[Flashback] The Third Eye

[Hadrian]

1st Fall, 506 A.V.

With this term's books in hand, Hadrian found himself a carrel desk at the library. He looked at the line of doors that led to private study nooks with some longing, but those were reserved for the advanced, upper level students and he just was not at their level of seniority yet even though he was widely regarded as a rising star of their department. He could be patient, though; sometimes. He would bide his time, continue to excel, and then he would take his place there with the popular, slightly older students.

But for now, Auristics 101 with Professor Oslie. At the top of his stacks was her book, required reading, and he wondered if the university had a policy about professors assigning their own books. He decided it must be a tricky thing, since the University would have to admit that all its professors were qualified individuals or they wouldn't be there. But there was something a little fishy about forcing students to give a professor more money in order to increase sales of their books. Well, at least Oslie had only assigned the one. The rest of the auristics texts were by other authors. This always pleased Hadrian, who knew that there were always several different perspectives on any one idea. He liked to be informed.

Opening her book, he scanned the information, but despite his intention only to skim the surface, he was pulled in as always. The book was basic, explaining the energetic fields surrounding living creatures, especially sentient races. Other texts dealt with objects, of course, and they would get to that. Here, though, he read about the meaning of colors and how to read a person's personality based on them. But it was still written in broad terms, much like divining a person's nature using only the placement of Syna in their astrological natal charts. Broad strokes.

Then combinations of colors brought more complexity, and patterns of colors still more. He read about gauging health and emotional condition based on the strength of the aura, how the colors closest to the body were the more ingrained personality traits, while those that flickered and danced around the edges related more to fleeting moods.

Professor Oslie, with her twinned gnosis marks from Rak'keli, was a healer and in her work, Hadrian could see the beginnings of how she used her auristics as a diagnostic tool.

Finally he came to a section with exercises to awaken the sight and he couldn't help himself. He wanted to be ahead of the class when it started. Memorizing the procedure, he flipped the book to a blank page and held his hand in front of the whiteness and let his eyes relax into a soft focus. The first thing he noticed was the optical illusion, the false aura. Instead, he began to meditate with his eyes open, pulling energy up from the earth and letting it awaken each of his power centers, stringing it through himself and out, up into the heavens. Then he pulled energy down from above and snaked it through those same power centers until he had those two opposing and complementary power sources lighting him up.

Then he focused on the wheel of indigo energy at his brow, controlled his breathing, and imagined a two-petaled flower blooming, a third eye opening.

As luck would have it, he Saw.

Such was his shock that he shuddered out of trance. While he was well-informed of the basic lore, never had a personal magic come so easily. Giddy, he flipped the pages of the book to where he had left off. There were other ways to use the Sight and not all of them piggybacked on the visual apparatus. He read about sensing auras through the hands, and other means.

So pleased was he by his immediate breakthrough, that he forgot his other classes for the moment and opened up the next book on auristics. One might as well go with what was working while one could.

[Liminal]

+1 XP Auristics