PM to join [Bronze Woods] Res and Fight [Istril]

Reimancy and weapons/fighting training, what's not to like?

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Stretching northward along the coastline of the Suvan Sea, the Cobalt Mountains are the home of the Bronze Wood, numerous ruins, and creatures both strange and fantastical.

[Bronze Woods] Res and Fight [Istril]

Postby Isolde Seibold on June 30th, 2013, 6:07 pm

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{2nd Summer, 513 AV
11th bell}

The sky was misbehaving. The day had been steadily getting hotter and hotter --becoming quite a scorcher-- and then the clouds had rolled in, the winds had picked up, and a few spatters of quick, violent rain had come rinsing down... and then it had stopped. The Nuit wandered out from under her tree, the branches above dripping giant droplets to dapple her shoulders and hood. The sky was certainly in a fitful mood. Already Syna was shining, glaring out from between breaks in the clouds, golden light catching the millions of raindrops caught by the millions of blades of grass, setting every little green plant to glittering, sparkles bobbing in the wind. It was very pretty. Disturbing, because the light was already shifting, the world going grey, then a more twilight blue, but very pretty. It would be interesting to experience such weather outside of the confines of the city. Isolde was just hoping that the rain kept to spatters and bursts, and that the clouds didn't decide to pour down all their water on wary Nuits who were trying to get in some morning practice.

The Nuit settled beneath her tree, more to keep from any sudden sprinkles of rain than for any other reason. The air here smelt sweet, like the wildflowers that waved at her in the wind and the branches of the few conifers that had managed to find a place at the edge of the flat. This clearing was the largest she had found, dipping down a bit in the middle, as if a giant had pressed his hand lightly into the ground, shaping it. If it rained for any amount of time the dip would fill with water, and a small, clear pond would be born. Whether or not that pond would be the watering hole to a mass of forest critters was still to be seen. Isolde had thought she had glimpsed a couple of tawny deer --two, maybe three-- gracing the treeline, ears flicking, intent on the clearing. One could only hope that deer were the largest, most malignant animals to come to such a place in search of a fresh, clear drink.

Worrying about predators wasn't conducive to a peaceful meditative mind, and so Isolde tried to let go of her fears, settling into meditative position --half-lotus, arms relaxed, head bowed, breathing in good lungfuls of deep-reaching "belly breaths". Isolde found, to her surprise, that it wasn't all that hard to get into it. Her old teacher --the Burned Man-- had been able to clear his mind as fast as he had been able to draw up his res, which was quite fast. The process had been nearly instantaneous for him, and he could manipulate res --that strange, heatless, white-clear fire that never stopped burning, racing along his body-- like no one the Nuit had ever seen, reaching out to all four elements... though fire had been his strongest by far, and water his weakest. If she dreamed of ever being even half as good as him she really needed to get to that "inner sanctuary" --that was what he had called it, or sometimes "inner solitude"-- a lot faster; she needed to be able to draw it up as easily as a well-worn memory.

That was what the Burned Man had said. He did it through his memories. He linked a particular memory --of his own "magic" instructor instating him in Reimancy, burrowing her res into him like a dagger at his heart, the horror and pain of that-- to his meditative calm. He said there were many reasons why he thought that memory worked best, when Isolde had asked, confused-- how could such a memory make him calm? Part of it had been because he liked to know where he had been. That was a big thing for the Burned Man. He always liked to see the road stretching out behind him, he liked to know who he was, and what --or who-- had shaped him to be that way. His initiative had been painful, invading, as terrifying as everyone else's... but it was the first step on a long journey, and looking back on that journey was incredibly peaceful to him. Contemplation was one of his favorite pastimes.

Another reason he liked to use that memory was because of the pain. He said pain was easy for him to draw up in his mind, to recall-- and it was soothing for him to be able to think of past pains, and to know that he had moved on from them, had conquered them or let them go or at least had learned enough, grown enough, to manage them. Isolde understood the first part --calling up the memory-- but not the last. She still didn't know how to get over the things that had happened to her. She didn't think she ever would.

The final reason was because he liked that memory to remind him of the dangers of what he was doing. Whether he be training and practicing with Isolde (teaching her how to control her own res), dealing with some street punk or some egotistical fool of a creature stupid enough to attempt to hurt her within his sight, or engaging in serious battle with a skilled opponent... it was crucial --at least to him-- to be reminded of the pain of res. The pain of Reimancy. Because it reminded him --him, with the burned-off face and the scarred body-- of the incipient dangers of his magics as soon as he began to use them. The dangers of losing control, and the dangers of overgiving.

Yes, he used that memory as a focus, to snap everything so cleanly into perspective. Sometimes Isolde had thought that he was a genius to be able to do it, just that like, a snap of the fingers. She herself had tried to use her own initiation and had been unable to. So for now she could only wallow slowly through the whole setup of her meditation, getting into the proper position, getting into the proper mindset-- and only then after getting through it all, could she finally, finally draw out her res.

She really needed to work on cutting down on time. But for now, she was ready.

But where to begin?
To test her control would be nice.

The Nuit searched around her for a leaf --it didn't take long, the ground was littered with them and she was under a tree, after all. She took the small, green thing and curled it at the edges, so that it looked like a particularly shapeless boat, and then sat it in the center of her palm. With the leaf in place, she focused dull, blue eyes on it, and began to draw up her res.

The initial feeling of the res rising up within her was that of-- of some small, soft bird, ruffling its feathers at the bottom of her lungs, a tickling, rustling, somehow awkward sensation. She held out her hand with the leaf --her right hand-- in front of her, with the left hand acting as a sort of backboard, and blew res onto her right palm, breathing it out in a slow breath, a bubbling white-blue mist. As soon as the mist reached the leaf the Nuit willed it to life-- and suddenly the mist was gone, and a brush of light wind had taken its place, forcing the leaf into the air, fluttering unstably. With a slight change in what could only be called the density of her res, Isolde evened out the air flow, causing the leaf to bob higher, floating and pitching from side to side on the flow of wind above her palm. With a little shift in her intent --focusing now on drawing a slight, natural wind to her palm to be shaped, instead of having to fuel her own duplicate constantly with res-- a breeze came tumbling in from all sides, pushing the leaf up and up, and making it much harder to keep a hold of the fine-tune control that Isolde had originally intended. The Nuit stayed where she was, not moving save for her left hand, which was directing res and wind to attain a more even flow-- her eyes focused on the leaf and the leaf only, not much paying attention any longer to her surroundings, forgetting herself completely.



OOCWow, that turned out to be a long intro. So sorry!
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Isolde Seibold
the roots of the tree
 
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