Page 63 of Legacy Ascended

"I am fine," Ander says.

"You're checking. It's fine to check. Everybody checks." Torres leans back, delighted. "The trick is checking without your face doing that."

"My face is not doing anything."

"Your face is doing a lot, Ardent."

Luke, without looking up from his phone: "It settles. Drink something."

"Thank you, Luke."

"Don't thank me, I'm enjoying it too."

Soren says nothing. He moves the toast rack within Ander's reach.

Under the table, Ander's hand finds my knee and stays there.

"Infirmary at nine," I tell him.

"The shoulder?"

"The shoulder, and everything attached to it. I'm hoping she clears me."

"And if she doesn't?"

"Then I can’t shift," I say, which is a sentence I have been practicing, "and we go for a walk on two legs and I'm horrible to everybody for a day."

Bergström works quickly and spends most of the examination making me move.

Arm out. Arm up, as far as it goes, which is further than last week and not as far as it ought to be. Rotation. Resistance against her hand. She looks at the scar for a while and prods the edge of it and asks whether that hurts, and I say no, and she does it harder and I say yes, and she writes something down.

"Right," she says. "You can shift."

I pause. I had a whole argument loaded.

"That's it?"

"That's it. The tissue's closed and you've got function." She caps her pen. "Now the conditions, and these are not a negotiation. You need somebody qualified to help if the shift goes wrong. Professor Matthias counts for that, but he is not assessing you or clearing you. Walk before you run. No fighting. No wrestling, no body-checks, nothing that slams weight into that shoulder."

"Nothing fun."

"Running is fun and you may run, within reason, with breaks." She holds up a finger. "No jumping anything you could walk around, nothing that needs climbing, and if the ache gets stronger you stop, and you say so out loud in words. Not to yourself."

"And afterwards?"

"You come straight back here and I look at it before you do anything else, including eating. Use the field behind the arena and the ground above it. Not the ridge."

"Doctor Bergström—"

"And Miss Miller." She takes her glasses off. "This is a change in your condition, not a favor. Don't make me regret it."

They're waiting at the field gate behind the arena: Luke, Torres, Soren, Ander, and Jon with a canvas bag over his shoulder and two flasks in it.

"You're not coming out?"

"I'm coming out. I'm coming out on two legs." He shifts the strap. "One of us should be able to open a flask and read a watch. I'd rather be useful."

"That's a shocking attitude for a man with a wolf."