Ranvir picked at the chipping paint of his queen piece. He should technically be training as he was in the middle of tether class, but he was taking a well reasoned break. Across the table from him, Kirs sniffed as she closed another book and pushed it aside with a groan.

“Not going well?” Ranvir asked.

She leaned back in her chair, rubbing her palms against her eyes. “No.” Her arms flopped down limply by her side. “There’s just nothing old enough. I can find mentions of ancient rituals, rites, and performances that we used to do, but no actual records. Everything’s too new.”

Ranvir frowned, carefully re-opening the pocket space and slipping his queen in without letting the king out. “Too new?”

“Everything here’s at least a few decades younger than the academy itself.” She slapped her arms on the table, leaning forwards and turning her gaze on him. “What about you?”

Ranvir sighed. “I’m still stuck, I can’t figure this shit out. I feel like I’ve almost got the answer but no matter what I try it doesn’t work.”

“Maybe it’s time to revisit the basics, what originally got you started?” Kirs asked cocking her head. “Introduce a physical element, like your pincers and hands?”

“Physical element…” Ranvir muttered, his tether in the back of his mind slowly spinning around itself. “In the physical.” He shot to his feet, nearly tipping a chair in his haste. “Kurri’s blessing! Embracing the pressure!”

A passing moment of thought passed over Kirs’ face, but Ranvir was too filled with golden yellow and blue excitement to think on it over much. “Kirs, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you at after period?”

“Kurri’s blessing…” She muttered, but Ranvir was already hurrying away. He heard the chair fall to the floor behind her. “The church! Of course!”

Ranvir slipped through the library doors and ran back to dorms, quickly slipping up the stairs and through halls. In record time, he was tying a bit of cloth around the handle to their sleeping quarters door, signifying that he was busy inside.

He jumped for the dresser where they kept their ritual resources. He’d barely gotten the candles out, failing to place even one without it tipping over, when he realized he was too excited to perform a ritual. He’d need to calm down first.

Balancing the pressure as he sat down on his knees, he slipped back into tether-space. Taking in long slow breaths, he followed the slow spin of threads as his power turned around itself. Slowly, he felt himself calm down. He thought he could even detect it in the haze that surrounded the space. He saw it relax, the haze slowing down and moving in more predictable patterns instead of rushed movements.

It only took a few minutes, before he felt completely settled and he slowly extracted himself from tether-space.

Pouring out the circle of obsidian, he slowly moved in sunwise, pouring out a thin line of the glittering black stone. He let the noise of it fill him as rained down on the wooden floor. Observing the pattern of falling fragments, rather than the individual stone.

Then he grabbed the stones used to support the candles, placing them carefully in alignment with the four corners of the room, making sure they were equidistant from one another.

He lit the first candle, watching the wick gather heat and strength, the flame solidifying. He burned his wandering thoughts, the mindless moments, in the flame before placing it on the first stone. He lit the next candle, moving sunwise through the circle again, protecting himself from the idle thoughts, should they attempt to return.

Finishing the circle of flame and light that shielded him from the mind, he pulled out the knives. Placing each knife between the stones, pointing away from the circle. They would protect him from the outside world, from worldly interruptions and interferences.

Next, he stripped out of his clothes. Then poured out the cleansing water, it was still cold from the ice cube Sansir had left in it that morning. Carefully, he washed off the touch of the world on his body and spirit, each stroke made with deliberation as the washcloth raked his body.

He put on the pristine white robe, grabbed the newly replaced silk cloth and settled into the circle. He carefully placed the cloth on his lap, as he crossed his legs. There seemed to be an extra weight to the ritual today.

In the back of his mind, Ranvir was aware that most of the ideas and imagery he used was made up by himself. It felt right, though, and it was part of why he enjoyed the process, so he didn’t linger overlong on the thought.

Colors drained from within him as he slipping into tether-space. The gate opening at the thought with no need for him to demand entrance.

Ranvir let out a long breath, as he assessed the energies moving through the tether, they were a little unsteady but contained by the spin. He took long moments to simply breathe and observe the energy, the places where it didn’t run smooth, the interruptions. They didn’t disappear, but over time their effect became less noticeable.

Finally, he opened himself to the pressure, embracing it. He languidly moved from tether-space back into the real world, carrying with him a bit of the state in the back of his mind.

Focusing on that part, he brought it into focus in a way he never could’ve without the ritual. At the beginning of his loop, he split the power, separating it like a Wings tether-type. It was tough. Tougher than he imagined it would be, so he increased the spin, until the flow started evening out. With time more so than effort, he managed it, letting it combine once the energy ran out of the loop.

Pressure was already building within the space, though he was only tangentially aware of it. Like knowing he needed to go to the bathroom, but the pressure wasn’t quite there to force him, yet. Ranvir licked his lips, as he forced the pressure out.

It didn’t work.

The pressure kept building. He moved it out through the end of the tether, but that didn’t do anything either. “It doesn’t come out through the tether.” Ranvir told himself, not entirely sure if he was thinking or speaking out loud. “It’s like the pressure. I just need to let it out.”

Ranvir worked space in as large an area as he could, imagining the pressure flowing all over the space of his influence. It didn’t work. Space wasn’t excellent at huge scale efforts, like light was. Disciplines also weren’t related to the elements. They was an area within which a tethered could work their element.

“The exercises.” Ranvir realized. The banding training his exercise was based on had involved letting energy slip past the barriers of tether-space, at a thousand little places.

The pressure was growing painful now. He would either need to drastically increase the spin of his tether, to the point of exhaustion, or he would need to figure it out. The pain was beginning to resemble a migraine emanating from the back of his mind. But instead of being contained to his head, it carried down his neck and shoulders, into his chest and back.

Ranvir heard the quiet moan of pain, before he realized he’d let it out. With a flicker of intent, Ranvir let the pressure building in the tether through the walls of his tether-space. The pressure relieved as the energy seemed to flow away. Then it broke against the walls of his tether-space, adding a whole new sensation of pain.

“Something else, there must be something else.” Ranvir whined in pain and confusion, trying to solve the issue. He felt it, just on the edge of figuring it out. If the ritual broke he would be too exhausted to continue. At least, healthily.

“The Pressure.” Ranvir stopped, sensing the inflow of the old pressure. A way back and forth from tether-space already existed. He felt how it bridged the connection to actual tether-space, without putting him fully in the space. He felt how it pushed something else out, as it came rushing in. He hooked the new strain to the outflowing exchange.

Relief.

Immediately, the headache relieved itself and the stress flowed out of his body. The pain lessened and his breath eased. The ritual trance shivered and cracked, but didn’t quite break before stabilizing.

It was still an effort to maintain the exercise, but the flow within his tether had eased and he didn’t need to worry about maintaining the right energy flow, it did so on its own. He was vaguely aware that he felt his influence had changed slightly.

“Not important.” He told himself. Narrowing his focus, he started searching for ways to improve the exercise. Immediately, he saw that while it was incredibly stable, it also lacked much impact. He could probably do this for far longer than tether-stretch, but he would gain very little from it.

But he was trying to build up the power to break through to Veil. With a thought, he summoned two hands and a pair of tweezers. It didn’t work. He wasn’t in tether-space proper. His brows twitched downwards, the colorless haze within him flickered with a dark yellow annoyance before washing out.

Gritting his teeth, he forced his will onto his tether through the bridge of pressure. It felt as easy as when he did it in tether-space, but with less clarity. Like when he’d first been learning to write, the quill had felt odd and clumsy in his hand. With an effort, he strained against the loop, slowly trying to undo it.

The tether fought him immediately, but even gaining a millimeter increased the effect from the exercise. Every tiny bit towards a neutral tether made the exercise more effective.

And tougher.

Suddenly, the tether gave way for him, before it slackened entirely. Ranvir jerked as he was thrust out of his power entirely. Still disoriented from the sudden change in orientation as he went from aware, to tether-space, then back to aware, Ranvir started falling to the side.

It took an effort of will to push his hand out. It took even more effort to make the flopping limb actually support him. The smile on his face was completely unstoppable, though.

I did it! I figured it out!

He stopped twice while repacking the ritual supplies, because he had to do a little jig for joy.