Astris is an unseen yet omnipresent current that binds all things, living or otherwise. It naturally leaks from their forms in varying amounts.
Yuzuriha recounted what she had been taught by her older sister Marcille and her assistant, Sawatari, who wasn't doing a very good job at being one.
'I don't know what type of an assistant she's supposed to be, but she was far from it!'
Her lips twitched into a pout as her fingers tightened around Grace's hand. The dear neighbor was gently leading her up the winding stairs of her apartment. Yuzuriha had no idea where they were going but if it had to do with potion crafting then it had to be some kind of lab or study room.
But that wasn't the focus right now. She was still grumbling over what an assistant should be.
'An assistant, by every reasonable, moral, and professional standard is supposed to assist, but Sawatari is the exact opposite of that!'
Ichiji Hyoma would have never treated her like this. Back when she was a CEO at Ichimonji International in her previous life, the man Ichiji had been the perfect assistant for her. Always one step ahead, calendar in sync, coffee always on her desk by 7 am sharp.
That man was a machine.
Yuzuriha will never forget the permanent shadows under his eyes as he read out her schedule for the day. Or the caffeine jitters that made his fingers tremble every time he passed her coffee.
Or that one time he briefly blacked out during a presentation, face first into her beautifully knitted office rug, only to pop back up and apologize a moment after.
That's right. Ichiji Hyoma was a real assistant, a terrifyingly efficient one at that. But in hindsight…possibly dying?
Wait a minute. Now that she thought about it…
'Huh, maybe something was wrong there'
Yuzuriha lingered on that for a moment before Grace's voice pulled her out of it and back into the present.
"Yor, how's your astris training coming along? I heard from your sister that she's been helping you use it to replace your lost sight"
It was a casual question, one that's easy enough to answer but remember that Yuzuriha only started this training yesterday as opposed to the real Yor who's been doing it for…who knows how long.
Since no memories were coming in at that question, Yuzuriha just based her response on yesterday's incident.
"Oh. Uh. It's going…well?"
She tried to be as vague as possible, praying that Grace would be satisfied with just that. But the silence that followed gnawed at her, forcing her to continue, to which she awkwardly complied.
"I mean, I saw color yesterday. Like actual color. Intense colors radiating from everything around me. I couldn't get enough time to see it properly since…something happened"
Of course she couldn't expose how her own sister tried to kill her. Thankfully, that was enough of a response to satisfy Grace because the next instance, she gasped brightly.
"Ah, that's incredible! What did it look like? Was it a shape or a mist or a wave of color? Did it move? Some Ascendants describe it like a wave when sensing astris in a blind state, was it the same for you?!"
Grace had lit up out of nowhere that Yuzuriha was having a hard time keeping up once again. As she asked those questions she was getting uncomfortably close to her, close enough for her to smell the woman's breath.
It smelled like the tea and cookies they had for breakfast if anyone's curious.
At any rate, this was a problem now because the questions and words she was bombarding her with were straining her mind, she couldn't even form proper sentences when she tried to respond.
"It wasn't—I don't know, it was just—!"
"Right, right. Now then, what shade of color stood out? Crimson? Sapphire? Violet? Was it a glow? Or a shimmer? A pulse? And how did it feel in your chest and eyes. Cold, warm, ticklish?!"
At this moment, Grace had probably pulled out a small notebook and a pencil to take down any sort of information she could give her since they were no longer holding hands.
But unfortunately for Grace, Yuzuriha just couldn't keep up with the overload of information invading her mind.
"I—I don't—It wasn't—Wait—Too fast!"
As she was fumbling over her words, she didn't realize that she was slowly pulling back from the woman. And then, her pace faltered and she nearly lost her balance halfway up the stairs.
Before she could fall, Grace caught her immediately and hoisted her off her feet in one smooth motion and tossed her over her back like a sack of rice.
"Ack! I'm sorry! I didn't mean—!"
"Oh hush, that was my fault for being careless and pushy. If anything happens to you, Marci wouldn't let me hear the end of it, if she'd let me live. And besides, you're surprisingly lighter than most of my equipment. Are you eating well?"
Grace asked in a normal voice, all that excitement she had earlier was gone. And the fact she was giving her a piggyback ride made Yuzuriha blush and tried to hide her face as they reached the top of the stairs.
"Yes I am. Leo makes delicious food"
She grumbled against her shoulder.
"That boy. He is quite mature and talented for his age. Given the current circumstances, it's only natural. Marci could learn a thing or two from him when it comes to cooking. She tried to make pease porridge once and it was terrible"
She gave off a warm laugh, Yuzuriha didn't know why but that brought feelings of warmth and disgust at the same time. As if she could taste that porridge and describe how disgusting it was.
"...That's not funny"
Grace only hummed in response, and then her voice drifted toward a softer register as she said.
"This Sacrament I'm working on…it is currently unstable. Unfit to be wielded by Ascendants, or a better way of phrasing it is it's useless in a combat scenario. But I was hoping it would help with your sense of vision. If it stabilizes, perhaps you'll see those colors again"
On top of Sacraments, a new word was introduced to her. Ascendants.
Yuzuriha laid her head on Grace's shoulder, shutting her eyes. She had questions, and asking Grace would be useless. Mostly because they were going to come to her naturally at any second now.
So…she held her tongue and flipped through the information that was invading her mind earlier.