Chapter Text
It's so pretty, Nadia thinks. The adra is warm beneath her fingers, and she only rests her hand against it for a moment before snatching it away. But the formation remains still and serene, a green, glittering, arching thing that twists into fantastic patterns and stretches between too-tall trees in a network of adra coiled throughout the valley. Unusual even for the Living Lands, Dherys says. Something is different about this valley.
Hesitantly, Nadia extends her hand again, and this time, she leaves it resting against the green stone. She feels only the pressure of it against her fingers, only the warmth.
Dherys and Ascdala laugh together, somewhere behind her, but Nadia doesn't want to share this, all of a sudden. She doesn't want to listen to her mentor explain, doesn't want to argue, doesn't want to hear criticism of her technique. She wants to stay here with the green, green stone, because she has the strange, fleeting thought that it would make for better company than anyone she knows. She wants to stay here and listen to it, even though it has nothing to say.
Yet.
One day, Dherys says, if Nadia learns how to listen to the deepest parts of kith thoughts, if she learns how to delve through the outer edges of a soul's shell into the profound nexus underneath, she might be able to listen to the adra too. Might be able to delve into something fathomless and see what lies beneath.
But first, Nadia thinks, pulling away from the adra and turning back to her mentor with a sigh, she has to learn.