into his body.

Kirs had done a lot of research into the weird phenomenon surrounding tether behavior. From the rituals to a new inductee in the church, to the bonding of man and wife, to the rituals of duelists before their fights, to the masters who traveled the country before the start of each academy year and underwent dozens of ceremonies, and many more beyond those.

She’d found something in common between all of them. They all had gone through an unusual experience beforehand.

The masters that experienced a liveliness in their tether they ascribed to the Goddess, as they followed the church’s extensive list for the ceremony. From the cold bath, to the robes required and going over the different symbols for the distinct elements and types of tethered.

The wife who’s tether was as alive as the flutters in her stomach, as she went through long hours of preparation of both location and herself. Making sure that her groom knew it would be safe to draw his life onto her and let her take the control.

The duelist who before every fight spent long minutes sharpening, testing, and then oiling their weapon, before putting on their armor one piece at a time, in the same specific order that they’d done every time before that.

Kirs had suggested that maybe it wasn’t the Goddess that lent these people the liveliness of tether, but that it was possibly the preparations themselves. Their end results were the same, even though their preparations weren’t. They were priming their body, mind, and spirit in tune with one another, taking them one step closer to the Goddess. The ‘liveliness’ of their tethers were actually the threads of the tether responding to this closeness.

Ranvir didn’t feel that ‘liveliness’ that Kirs described, but he did sense a change. His tether was easier to move, and he didn’t even need the images to do slight corrections. Previously, he could only spin it faster without extra images, but now he’d slightly unwound the tether before tightening it even further.

All of this preparation was for the attempt of one thing. As a pre-stage tethered, he lacked in both power and control, severely. But especially in power, he could do training for that, but he’d already been training his control for months at this point.

He concentrated on the smallest point he’d previously worked on. With a flex of his will, the space disturbed slightly, but without the strain of concentration it required last time. So he let go of the working.

He narrowed his focus to an even smaller space, as little as a pea, much smaller than anything he’d manipulated previously. His mind honed in on the insignificant space above his palm. The width of a pea. Then he knitted the space tighter together, like intertwining fingers. He could feel the space now, a tiny ball of in the middle of his palm, though he knew he could easily blow through it.

So he tightened the fingers of space, knitting them tighter and closer. His tether spun up rapidly, but the tiny ball in his hand was no longer pliable and he doubted he could break it.

Pushing further, he pulled from his talks with Sansir about strengthening ice. He searched the little weaknesses in the space out and shored them up, drawing the space even tighter. He imagined the network of space freezing over, turning into an impenetrable ball of space.

With a scream, the world came flooding back into him. Red pain raged and stormed throughout his head. Ranvir fell over, near unconscious, as his limbs refused to respond. He could only be thankful that the candles he’d knocked over had been thrown far enough away that they didn’t touch him before he passed out.

Ranvir woke still on the floor of the sparring room, the subterranean floor chilling him, as water dripped onto the floor. Kirs was standing over him, looking wide eyed. She wearing the usual not-quite uniform of the administration, tiny pieces of obsidian reflecting off her knees. In her hands, she held the bowl he’d been keeping the water in.

Even from his angle, he could tell it was clearly empty. His head throbbed with sudden blinding intensity. It abated some after a few minutes of groaning in pain, but the pressure of each throb still felt as though it threatened to pop his eyes out of his skull.

Slowly, he struggled to sit up, one hand cradling his head. His bones weren’t as weak as he’d expected. Hopefully, the exercise hadn’t taken too long. Too much more of this headache and he would just quit being a tethered.

“Are you okay?” Kirs asked.

Ranvir eyes hurt just in the light. He shot her a gaze that told her all he wanted to say. She raised her hands in defense as she took a step back.

“Sorry.” She screamed directly into his brain, each footstep trying to kick their way in to his brain. Ranvir opening his mouth to say something but changed his mind, instead simply put a finger over his lips.

“Quiet?” She hollered from at top of her lungs.

Ranvir winced, but nodded slowly. Something he shouldn’t have done because the world took that as an excellent opportunity to sock him right in the front of his brain. He couldn’t help the low whine of that escape as he carefully laid down again.

Five minutes later, Ranvir had tried to act like he wasn’t in great pain as Kirs cleaned up the ritual for him. He felt a little sorry for making her do it, as he was getting better by the minute. Another ten minutes and he would be fresh as rain.

Twenty minutes later, Kirs helped him stagger out of the room and up the stairs. Mostly, she just provided direction. Ranvir wasn’t huge by the standards of the academy, but he’d been packing on some muscle and he’d grown a bit since joining up. Kirs, on the other hand, was only a bit taller than Esmund and a tiny slip of a girl on top of that. Even with her help, he still had to take the majority of the weight. She took just enough to help him along.

“Did it at least work?” Kirs asked, as they left the class building and exited onto the open complex of the compound.

Ranvir smiled, “It worked brilliantly.”

“Yes!” Kirs exclaimed, pumping her fist in victory.