Attunement

On some nights the Dreamer sends a vision to inform you of the past. While still from a distant memory, this dream attempts to prepare you for the future. From mist, the camera focuses on a small hangar, where a large engine is whirring to life, glowing with the pink-and-purple stormlight of the Drift. It’s a newer model, but perhaps twenty years behind what Lockette might recognize as the industry standard. Standing beside the associated terminal, an elderly Tien man is tinkering with a variety of tops, toys, and wooden blocks splayed around his table, his intense focus drowning out everything else around him. To his side, a small girl - no older than six or seven - stands on her tiptoes to view the scene, watching her grandfather with idle interest. While the two bear little physical resemblance, you can tell there is Tien in the little girl’s blood - the Haze shows us a father of Cormyrian descent, and a mother who shares many features with the man before us.   Jun: “Abelina.”   The little girl jumps, and finds her grandfather’s eyes now cast to her, as if woken from his slumber.   Abelina: “Yes, pa-paw?”   Jun: “What do you see?”   Abelina does not give an idle answer. That was trained out of her long ago. She focuses on the blocks and spheres, and through the Haze, we see what she sees.    Alignments. Little white lines between the shapes, connecting them in mysterious ways. If even one were to shift by the breadth of a hair, it would affect the entire structure - maybe even cause a total collapse. Eventually, Abelina’s eyes trail to the furthest item on the table - her grandfather’s glasses - which gathers up the energy from the lines and pours them all into the Drift Engine.   Abelina: “Lines. Energy. You’re tuning it?”   Jun: “[Huffs] You have your mother’s gift. Yes. I am tuning it.”   Abelina: “Can I try?”   The old man laughs and shakes his head.   Jun: “Not today. But I will begin to teach you, when you are older.”   The little girl frowns, but chooses not to reply. Although she does not see it, her grandfather - the legendary Drift Beacon Engineer, Jun Zhao - watches her carefully, and nods with approval.   Jun: “Haste does not serve an Alignmatist well, child. Never forget.”

Comments

Please Login in order to comment!