Issue 1 Downtime

Theresa was waiting at the entrance to the maze. Despite the fading light at this time of year, she was wearing sunglasses which managed to largely hide that her eyes were glowing until someone got close. There seemed to be some wisps of fog in the area, but nothing substantial.

Ryan had apparently been waiting and watching, as he came landing near her with a flap of wings that vanished into motes of light once he was securely on the ground. "Ah, good. So, Ms. McMasters, what can I do for you today."

"I... um... overdid it yesterday. Gave myself a headache. The headache's gone now, but I can't turn this off." She pulled off the glasses. Her eyes or what would normally be considered her eyes were not visible. Where her eyes should be was just energy in a weird shade of green.

Ryan nodded, studying the effect. "All right... First question, are your eyes still solidly there? Or are we looking at energy conversion?"

"I think they're still there," she said, "I can still feel them at least." Her tone was a little strained, like she was one bad accident short of a panic. She closed her eyes and the energy disappeared and she was able to touch her eyelids, which actually provided the resistance one would expect if there was an eye under them.

"All right," Ryan said calmly. "First thing is to relax. These things happen. What might make total sense to us if we knew what effects your power will have in the end could seem completely weird, or even scary at first. This is going to be all right, I promise."

As he said this, he turned his attention away from his vision and into his power, looking at her personal energy, looking to see if there was a blockage or unnatural buildup within her.

If anything, she seemed to have the flood gates open. "I've been able to turn this on before... I wrote about it in some of my journals. But I've always been able to turn it off." He began to notice the soft breeze that was moving the mist gently, moving it in a counter-clockwise motion with Theresa as its center. It might not have been noticeable had he not been analyzing her.

"What were you doing that gave you a headache?" he asked. "Might give us a clue how to get things calmed down again."

She seemed to have to think it through. Finally, the thought that the worst they could was send her home, where she'd have her power turned off anyways, she said slowly, "I... well... sort of... kind of... got into a fight with Regan."

Ryan smiled faintly. "Yeah, that would do it. I mean what exactly did you do with your power. Thunderstorm? Lightning bolt? Tornado?"

"Lightning bolts out of storm clouds. And... I think I caught myself from a fall with some wind, but I'm not sure. It was all happening so fast." She looked at the ground, even though her eyes were still closed.

"And has it led to any power accidents?" he asked, observing her carefully.

"A couple of uncalled for rain clouds, but I squashed those quickly."

He nodded. "All right. First... keep your eyes closed." His wings formed again, and, taking a few steps back, he gave one a powerful flap against the slowly rotating wind current (being careful not to flap any wind toward her). "Can you sense that?" He asked, trying to get a sense of how linked into the atmosphere she currently was.

"I feel something... pushing against me. It's hard to describe."

"Ever felt anything like it before?" Ryan asked, flapping a few more times and making sure that he wasn't blowing any air at her body.

"Like this? No. Why? What are you doing?"

"Open your eyes, take a look," he said, not stopping. "It looks like your headache came on... if I had to guess when you got yourself extremely in tune with the weather around you. You're exerting a mild control over the air right now, probably without even realizing it. How long have you been like this without the headache?"

"That I know of?" She did the math in her head, "At least eight hours. I took some of the headache medicine they prescribed me for the headaches the last time and went to bed. When I woke up, it was gone, but my eyes were still like this."

"All right. We've got a couple possibilities here. The first is that this is the natural next step of your power, with you getting more in-tune with the environment, and there's nothing for you to 'stop' doing. You're getting new sensory input through your powers, which could explain the headache easily. The second is that this is a level of your power that you just don't know how to turn off yet."

"I'm going to try to help you dial your power back. It's going to feel weird, but it can't hurt you. The worst that'll happen is that it just won't work, ok?"

"Okay," she said. "I'm ready whenever you are."

Ryan's own eyes glowed green (which is just an amusing coincidence) as he put his hand on her head, a green glow spreading from it. He could feel her energy within her, and for a moment he marveled again at the fact that, were he so inclined, he could pull it all out, or push more in. But this time, that wasn't what he was intending. He sent the barest trickle of power into her to sync himself up with her. "All right. Now I want you to just relax. Just feel it slowing down. Your power is spread out from you on all sides now, I want you to pictureit slowly sinking back into you." As he did that, he tried to slow the rush of her power, to help her learn what it felt like to have it close down again.

She took a deep breath and did as he said. The breeze slowly died down and then the mist began to evaporate. The energy in her eyes slowly faded, but didn't go away entirely, restrained to a duller green that didn't get past where her eyeballs should be. "Not seeing the patterns now," she said.

Ryan nodded. "Now... I want you to try to open it back up again. Just relax, remember that we can turn it back off, and try to open up like you just were."

She started ramping up again, the energy from her eyes flaring back to it's previous life. "Seeing the patterns again," she said. The mist and breeze did not return however.

"Good. You aren't making any subconscious effects on the weather this time, either. That might change if you keep it up like this, though, we don't know yet. All right, now dial it back down so we can make sure everything's leveled out for now."

She backed it down again, her eyes returning to the previous state of dull green energy. "Okay, patterns are gone again. Everything back to normal?"

"Your eyes are still glowing a little, but that might just be a constant thing now. I know you all hate when we say this, but these things happen."

"Could be worse. My hair could have turned white," she said with a half-smile.

Ryan grinned. "Well, the 'odd hair color' position isn't taken in your class yet. If this takes much longer we're going to have to slip one of you hair dye in your sleep."

"I've thought about it," she smirked. "But it just doesn't feel right."

"Well, just hope that you're a light sleeper, then," Ryan joked. "We take traditions seriously."

"So is everything else all right? Class isn't always the best place to ask that, I know."

"No. Things have been kind of rough and I've been..." She looked around for a moment, "Well, I've been a bit extra bitchy lately."

"Well, admitting you have a problem, first step and all that," Ryan said reasonably. "Anything you need to talk about?"

"Kind of a high school love life thing. Not sure it's the sort of thing you'd really want to hear about."

Ryan chuckled. "Well, it depends on if you want to talk about it. I... oh god, it makes me feel old saying this, but it's not like I wasn't there before. But you should probably talk to someone if it's causing problems like that for you."

"Well, I was going out with Kay. Then she and I had a fight. And now... hell... I don't know what now. That's what Regan was hassling me about when we got into a fight."

"Ah. One of those."

"And did this fight ever really end? Or are we talking a 'cold war, strategic alliances, uneasy silence everywhere' situation?"

"It felt kind of final at the time. Now I think I've managed to alienate just about everyone, Kay's taken up with Christie, I think Brigid's trying to ride the fence, and I still have no idea what Regan's problem is. Was it like this when you were in high school?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Ryan admitted. "Has one of you tried apologizing? I mean, I know I'm talking about drastic measures here, but, it could happen."