So far Ranvir had been pretty disappointed with tether-theory. First of all, the teacher was a woman, which did not encourage deep thought and emotional growth in the his fellow classmates despite her obvious age. Rather they were discovering a depth of depravity Ranvir would’ve been better off never knowing about.

To combat this, he’d moved to the front of the class, as sound seemed to travel better up the theater than down it. His next issue was one of classmates, mainly that he didn’t know any of them and so far, he’d felt no desire to change that. They were for the most part a bunch of lazy idiots that only bothered to show up because skipping too many class could get you on the early list for the front lines.

And he couldn’t even blame them too much. They’d been learning a lot about different tethered’s abilities, which should’ve been exciting lessons about what different tethered could do and tie into their warfare class. But Drifa—their teacher—was not the most charismatic wall Ranvir had ever met. She kept it pretty brief, just letting them know that they would delve deeper into different tethered’s skills in the later years.

Ranvir remembered more about tethered ability from watching Sansir- and Grev’s training than from this class, despite his best efforts. That was, of course, not to mention some of the theory was, in his opinion, just plain wrong. She’d led with the idea of Discipline preference coming from handedness.

But today was going to be different. This was a class Ranvir had long been looking forwards to. Drifa had mentioned it earlier, last week to drive up excitement for today. Ranvir seated himself early after lunch at the very front row. He’d gotten his notebook out and was ready to take notes before his classmates had even started filing in.

At the top of his page, he wrote in bold text: ‘Concepts and The Second Stage’.

The woman entered the room with slow careful steps, apparently her hip had been healed only a couple years ago, but it was already bothering her again. She had grayish white hair, that was starting to thin at the top. Sitting this close, Ranvir could see through her hair to her scalp. She moved with a deliberate slowness that he’d come to expect from the really old and worn people from the village.

Her uniform had been worn down at the elbows and knees, however, instead of a getting a new one that hadn’t been made a decade before Ranvir’s dad was born, it had been patched with cloth a visibly different color and much darker shade of black. There were other smaller changes, parts of the uniform that had changed over the last half century or so of tailoring.

But that didn’t bother Ranvir… anymore. He’d gotten used to it from her. She spoke with a clear voice that could be easily heard and she didn’t seem to need seeing aids.

“Advancing into the second stage of any Discipline requires the binding of a Concept.” She started the class out in her flat voice. It wasn’t so much monotone, as it was clear she’d learned the speeches of her classes a long time ago and hadn’t seen the need to change them much since. “Unless you’ve already gone through the ill-advised step of advancing your Body Discipline before reaching the second stage in any of your other Disciplines.”

Ranvir paused his notation, turning slowly to look at the old woman. Ancient woman, more like. He fought not to let his mind return to his classmates’ descriptions of what they would do to her. It was true that there had once been a time when Body was completely neglected until one had already chosen a Concept at Sword or Cloak, but that shouldn’t have been actively pushed for at least twenty, maybe thirty years. And people like Ragnhild had been pushing back against it almost a century ago.

“But it is a matter which requires much effort of thought and consideration.” Drifa continued. Ranvir quickly marked down what she’d said about the Body Discipline, he would have to show it someone later, hopefully she still had some useful information. He would have to check it against what Master Ayvir and Svenar knew, but it might still be reliable. He’d even go so far as to check against Figir’s book, vague as it got on the exact details of advancing.

“When you choose a Concept it will permanently affect the way your abilities and powers function. Much like attuning a technique this is a once in lifetime opportunity that you don’t get to do over.” Ranvir had some inkling of this, though Figir had never outright said as much in her book, she had alluded to Concepts carrying across Disciplines. He even knew her Concept was Distortion, related to how twisting space could distort what was in it.

“We will be exploring a few example through out todays class.” She turned to the boards behind her and with a deft hand wrote in clear letters ‘Obsidian A’ on the left side of the board and ‘Obsidian B’ on the right side. “Obsidian A,” she began writing underneath his column. “Feels strongly that the most important keystone of obsidian is where it comes from. Volcanic glass, it was once called. He could create any of a hundred Concepts tied to obsidian’s fiery origins.” She wrote ‘Heat’ underneath his column. “He’s feels that heat is the most important and closely tied part of obsidian, even though you could go out at winter and dig out a handful of obsidian no problem.”

She waddled over to the right side of the board. “Obsidian B feels differently. He believes that obsidian’s key features is the incredible edge that they can take.” She wrote ‘Sharpness’ under his column. “This one is more easily explained as obsidian can be dreadfully sharp, though, you could still pick a smooth stone from just outside our classroom.”

She turned back to the class. “So who’s right?” She asked. “Who’s got the better Concept?”

The class was quiet for a moment, before Ranvir frowned and raised his hand. She nodded to him. “Student.”

“Obsidian A, right? Without the stone’s origins there would be no obsidian at all.”

Master Drifa nodded, sucking air through her teeth, she let her gaze wander over the rest of class. “An excellent point. Anyone else have any thoughts?”

Tentatively, someone spoke up from the back row. “B?”

The teacher cocked her head, “Elaborate?”

There was some muffled laughter through the class and the student cleared his throat. “Um, so what Obsidian A believes, is just a connection to the past. It has nothing to do with the obsidian around us now. However, any broken piece of obsidian can be sharp, so it’s a more current version of the available material.”

Drifa nodded again, sucking air through her teeth. She turned back to the board and wrote in big letters ‘NEITHER’. Ranvir frowned, looking from her to the letters and back.

“Neither is more correct than the other.” She said, the stir had moved from Ranvir and out through the rest of the class. Even the ones too usually too busy talking about what they would do when they returned to the ‘gardens’ were quiet.

“It’s not about being correct.” She continued. “We once had a healer on this school, from the smoke element. He knew that smoke could kill, so therefore it should be able to kill the bad things in a body. We can all tell how preposterous that idea is, yet it worked. He couldn’t heal an open wound, yet was better as a Cloak than most Masters at healing diseases and sickness.”

She placed a hand on the podium to her right as she shuffled forwards. “And yet, we have been unable to replicate another tethered with those abilities since. Because the idea doesn’t really make sense. How could smoke, that goes everywhere, only kill the bad things while leaving the good things alive. It’s preposterous.”

She waved back to the board with her free hand. “So when I say that neither is more correct, it’s because they’re tied to the tethered’s beliefs. If a tethered can believe in the Concept then they can use it. When Obsidian A uses his Concept his obsidian gains an element of that primordial heat that once shaped it. Potentially, if he grew into a Master, it might gain a truly molten element. As for Obsidian B, he might naturally be able to generate sharper obsidian, or his manipulations might split obsidian into edges. There was a Master at this school, whose power couldn’t touch a piece of obsidian, without it shattering into a thousand tiny needles.”

Ranvir was noting down furiously. He didn’t know if any of this was right, but he was sure to get it all down. The more he could remember and learn the better he could question the masters about it and learn from it.

“One tethered sees how the sun bakes down on the farmers working the fields. How it burns them. Searing the water from their bodies and scolding their flesh. He develops a deadly heat in his light. Another tethered sees the plants surviving under the light of the sun, how they draw nourishment from it, how it sustains them. His light develops a nourishing quality that heals and recovers those touched by it.”

She took a long glance over the class. “Binding a Concept is any tethered’s first step to truly making the Triplet Goddess’ gift their own. Defining both themselves and their power.”