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// The Thinker 
// Story: Wrathborne 
// by EsotericPhantasm 
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	It was awfully quiet after Quinoa and her fellow equines left as Sweet Dreams just stood there looking at me. I wasn’t sure if she just didn’t know what to say or thought whatever she wanted to say would make things worse. Her troubled countenance seemed to hint towards the latter.

I wasn’t doing much better. What was I supposed to say? Sorry I don’t want to stop some invasion force from destroying your city, town or whatever they had? What if they had some sort of compulsion or coercion magic tied into my summoning? Wouldn’t any self-respecting practitioner of magic do that when summoning something unknown as I clearly was? That certainly wouldn’t endear me to them but it would be the smart thing to do. I’ll just have to wait and see.

Deciding to just relax a bit I sat down on the floor Indian style to get more comfortable since there weren’t any seats in the room. It also made it easier to reposition Midna in my arms who was still sleeping. I guess I had at least one thing going for me. I needed time to think and now was a good a time as any.

If I was supposed to be used as a weapon of war, could what I went through before getting here have empowered me somehow? I do feel different in an incredible way as if I could feel my own bio-electricity.

Wait, that’s not just my imagination. I did feel something. It reminds me of how some animals really do sense bio-electricity such as the shark, or how birds can sense the earth’s magnetic field. It was as if I had been given an extra sense. I was starting to be able to perceive this Flow in myself as well as my surroundings. It was like the difference between colors and music notes but similar at the same time in that there were different ‘notes’ or what I’ve dubbed Flow.

It was everywhere and seemed to emanate from everyone in the room as well as interact and mingle with the Flow that seemed to be pervasive and constant throughout the room. It was like everyone had a personal field that interacted with a ubiquitous one. It wasn’t as if I could hear it, feel it, taste it or see it. Just as each sense is distinct and adds a whole new dimension for interacting and experiencing the world so too was this sense of Flow.

I’ll probably be able to have this new sense interact with my other ones just like how you can both hear and feel vibrations, or see what’s producing the noise. I’m sure there is a way to create a visual representation just like you can with sound, heat and x-rays.

I decided to focus on Sweet Dreams and could ‘feel’ the Flow more concentrated on her wings and eyes. It’s much like how the human brain uses the most oxygen consumption in the body compared to any other organ. I could now tell how this sense interacted with my sight since I could tell the distance between us with both my eyes as well as my newer sense. Her Flow seemed to be both self-generated as well as feeding on the ubiquitous Flow around her.

Well the best way to understand what you’re sensing is to figure out more differences between things such as smoothness versus roughness or brightness versus dimness. With that goal in mind I moved on to focusing on Midna. It seems the Flow wasn’t concentrated on any particular part like it was with Sweet Dreams. What was interesting though was that the Fused Shadow seemed to have a personal Flow of its own as if it were a separate being. I guess there was more to it than just being part of living beings.

With Midna being in my arms I got a better awareness of how these personal Flow fields interacted when close to each other.

The best way to describe it would be two people with a small field of wind whipping around them. When they get close the wind in each person’s field will intermingle but will only blow around the other person and not really intermingle with the other person at all. There probably are exceptions since I still don’t understand much of how this Flow works but it seems that’s its default state.

What about differences in intensity? There are louder sounds and brighter lights so perhaps that would apply here. But where to look for this greater or lesser aspect? How can I measure it? If it was similar to color I probably wouldn’t be able to tell without sampling a better variety. But color simply has to do with the wavelength of light once it bounces off an object and nothing to do with how intense the light is.

Perhaps it’s harder to tell when the Flow is in a default state as I’m sensing now. Could a higher intensity hurt me? It’s not like I can stop sensing it, as far as I can tell, like closing my eyes when I look at the sun or plugging my ears at an air horn. It would be similar to trying to stop feeling the vibrations of the subwoofer speaker that’s rocking the whole house, which doesn’t usually harm you so hopefully not.

It’s most likely that there’s a way to increase the Flow emanations and that can be used to better determine the difference. Wait a minute. I already did sense a larger concentration in Sweet Dreams’ Flow when looking at her overall. I could use that difference as a base to measure intensity with. I just need to pay more attention. Hopefully it’s not as hard as finding Waldo in sea of faces.

That’s it! I would like to take a look at some other samples but hopefully the three, or four if you count the Fused Shadow piece, should be enough to get started. Oh, and the universal Flow should count as well.

Hmm, the difference seems to be a little harder than I thought. In Sweet Dreams it’s more concentrated and ordered but the universal Flow is far more intense and wild. When Sweet Dreams’ Flow assimilates the universal one nothing seems to be detracted, and it seems to only make up for the emanations she gives off. I’m sure there’s more to it since you can’t measure pH level by tasting a liquid or how much something weighs by just looking at it.

The difference between beings with Flow might be simpler to gauge. Oh? Well, that’s interesting. It seems that Midna, the Fused Shadow and I all aren’t assimilating the universal Flow at all. There are less emanations as well and yet there doesn’t seem to be a decrease in concentration at all. It’s almost like looking at a sun that can’t die but still gives off light and energy. I have no idea what the significance of that is.

What about the concentration levels between Sweet Dreams and I? Huh... okay… holy crap! It’s like trying to gauge the weight difference between a feather and an elephant. Sure it’s there but do you really need it? I say I do since it’s obviously important.

It will take me awhile to get used to this Flow sense in order to really measure it properly. Plus I need more samples. The difference between Midna, the Fused Shadow and I is like measuring a baby a young child and an adult football player with me as the football player and Midna as the baby.

If this concentration has anything to do with power I can’t help thinking it. My power level, it’s over nine-thousand!

I smiled a bit at that thought, which seemed to cause Sweet Dreams to relax just a bit.

Back to my musings. It could be Flow concentration has more to do with ability to manipulate it. After all, one thing is almost certain. If you can sense something you can manipulate it. I’ll need a sample of Quinoa to make any judgments on that.

There probably is a lot of subtlety that I’m missing since I’ve only just started. It’s possible that the people here call this Flow I’m sensing ‘magic’. The fact that it’s more concentrated in Sweet Dreams’ wings than to other parts of her attests to that fact since regular aerodynamics wouldn’t allow her to fly. I haven’t seen her fly but I’m willing to bet she does. It wouldn’t be that strange at this point.

If the Flow has to do with using ‘magic’ I probably can use it. That’s probably what my whole ordeal getting here was for in order for me to be their ultimate weapon. At least, that’s the most logical conclusion. I guess I’ll just call it magic since they do. It doesn’t really describe it but it would probably be simpler to use their own terminology when talking to them.

Before I could start trying to figure out how to, or even if I could, manipulate magic I sensed a more ordered and extra concentration of it interacting with the room’s door before it quickly swung open.