"That," Edward said, "is a longer conversation."
Alice held his gaze. "I'm aware."
A beat of quiet stretched between them. Edward studied her with the same flat, assessing expression he leveled at everything. Then, before he could speak again:
"Wait…" she abruptly requested. "I'm not the only one."
Seraphine was coming back across the field at a pace that was not quite running. Her robes caught the last of the dusk light as she closed the distance, and when she finally stopped beside Alice, her chest was rising and falling a little faster than usual.
She straightened. Met his eyes. "Coach… I'd also like to learn… Please."
Edward looked between them as they stood rigidly before him. He was quiet long enough that the silence started getting uncomfortable.
Then a deep sigh left him… and with it, his face softened.
"...Alright." He glanced between them once more. "You are my student's lovers. I'll do him this one favor. As long as I remain here, I'll train you on the side." He paused. "How does that sound?"
"I don't mind." Alice's acceptance was immediate. She wasn't shameless enough to ask for more anyway.
Seraphine also nodded in relief.
"Good." He nodded once in return. "I also want to say… the fact that you came forward to ask, after having seen how I work... that takes courage. Both of you."
He turned to Seraphine.
"Especially you. I had you marked as someone content to remain a healer. It seems I underestimated you."
Seraphine's hands folded in front of her. When she spoke, the usual buoyancy in her voice took on a more honest candor. "I don't want to hold them back... and I know what I already have isn't enough."
Edward's expression held for a moment. Then he smiled. "Then we will work on that."
He gestured toward the stone bench at the garden's edge and settled onto the grass across from it. Alice took the bench. Seraphine sat beside her.
"Before I can build anything useful," Edward began, "I need a general picture of where you stand. Styles, abilities… and so on. Reveal what you're comfortable revealing. I won't press for more than you're willing to give."
He paused.
"There is one exception. If you possess any ability related to memory… anything that affects how you retain and process information, I strongly advise you to at least acknowledge its existence. You don't have to explain it in full. But if something like that is present and I build your training plan without accounting for it, everything I give you will be pointed in the wrong direction."
Alice spoke first.
"I have a skill of that nature. It functions similarly to a memory palace." She folded her hands in her lap. "As for my style, I built most of my combat approach around the constructs I designed."
"But that was before…" her eyes gleamed. "After I reached the Sixth Step, I acquired another skill. It builds a comprehensive profile of a chosen subject… allowing me to observe and annotate their movement patterns, physical habits, and tendencies no matter how hard and impossible they seem. And over time, I'm able to approach their level of proficiency in body arts."
Edward didn't interrupt despite hearing such an outrageous claim.
"The target I set," Alice said, "was Ashen."
She said it as if it were the most obvious choice.
Edward nodded.
Inwardly, the picture his vision painted was considerably more interesting than his expression suggested. What he saw, layered beneath the surface of the composed woman before him, was her conceptual seed… and what it was doing.
It was cradling his student's seed.
It wasn't consuming or overwriting it… It was just... holding it in a gentle manner, like a patient, tolerant lover would hold their significant other.
His student's seed was a chaotic thing. It was full of restlessness.. layered with competing tensions, but hers had simply wrapped itself around it, accepting the chaos as a given, as if it had long decided that this was precisely where it belonged.
'What a particular Lust pathway skill… capturing the benefit while deflecting whatever complications the contact might otherwise cause. Clever.'
"Understood," he said.
Seraphine went next.
She was a little more nervous about it, gathering herself first, as if deciding how much to lay down on the table and in what order.
"I can heal," she began. "Small wounds, significant wounds, and in cases of amputation, as long as the injury is still fresh, I can reattach limbs with full recovery." She said this matter-of-factly. "I can cure diseases. I can also purify corruption, contamination, and degraded soil." She smiled. "The purified earth on this land was my work."
Edward's brow rose slightly at that.
Seraphine tapped a finger to her chin. "And I'm… quite empathic, I'd say. I read people's emotions well."
She was being careful here, Edward noted. What she was describing probably had the shape of something larger that she was choosing not to fully outline. He respected that. He hadn't asked for full disclosure; she was giving him the silhouette of a thing rather than the thing itself. Fair enough.
"As for memory-related abilities…" She tilted her head, expression turning thoughtful. "I'm not sure if this counts?"
She held out her hand, and a faint luminescence gathered, followed by the description of the second second she had recently acquired aside from Katharsis.
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Vouch of Longing
Replace or massively augment a required proof, witness, or emotional catalyst for a phenomenon by investing personal longing toward the benefit of a named target. The invested longing is transmuted into a recognized proof: rituals accept it, wards register it as genuine intent, but it works best with healing or empowerment.
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The description held for a moment, then dissolved.
Seraphine lowered her hand and looked at him with an uncertain expression.
She recognized that the skill had some value, but the problem was that she couldn't make heads or tails of it.
But at least she knew that the proof of phenomena that the skill was replacing was just a set amount of information that an individual had to memorize normally.
Vouch of Longing seemed to be able to bypass this, so she decided to show it in hopes that her new teacher would help her understand it.
Edward stared at the space where the text had been.
Then he let a snort that soon turned into a hearty laugh.
"That," he said with delight, "is exactly what I was looking for."
Seraphine blinked. Then her expression broke into a wide, relieved grin.
Alice said nothing, but she was most definitely interested from her lingering eyes.
Edward straightened, the laughter settling back into his usual composure. He looked between them for a moment, taking in what they'd each given him, running it against whatever internal architecture he used for such things.
"Meet me here tomorrow," he said finally. "I'll have your training frameworks ready by then."
He rose from the grass and turned toward the tree under which he apparently lived.
"You're both dismissed."
Seraphine stood and immediately turned to Alice with an expression of barely contained excitement. Alice glanced at her sidelong.
"Don't," Alice said.
Seraphine mouthed we did it!
"Don't."
She mouthed it again.
Alice turned away first, which Seraphine appeared to take as a victory.