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He smirked as his eyes faded back to normal. "All magic stems from the soul, and I believe even your scholars, faithless as they are, have determined that the eyes are windows to the soul. It is a common side effect for magic to... 'leak' from the body, especially when channeled in vast amounts. It is nearly impossible to cast magic without some light spilling through the eyes."

Shou stood, slowly walking over to the rapidly-firming furrow he'd just dug into solid stone. She reached out to touch it, but reconsidered once she felt the intense heat still radiating from it. "Real... real magic..." She turned to him, confused. "But why can't I tell anyone? Surely the world would be better off with magic, then without?"

Khaesho sighed and turned away, hands clasped tightly behind his back. "You people fight wars over poison that is corrupting the planet. You push the boundaries of what is possible in the pursuit of greed and destruction. If your proud nation knew what we do? Either they would covet magic, or fear it. Either way, they would launch a full-scale invasion, to claim it for themselves or keep it from their enemies' grasp. He turned back towards her, half his face showing against the dark tunnel behind him. "Paenitentia has seen enough bloodshed already."

Slowly, she nodded. The Cold War was not so very far in the past that it had been forgotten. "But... imagine all the good it could do! Healing spells and potions, enchantments-"

He cut her off with a laugh. "Magic may be real but it is not unbounded. It is an energy like any other, and it must obey the laws of nature. You cannot tie it into a bottle, and healing is more complicated than a wave of the hand. The modern world would start a new conflict over a dream that does not exist. You can tell no-one..." His eyes softened "Please, Shouyousei. For your own sake. I know you think us superstitious, but we think you just as faithless and blind to the supernatural. The oath you took is not one to be broken."

She nodded with a sigh. "Yea, I... I understand." Her thoughts followed a linear path to a predetermined conclusion, and next she asked the only question she could. "Can you teach me? How to use magic, I mean."

He contemplated her for a moment, eyeing her up and down, his expression unreadable. He reached out towards her face, then hesitated. "May I?"

"Yes, certainly." She nodded, and he reached forwards to take her face in his hands. He held her gently, tilting her face up to look into her eyes... Even without his soul pouring through them, there was something about his eyes. They were cold, calculating... but not indifferent. He gazed at her, but Shou had the distinct feeling that he was gazing through her, like her mind and soul were a painting for him to inspect. She wouldn't admit it, but he released her earlier than she'd hoped.

"It may be impossible, but there is an exercise you may do to find out. Close your eyes." She obeyed without a second thought, then gave a small yelp as he spun her around, pulling her back into an embrace. His eyes may have been cold, but he certainly wasn't.

"Look forwards. Tell me what you see." She opened her eyes and he gave her a soft slap across the top of her head. "With your eyes closed!" She pouted, but closed her eyes again and tried to look, seeing nothing more than the backs of her eyelids. "I don't see anything, likely because my eyes are closed."

He cursed softly under his breath (and she knew it was a curse just from the tone of it) and squeezed her shoulders in his hands. "What you call magic, we call the Soul. It is power that gathers within, and a part of channeling that power is the ability to see it in others, and in the natural world. Everyone, even those born too weak for any significant casting, has some level of spirit sight. Now, tell me again. Do you see anything at all, or is there naught but a dark void?"

Shou thought for a moment until she realized quite what he was asking about. "Well, there's more than darkness... but it's just chaos. A sea of muted colors swirling. That's what everyone sees when they close their eyes though, right?"

Khaesho nodded behind her, his grip on his shoulders lessening some. "Good. That, Shouyousei, is loose magic. It is far too chaotic and mercurial for any mortal to harness, but it is there, and recognizing what it is marks the first step of every magi's journey. Now. Close your eyes again and look. I'm going to cast some in front of you, tell me if you see it."

She closed her eyes again, not realizing that they had fallen open. She looked, but already she thought she could see something ahead of her. A faint silhouette, but it was a surface of chaos against a backdrop of randomness, and it may well have been wishful thinking. Then a flare appeared in that distant smog and bounced towards her like a yo-yo, snapping back to its origin. Her eyes followed it, focusing on that flare instinctively, just like she would have focused on a baseball thrown from the pitcher's mound. It was an accident, but as she focused outwards, that distant haze snapped into shape. And with that newfound focus, she found she could hear him as well, his words snapping into her mind as if she'd just dialed in on a radio station.

"-asting your time, and risking us all, Khaesho. I know you've been lonely here, but surely even she's noticed the way you're flirting with her. These easterners are persnickety about that."

Shouyousei's eyes snapped open, but her focus remained. A figure seemingly made of pure energy lay in a messy heap between them and the exit, with what appeared to be a torso extruding from the top of it. "I see it! He's the one I heard before, isn't he?"

Both Khaesho and this third party snapped to attention before the energy haze relaxed with a slump and a chuckle. "Oh man she had me there for a second. This is the part where she pretends to see her spirit animal or something, and uses that as an excuse to come back here for 'lessons.' Classic."

Khaesho either couldn't hear him or he ignored him, choosing instead to chide her. "No, Shou, the energy flare. Did you see it? There's no shame in saying you didn't, most scholars speculate that the 'civilized' world has lost the ability to-"

"No, I saw your stupid flare!" She shoved her way out of his arms and marched right on up to the glowing pile of energy. She stopped right in front of it and shoved her finger up at its face. "You! Whatever you are! It isn't nice to call me a liar, I can see you very well, thank you."

She felt a wave of shock and disbelief roll over her, emanating from the entity that lay there. When it passed, he turned to regard Khaesho. "Well now, this is quite the development. And here, you thought this week would be boring." He turned back to Shou and gently pressed her arm down, which was the strangest thing she had yet felt. It wasn't a physical force that lowered her accusing digit, it felt more like a pressure, like the feeling when someone walks directly behind you and you instinctively flinch forwards.

"But please, where are my manners! Please Shouyousei, do take a step back, so that I may properly introduce myself." She hastily backpedaled and before her (metaphorical) eyes, the energy collapsed inwards, concentrating until she saw a flash of scales amid the glow. It then billowed outwards, spreading into some mythical beast that would have been more at home in Homer's Odyssey than on Wheeler Peak, New Mexico.

"M-Medusa?!?" His lower half was that of a snake, if indeed there existed any snake in the world quite such a violent shade of eggshell blue. He was coiled into a neat pile, almost neat enough to line up the black chevrons that danced their way down his long, sinuous body. His underbelly, visible on his chest, was a much paler color, almost white, and it reached up to his chin in a bright strip. His torso seemed humanoid aside from the scales. His scales were stretched taunt across his deltoids, and as her eyes traced the many muscle groups she'd learned in art classes, the cheeky thing flexed! His arms and hands, again, looked human enough, aside from the scales, except for the dark claws tipping his fingers.

"Hey, my eyes are up here, sweetheart." A moment of panic flashed through her as she felt her eyes following that pale line up his throat to his face. Here too, his face looked human enough. High cheekbones and sharp features echoed Khaesho's, and she saw no great fangs hiding in his mouth, but every spare inch of him was covered in scales, not the least of which was the wild mass of snakes sprouting from his skull. Every serpent in his 'hair' was different, a chaotic bouquet of poison and fangs. Her eyes fell from the snakes to his, meeting that legendary gaze at last. His eyes were voids, black pits deep enough to lose yourself in, utterly devoid of light. Catching her stare, he smiled. "Though, it has been an awfully long time since I used the name Medusa, and even then, that was only to have fun with a few Greeks. The In'Gha know me by the name Kalokin, you may as well use that."

Shouyousei shakily reached up to touch her face, certain that she'd feel her skin hardening to stone, but no such fate befell her. "I... I'm not dead? But you're a gorgon! A real, live, gorgon!" And a male one at that, she added silently. She could see no sign of genitalia, but judging from the muscles, bones, and tone of his voice, he had to be male.

She got the sense he was rolling his eyes despite being unable to see any movement in those pitch-dark spheres. "Scholars are _still_in debate over what it means to be 'real' and if I actually qualify, and I assure you I'm most certainly not alive, but yes, this form is a gorgon. And you're correct, it is a male form, I'm glad you know your physiology well enough to notice and your ancient history enough to call it remarkable."

Shou's mouth half opened and she thought to call him out on reading her mind and ask why history remembered him as female, but he simply plowed right on ahead, answering those questions and more before she could even form them. "No, the stone gaze isn't real, yes, I'm the same gorgon the Greeks encountered, yes, I chose a female manifestation back then, yes, I can alter this physical form at will, and yes, I can choose to take the form of literally anything." He concluded with a smirk, his 'skin' rapidly shifting to fur, then feathers, then back to scales. "I simply happen to be fond of this form. It's always been my favorite."

Mind reeling, Shou struggled to keep up with his words and their implications, looking between him and Khaesho utterly at a loss. "But... you seemed surprised that I could see you... didn't Khaesho just say that everyone can see magic?"

Khaesho and Kalokin shared an odd glance before the serpentine figure gave the answer. "See magic? Yes. Focus enough to understand it? Often. Actually see me? As in, discerning the difference between my soul and the background noise? A rare talent in an untrained mage. But you? Not only did you notice me, without knowing to look, you focused in well enough to hear my words, even when they weren't directly sent to you." She still looked lost, and he continued with a sigh. "In anyone else, I'd say it's a portent of great power, that you could become a skilled and influential mage, given time and training. It's just a shame you have almost no soul to speak of."