pamelia j

“Oh, that was nothing, Mom,” I laughed. “Don't worry! It's just his knot stuck inside me, is all. You'd think, with how long I've been letting him do this, that he'd have figured out by now he can't pull out right away! But you can't fight instincts, I guess. Now I just have to wait until he shrinks down enough to get it out again. It shouldn't take too long.”

Watching him work, the expertise at his fingertips, it was like watching a masterful performance. Even the act of dissection was artful. He was so knowledgeable, so capable, and he would explain how he used these techniques in the past to help people. My fear quickly turned to admiration, and I realized that Lord Noah could not be judged by such terms as good or evil. He is neither black nor white, but gray at both its darkest and brightest, a gray as deep as the ocean.

He reached into his inner self, feeling his energy circulating through his system, and began upping the intensity. By increasing one’s energy flow like this, a magic user could gather their strength for a spell quicker and easier. The problem was that doing it wasted energy and resulted in fatigue. Before a race, a sprinter might hop up and down or jog in place to get their blood flowing faster, allowing them to reach their peak earlier, but if they did it too much, they might find themselves out of breath when they needed it.