"So imagine your in a nice bed, but it was really hot that night so you threw the covers off and you were just wrapped in the top sheet," I said, trying to analyze what it felt like as we walked. "Or, maybe that's not quite right, because it's kind of tight and loose at the same time. Hm. It's sort of a curtain that is everywhere but actually nowhere? Or, do I just call it a fabric? It's just a thin film that separates the. . . I've been calling them layers and I think that's right, but this film only leads to the Aether. . . Why doesn't it connect to any other layers? Why can't I go to. . . I don't know, a cognitive mind layer between dreams and waking? Why just Aether. . ?"

  "Um, what?" Zerrious said simply. He was a genius, certified certainly with his litany of Names, so it had to be a genuinely terrible description or a stupid complex topic to confuse him.

  I wasn't sure exactly how I did it though, I just kind of. . . did. "Hold on, I need a moment," I said, slipping into the Aether and paying close attention to how I did it. I could feel the Aether on both sides responding to me reaching to the other layer, as I slid my hand through the Aether on my side of the cloth it was coated in the energy and I was able to pull at the fabric, but it didn't look like I was pulling, more that it just felt that way, even as space contorted around me trying collapse into the void I had just opened and forced to stay in place with my ability to stabilize the reality in the Aether to pull physical reality with me.

  I didn't fully understand how I did that either, but one thing at a time.

  The Aether on the other side of the cloth gathered where my hand was trying to pierce the veil and it was consumed as I pulled open the curtain and stepped through, forcing physical reality to follow me, although this time I recognized that whenever I interacted with the fabric of reality my hand was coated in Aether. I tried mixing in the reality stuff that still needed a name to make Mana and tried to use that to interact with the fabric dividing Zerrious and I, but it didn't work, I couldn't touch it. I could feel it, but I couldn't interact with it.

  That led to the question: What is Aether? I combined it with the reality stuff and I could cast spells, but if I didn't it wouldn't have a real effect on the world like it would with Mana. If I left it as Aether than it could interact with the fabric of reality, but it couldn't if I mixed in the reality stuff. Yes it's just the properties of the stuff, but why?

  As my science teachers always said, the only question in science that really matters is why.

  Aether was lighter, I could feel that. Mana felt more visceral, wild, prone to action. Aether was kind of the same, but it felt more controlled, more. . . thoughtful? I couldn't tell what the difference was, not in words, but I could feel that they were different in the ways they moved even if they moved the same ways.

  Ugh, all these opposites happening at the same time were starting to hurt my head on top of holding up reality around me in this odd place of. . . "Hm. There is no reality here, I'm bringing that. But something is here, this place has a purpose without me coming here. There's Aether here, but my world doesn't have it bleeding into physical reality and making Mana, and I was quite sure the physics were exactly the same otherwise, and I had heard of this layer stuff back home, but there it was an unprovable theory because. . . I don't know, they were too far away? So here the Aether is just closer. . . Or maybe not just closer, but almost touching, hell, maybe they are touching and that's where the bleed is coming from. Still doesn't help me. Maybe Zerrious can figure it out a bit better."

  So, now I had to somehow teach Zerrious how to separate his Mana into Aether, which I also didn't actually know how I did that back when I had Mana, and now it's just automatically filtered out of my center. I didn't think it was something you could just do by focusing, but this was more firmly on the magic side of things, even if, at it's core, this was just energy which I was the leading expert on. Oh god how sad a world it was where I was the leading expert in. . . anything.

  I gathered the Aether back on my hand and pulled aside the fabric separating the two layers, and as I stepped through the veil, I could feel it. These worlds weren't touching, they weren't separated at all. It felt like the layer was poorly grafted on, like someone lost a hand and a cadaver hand was used in place of the original, an ugly scar separating two clearly different fleshes. I had no idea how it happened, but I could feel that it did, and I knew that this weird fusing was why magic existed on this world.

  I finished stepping through and took note that sun had fallen in the sky a little more. Time was hard to tell when reality was so fluid, it could be lit however it needed to be there no matter the time of day so I tended to loose track. I had gotten a step closer to understanding what this strange layer was, but I hadn't made too much headway on actually being able to teach the skills I had in this area.

  "Did you figure it out? We kind of need to figure something out. I've noticed that there are a few gangs territories we passed through. I don't want to be caught here after sundown, even if we can fight them off," Zerrious asked nervously as he glanced at the sky which was quickly darkening as dusk approached at speed.

  "Uh, I think so? We'll stay there either way, but I think I figured out how to open the way. I want you to coat your hand in. . . actually lets start by trying to separate your Mana. I want you to pull a strand of Mana into your hand and focus on it, then I want you to try to pull it apart. Let me see if I can show you," I said, rambling slightly in a whispered tone as I tried not to give away all of my secrets to anyone who just so happened to be bored nearby.

  I pulled the Aether from my center, using just a single page and mixing it with the reality stuff to make Mana. I held it in a small ball that spun in my hand with the green that marked it as mine, which also seemed important to understanding all of this. Why was Zerrious' Mana a dark red while mine was green? Obviously mine had changed some after marriage, but that was more to do with a combining of souls than the innate properties of Mana.

  I tried to just focus on separating them in my palm by pulling with my mind, focusing and trying to find a mental grip that would let me separate the halves but I didn't know how to do it without a filter like my body. I thought of other ways people would separate things after a few moments of fruitless effort. I knew if you let things sit they would eventually separate by density, and I knew that even as technically equal energies reality stuff had a greater magical "density" in the physical world, though it seemed more nebulous in the Aether. Unfortunately the nature of Mana kept it mixing itself constantly so that wouldn't work.

  There was another way though, a faster way people used. It was more in the realm of science than I was used to working, but I remembered if you spun something around fast enough it would naturally separate, even these forces would at some point, right?

  "One second, sorry. I'm still trying to figure this out myself," I said as I started to spin the ball in a slow circle around the palm of my hand, slowly picking up speed until eventually the energies sprung apart. It didn't feel like I lost control, but the Aether flew off in a cloud only I could see and the reality stuff made the air seem heavier for a moment as it dispersed and I was left with a small sphere of a third energy. "What the fuck?"

  There was a deep green ball spinning slowly in my palm. It seemed to have similar properties to the reality stuff but it was definitely different. First, I had way more control over this stuff. I admit I was decent at weaving Aether, Mana, even the reality stuff, but this was way easier, and it really wanted to go back to my center.

  I let it seep back into my center and I could feel my control over what was in my center grow for a moment before another page was added and equilibrium was brought back to my center. I had a feeling this was the, well, to keep consistent I called it me stuff, that would give me control over the energies I used. That explained why each persons Mana looked different, they had a unique energy mixed in that made each persons Mana theirs and theirs alone. While that was cool, that just made it harder to teach Zerrious to use Aether, because now he had to separate it while leaving his me stuff in at least the Aether, which I could feel would be the hardest part to keep mixed together.

  I tried a number of times but the Mana either didn't separate or it separated too much and left me with a sphere of me stuff that I couldn't do anything with. I made a note to experiment more, but at the moment it left me with no way to teach Zerrious. Unless. . . If he could make a sphere of his me stuff (damn I needed a new name for that too, this was getting ridiculous) and I supplied the Aether without any of my me stuff mixed in, he could probably take control of it and use it. I'd teach him how to open the fabric first, then I'd try to give him some Aether to hold and try it out. The sun was starting to go down, but if this didn't work I would just hold open the fabric and bring him in myself.

  "Okay, I'm going to teach you how to open the way to the Aether first, then I'm going to try to give you the Aether to do it. For some reason this only works with Aether, not Mana," I said, finally breaking from my experimentation to look up and see an increasingly nervous Zerrious watching me with interest but silently begging me to hurry up. "This wont take long I promise. Coat your hand in Mana, don't use any spells or any sort of specific weaves, just put it on your hand like water."

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  Zerrious complied, having to restart several times as his Mana kept trying to form patterns around his hands. Mine didn't do that, must have something to do with his me stuff, each persons seemed to be unique after all. After he managed to get an even coating without any knots or weaves I told him to simply reach out and try to feel the scar between the layers.

  "I can feel something, but it doesn't feel like a scar, more like a sheet, or a cloak," Zerrious said, his worry at the time clearly forgotten in his wonder at this unheard of skill.

  "Right, I called it a scar because. . . Well it kind of feels like that's what it is? It's hard to explain because I don't really have any theories that make sense yet, but. . . Yeah I should have just called it a sheet like before. Doesn't matter what I call it, you can feel it?"

  "Yes, but I can't grab it like you said. Earlier you said you just kind of pull it back?" I didn't see the Aether gathering on the other side of the scar so I knew nothing would happen of this attempt, but feeling it was the hard part. Actually, once you got used to feeling it you kind of couldn't stop feeling it, so that wasn't really right. "Actually, I can kind of feel it all around me now that I know what I'm looking for. It's not as obvious, but I can pick it out, like a breeze on my skin." What a wonderful way to put it. I was going to steal that if I ever taught Nyah, or anyone else. It seemed unlikely, but it was entirely possible I'd want to teach more people.

  "Right, now that you can feel it let's try to get you some Aether. Unfortunately you can't do this on your own until I can figure out how to separate it right, but I can help you learn. Get a ball of the red stuff that you get when you separate everything out," I said, making a ball of green Aether above my own hand as the red seemed to bleed and grow from his hand like a sanguine flower while mine just kind of unfolded into being. He separated his out and ended up with the useless red ball hovering above his hand. I brought my Aether close to his and started spinning it around his ball. Since the Aether was lighter it would separate inward and since it wanted to spread explosively at least some of it would collide with Zerrious' me stuff and get mixed in.

  When it separated Zerrious fully understood the assignment and trapped the Aether in a bubble of the red stuff and it quickly became more airy, like a particularly heavy raincloud. His stuff seemed way cooler than mine, I got wispy paper, he got evolving blood, this seemed incredibly unfair. Regardless, it worked perfectly and Zerrious had to carefully coat his hand just like the first time and he pulled at the scar, violently ripping open a hole into the layer beyond physical reality. I instinctually reached out with my mind to stabilize the reality beyond, but I forcibly let my mind relax. I'd be okay, I'd fought the Aether on my wedding day, this was a calm way to learn comparatively, though I stayed on edge in case Zerrious was too slow.

  "Okay, now's the hard part!" I shouted over the howling of reality and oblivion warring in front of us. "You need to let go of the cloth and hold it with your mind! Then all you have to do is stretch the reality through the opening and hold it!" That was confusing. There wasn't a good way to put it to words, you just kind of pulled the reality with you, and you kind of had to force the Aether to be okay with that too. Shit.

  "Oh is that all?" Zerrious yelled gutturally as he tried to do as I described to no avail. I gave him a bit of a nudge, stabilizing the area in front of him some to give him an idea what it felt like. After that he clumsily followed suit, making the Aether just stable enough to exist in without ceasing to be. I went through with my superior practice and better connection to this layer and rounded everything off. It seemed Zerrious had pictured a system of caves with glowing rocks that seemed to dance like flames. It was very ethereal, kind of how I described the properties of the place. I guess I hadn't quite gotten to describing what reality was actually like once it was here.

  "That was hard," Zerrious said. I could feel he let go of the reality around him, and if I wasn't there he would have been gone just like that. I let it go a little unstable and he panicked, placing his mind firmly on the area around him.

  "You can't stop making sure reality stays around you here, that's why I haven't slept in here yet, I need to stay awake while I'm in here. You can sleep while I hold this up, but this doesn't seem very comfortable. Something I failed to tell you about was one of the main perks of this space. This place is super malleable, and since we are the only ones here and we are the ones sort of making this place, it can be whatever we want. Close your eyes and imagine we are standing in a cabin with the most comfortable beds you can imagine."

  I closed my eyes and let my control over the area drop, letting Zerrious take full control of the area which seemed to want to move a lot more as soon as I took my hand off the scale. When we opened them we were standing in spots of stone from the cave but everything else was different, redwood floors and walls with a massive bed tucked to one side of the room, a big cozy chair by the fireplace that cracked like lightning, and a window with light rain outside. That last bit was a nice touch.

  I took full control and settled into the big chair to try and think about the natures of the odd energies I had found and analyzed prior. "You can sleep, I'll keep this up and we'll head back out in the morning," I said. Hopefully I'd have more figured out by morning.

  "Where will you sleep, you said someone has to stay awake, right?" Zerrious asked innocently.

  "I wont. I have some more stuff to think about and you'll need your strength for tomorrow if your going to go hunting for more Names," I responded lightly, sitting down and already starting my contemplation.

  Zerrious hesitated for a moment, staring at the look on my face before just climbing into the bed and falling asleep almost immediately, easily succumbing to the comfort of a bed after all of our time in the woods. I was tired too, especially after all the time I'd been awake and trying to figure out the mysteries of the universe, but my mind was still racing. I had no idea where to go with this train of thought, I just felt like I had to think.

  I used a few pages of Aether from my center which was quickly replenished tenfold and considered it, watching the flows of the energy, both the stuff under my control and the Aether flowing freely about this layer, gathering and clumping up before dissipating and growing thin in places. The energy did seem drawn to certain things, kind of like it was drawn to me when I was pulling open the Aether. I reached out with a hand coated in the energy and brushed the scar between the layers, and the free flowing Aether gathered about me as I channeled the energy around my hand, almost like it was begging for something to happen there.

  Maybe it wanted to escape into physical reality. It was restless, it wanted action but there was nothing to act on here, so it had a taste for action as Mana and desired to return to that state where things could change, where action could exist. That made sense to me, an energy that wanted to be used as all energy was. It could not be created or destroyed but always wanted to be consumed, to change states and shapes and it wanted to move.

  Zerrious had explained that the basics of Mana was that it was the energy of change, it was the means by which everything changed, but that wasn't true, I knew that wasn't true. Things changed all the time back in the world I was born in and there was no Mana to speak of. The Aether surely exists, but it can't mix in with the reality stuff like it does on this world. Maybe he meant that Mana was the energy of unexplainable change, but that doesn't really make sense as a base philosophy to teach, especially if they have an idea of what Mana is already.

  I pulled my hand away, letting the Aether I had coated my hand in seep into the environment which was overrun with the stuff. I watched the Aether for a long time, watching as it gathered in clumps and then moved away to some other place, seemingly without pattern. It was everywhere always, but it seemed odd that it wanted to clump up like that. Generally from what I knew energy wanted to spread out as evenly as possible, energy didn't really clump up in a void like this, not without some outside influence. If you heated up an empty room you wouldn't get random flames popping up in random spaces in the room, the entire area would heat up mostly evenly unless something was there to draw the heat in, to force it to clump up in one place.

  So what was drawing in the Aether? It wasn't on this side of the scar, at least I didn't think so. I hadn't found anything other than the odd energy on this side, just like I hadn't seen anything other than physical reality on the other side. Sure, it was a bit more complicated than that, but at base it was all just physical reality with influences from other layers. So, if other layers had an influence, like with the Gods, or with perhaps the mind, with these layers so closely interconnected, so intertwined, what effect did they have on each other? It had to be far more pronounced here than it was where I was born, and not just with the mixing of energies and the possibility of magic, something more, but not that much more or I would have noticed it before.

  I would probably have to figure more out on the other side of the scar and I was incredibly tired with how eventful my day had been. I yawned heavily and pulled up Zerrious' system messages that I had ignored when they first came up. I had noticed things try to pop up in my vision several times throughout the teaching process but had dismissed them in leu of more focus while I was trying to figure out how to actually teach the skills.

  Notice!

  Skill gained: Aetherwalk.

  Notice!

  Skill gained: Energy Component Separation.

  Sometimes it was nice to see Zerrious get system messages from skills I taught him, it helped me know that I also have that skill, even if a Name doesn't ever manifest. That second ability seemed interesting. From the name of it it would be a much more general skill than I used it for, but upon further inspection it could only be used on energy formed of components and the only thing I knew of that truly fit that description of different types of energy mixing like that was Mana, as confirmed by the system.

  I relaxed into the chair, looking over to the bed to see Zerrious awake and watching me with interest.

  "Morning sunshine," I said awkwardly as he pulled himself from the folds of the covers. "Sleep well?"

  "I did. I think we should find somewhere for you to sleep now, you look exhausted," Zerrious insisted.

  "No, I think it's time to go find Dave."