[Sparks arc and the tingle heightens, but it's not precisely the comforting kind. There's a shake in Kratos's next exhale, but he follows it with another breath. Right now, having the breathing to focus on is all that keeps him stable. Surely it's impossible Yuan has missed the tension in his back.
[He sends a distracted, grim apology, something between give me a minute and sorry to keep you waiting, and behind it, a sense of being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
[It isn't a request for help, though; just for the patience Yuan has learned from helping to raise some children. Kratos keeps breathing, paying only mild attention to what's happening around him. Somewhere in that time, Lloyd's hand relaxes around his, and the room takes on that gentle stillness of sleep, highlighted by the scratch of Botta's quill.
[In this time, Kratos observes his mana as objectively as he can manage; the feel of it, the tension it's wrought in him just to observe. Eventually the mana in his hand heightens, matching Yuan's pattern, and their hands crackle before settling into a similar sort of glow. Kratos's wavers between shape and substance, a glove and a filament; but it's there, though Kratos's breathing grows ragged in trying to maintain it.
[The worst thing is, he can't tell if the difficulty is due to the catch Yuan noticed in his mana, or something entirely in his head. How can he fix it, when he doesn't know the cause?]
no subject
[He sends a distracted, grim apology, something between give me a minute and sorry to keep you waiting, and behind it, a sense of being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
[It isn't a request for help, though; just for the patience Yuan has learned from helping to raise some children. Kratos keeps breathing, paying only mild attention to what's happening around him. Somewhere in that time, Lloyd's hand relaxes around his, and the room takes on that gentle stillness of sleep, highlighted by the scratch of Botta's quill.
[In this time, Kratos observes his mana as objectively as he can manage; the feel of it, the tension it's wrought in him just to observe. Eventually the mana in his hand heightens, matching Yuan's pattern, and their hands crackle before settling into a similar sort of glow. Kratos's wavers between shape and substance, a glove and a filament; but it's there, though Kratos's breathing grows ragged in trying to maintain it.
[The worst thing is, he can't tell if the difficulty is due to the catch Yuan noticed in his mana, or something entirely in his head. How can he fix it, when he doesn't know the cause?]