Solo Digging Deep, Sinking In [Reimancy]

Early mornings are good for burying the regrets of the night and pouring over talents left too long unattended.

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Built into the cliffs overlooking the Suvan Sea, Riverfall resides on the edge of grasslands of Cyphrus where the Bluevein River plunges off the plain and cascades down to the inland sea below. Home of the Akalak, Riverfall is a self-supporting city populated by devoted warriors. [Riverfall Codex]

Digging Deep, Sinking In [Reimancy]

Postby Taurina on March 10th, 2018, 6:00 am


Early Morning of the 18th day of Spring 518


Taurina walked through the city of Riverfall in the grey morning light. Speckles of dew still coated the city streets, and remained captured in hunter’s webs spun across the still lit lampposts that kept the city aglow during the night. The Ethaefal took it as a good sign that all the lampposts on this street were still lit. That gave her better chances against the shadows lurking in the dark. She had become increasingly paranoid about them as the season passed, and with good reason. What they did… Nightmares. But then again, sometimes it felt as though her life was just one perpetual nightmare these days.

Everything had changed. Everything. Taurina was still reeling from it all. She wished that things could just go back to the way they had been before. Not that she was unhappy here, not really. It just.. here was not Endrykas. Here was not home. Her people did not dwell within the walls of Riverfall and Starfire was not his happiest self here. She missed the tent city. She missed her family, her work, her friends… she missed home. Yet, she did not want to go back. Not with the way things were now. Not with Azmere gone and her heart still so raw.

Taurina huffed a breath into the misty morning air. It was all too much, she needed a moment away. She needed some time to herself in a place that was far from the eyes of anyone who knew her, if not just everyone in general. The Ethaefal liked solitude and the peace that came with it. That had never changed, not ever. As a daughter of Leth, she doubted it ever would.

Street came to an end and then there was beach that stretched for what seemed like miles until sea water consumed sand. The Eth had once hated the ocean. After surviving her fall she had made a silent vow to never set foot in it again. Yet, here she was, seeking the beach for a moment away from the life she now led. How strange things got tangled up and turned upside down. Still, she would always look upon the sea of grass more fondly than any sea of water.

Shoes were slipped off and carried in hand as Taurina began to walk the length of the beach. She wore clothes that had become worn with time, but still were more comfortable to her than anything new she tried to walk out and about in. She guessed that she was just sentimental. It did not matter to her that the inseams of these pants had been worn down to simple threads and that the shirt she wore was full of holes. It was comfortable to her, familiar. The remnants of a life long gone. Taurina gripped the cube of quartz she always wore around her neck in her free hand, another piece of that long lost life she still kept. Her reminder to continue training, and her reasoning for coming out to the beach this morning.

The shoes were placed on a protruding rock with care so they had a better change of not getting wet or covered in sand. Taurina reached down and rolled up the edges of her pants legs for the same reasoning. One thing she disliked greatly about sand was its natural ability to just get everywhere. Spend one bell at the beach and one would find sand in places sand was never meant to be. The Eth would have rather rolled in a pile of strider dung than roll on a beach of sand, which had to have meant something negative about the woman’s state of mind.

Taurina ran a hand through her multicolored hair that tangled wild with the sea breeze. She had yet to do it up for the day, her wraps back amongst her belongings. Her night had not been spent back at the place she called home, but instead had whittled away her hours at the Blue Bull for no good reason other than not being able to sleep and not wanting to think. It helped that she was pretty during the night hours and that she had found she enjoyed the attention she received, even if it was not always the most savory kind. Even if none of them were the one her broken heart longed for.

She had tried, she really had, to get over him. She had tried to find someone else even just to distract her until her heart stopped hurting. In a city like Riverfall it should have been easy, but the Eth quickly learned that the opposite was true and for one simple reason: she was not over him. Some Drykas she was.

The Ethaefal buried her toes in the wet sand and felt as the tide washed over her feet again and again. She remained still as stone, letting herself sink lower and lower into the all consuming sand. Caramel eyes looked out over the dust colored horizon. The sky and the sea looked as one here. Where one began and the other ended one could never tell. There was a certain beauty to it. An endlessness that was more felt than seen. She dropped her body down so that she was in a squat with her arms crossed over her knees. That gaze of molten bronze continued to just stare. Stare and stare until her legs could hold her no longer and she fell hard on her bottom into the wet sand.


Petch. The sand was everywhere now. The Ethaefal blew out a heavy breath and fell the rest of the way backwards, defeated and lost. She stared up at the sky covered in clouds of melting fog and Syna life. Was this really what the gods had in store for her? A broken heart and a beach full of sand? Taurina laughed. She laughed something clear and loud that was completely void of humor and then…

… Then she cried.

Common | Pavi | 'Thoughts'

NoteDate liable to change.
Edit: date changed from the 80th to the 18th, nothing else changed
Word Count: 1,007


Last edited by Taurina on April 17th, 2018, 2:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Digging Deep, Sinking In [Reimancy]

Postby Taurina on March 11th, 2018, 7:50 pm


The magic always came out as a gel. Never a liquid or a gas, definitely not something solid. The color of it was something truly beautiful. Opalescent like a Konti’s scales; shining with hues of pinks, blues, and greens when angled light hit it. It shone in Syna’s morning light against the colors of the beach and ocean. A molten gaze was narrowed in and focused on a thin strand of it, a mind willing it to be controlled, and a palm left open as connection to the mage was not yet severed.

Taurina had gotten better, grown, since her lesson with the creepy walahk. There were now two elements in her repertoire, water and earth. She suspected that the second was what it was because it was a stone made by the same power that she used as her anchor. The gift Aoren had bestowed upon her was why she still pursued learning the power, the reason she had sought out Konrad a second time after finding out about his knowledge despite her dislike for him. She wished to be a mage like the first who had taught her, not like the second.

The Ethaefal willed her gel-like, opalescent colored, strand of res to become a flat pool within her palm and cut off the supply when she was sure she had all she wanted to work with. She focused in on it, willing the edges to become rounded and smooth. Using her hands, she molded it into a bowl like shape. She wished to build a half sphere, but did not want to just use her mind to make it. That was far too easy. She wanted to know her magic, understand it, through every means that she could.

Her hands were wet as she worked. Her whole body, in fact, was soaked. After the tears came, the crying made her eyes red and cheeks splotchy, she had submerged herself within the waves of the salt filled sea. The place from which she entered into this existence she lived was the place she washed away the stain of her nonsensical tears and tried to get a grip upon herself. All she had been successful in doing was soaking her clothes and further burying the sand in all of those uncomfortable places she did not wish to it to be.

It was a bowl she had wanted her res to become, and a bowl it now was. It was small, fit perfectly within the palm of her earthbound form’s palm. It was imperfect, the sides uneven. It was going to be regardless of what she did, but it did not matter. It would suffice for what she desired. Gaze shifted from her little res bowl to the quartz charm that fell just perfectly in the center of her chest and hung from its chord just below her breasts. The woman used her free hand and wrapped it around the charm before she pulled the necklace over her head, having to take a moment to work it over her soaked and tangled hair, and let it rest in the palm opposite the little res bowl. Then she set to work on studying it.

Aoren had created the res cube with such ease. One moment he had shone her how to make res solid and then, with just the flick of his mind, he had turned that solid res to precious stone. Taurina had not yet mastered the process of turning her res to solid like she had with liquid and gas. It was a different energy turning it solid. Liquid took focusing on the blood that ran through her veins, her life force. Gas took focusing on breathing, on the air that moved through her lungs and oxygenated the blood so that she could live. The Eth did not know why the solid state was different, more difficult. To get there she focused on her bones, that which was the frame work of her being. It was not that she could not do it, but that it was harder. That it took more focus and energy out of her. She had not mastered it, but she was determined to. She was determined to be able to switch between the four states of being with ease before too much longer.

Taurina closed her eyes and focused on listening to her body and what it was doing. She sat cross-legged in the sand, her palms facing the heavens, and her back up straight with neck and shoulders relaxed. Her tangled mop of hair clung to her face, neck, back, and everywhere else it fell. It tasted like seawater and sand, but then, that made sense. Her off-white shirt was made see through and clung uncomfortably to her body and so did the pants she wore. She breathed in deeply, holding it for ticks before releasing it in a slow stream. She listened to the sound of her heart, the way it thundered in her ears. She flexed her fingers and toes, feeling as muscle and bone moved within. She was alive, she was solid, she was capable, and would not waver.

Molten eyes opened and fixed on the quartz cube. She willed for her little res bowl to become solid like the gem was solid. She silently asked for the magic to bend to her will, and it did. Gel became solid and then solid became quartz. The second step could have been skipped, but it was easier this way. It made more sense to the mind that liked steps to work through and processes to follow.

Taurina set the quartz cube necklace on her knee and shifted her attention to the little bowl. She studied her creation in her hands and tilted it in the sun. The stone was imperfect, not smooth where the res had not been smooth. The imperfections were not ugly, however. In fact, Taurina thought them quite beautiful. It made it look as though something had been shattered within the walls of the stone. Not something that could be fixed, but something that was still held together by a solid exterior. In a way, it reminded her of her heart. Shattered, but still standing. Broken, but not ugly. Beautiful in how perfectly imperfect it was.

Common | Pavi | 'Thoughts'

NoteWord Count: 1,051
Word Total: 2,058


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Digging Deep, Sinking In [Reimancy]

Postby Taurina on March 12th, 2018, 1:50 am


Taurina slipped her necklace back around her neck and went hunting for seashells, the more flawed the better. She found fragments scattered over the beach, half buried in the sand, but nothing struck her. Nothing were what she wanted. The Eth was looking to find one seashell that spoke to her. One that would fit with what she was trying to create. So she kept searching, got down on her knees and dug into the soft rock in pursuit of the perfect shell. When she did not find it in one place, she got up and went further down the beach before kneeling down and beginning again.

The Ethaefal was covered in sand by this point. It was streaked across her face, caked in her hair, and completely coated both of her hands up to her elbows and the whole legs of her pants. She had stopped caring about the mess and the unsavory effects of being covered with sand by this point. Determination to find what she sought was all that she cared about. It was what fueled her.

Success was reached when the Eth found herself a pale orange conch shell that was just smaller than the interior of her quartz bowl. The shell had obviously had a rough existence as the outer edge of it was cracked and there was a cluster of small holes poked in its side along with the remnants of barnacles homes peppered across its exterior. Yet, despite all that it had gone through, the conch remained intact. It still remained functional despite its occupant having long left it. Taurina smiled at her find, it was perfect for what she wished it for.

The quartz bowl had been left where the Eth created it, just out of reach of waves that might threaten to bury it or steal it away. She returned to find it there, glistening in the steadily growing brighter Syna light. A tiny smile graced her lips as she sat down beside it and set her seashell within it. Perfect fit. Her smile grew and she nodded, satisfied with herself, before resuming the position of cross-legged with her back straight. It was time to go back to practicing.

The challenge of creating the second bowl was making sure it matched the first one as close as possible. Res pooled within her palm at a rate that was slow, but far faster than how it was back when she had even less knowledge of the magic than she did now. She was getting better. More than that, though, she was getting braver and gaining confidence in herself and the abilities she possessed. It was a good feeling, that confidence. Something she had never before been able to fully provide for herself. Things were different now, they had to be.

Hands molded the second pool of res just like they had the first. Taurina had to remove the shell from the first bowl so that she could line the openings up to ensure they had the same radius. She also tried to get the depth the same, but that was harder. She had to just look and guess and hope for the best. The goal was to get two halves that came together and created something close to a sphere. Not the easiest little work of art to produce, but Taurina had decided a challenge was what she wanted. She had grown tired of creating puddles of water that she just let slip through her fingers.

It was strange playing within one’s own res. It was like toying with a piece of themselves that had been removed from them. That was what res was after all, a piece of a person’s djed that they had learned to draw out of themselves and manipulate into other forms. Taurina did not know much about it, just what she had learned in regards to reimancy. She knew there were other forms of magic and she had an inkling that they all dealt with djed in one way or another. She knew that when Azmere tied her to the web the night after she bonded with Starfire that he had tapped into a magic she knew extremely little about. She knew that others carried magic different from hers, and that the gods had their own forms of power that some might consider to be magic as well. Though, perhaps that was not as much magic as it was just simply the controlled abilities of supernatural beings.

Taurina checked that the rim of the new bowl matched up to the rim of the previous one before she worked on making it become solid. She became focused, closed her eyes so that she could focus in on the workings her body once again. She could feel every grain of sand against her body when the world around her was shut out. Each piece scratched against her skin and became uncomfortable. Hatred formed quickly towards the sand and the beach it made up. Taurina could not blame the beach, however, because she had made the choice to come here. She had decided this was where she wanted to practice instead of picking someplace else. The sand was just a consequence she had to deal with.

Res turned solid and shortly after, to quartz. Eyes opened and Taurina inspected to find the new bowl pleasing. She smiled gently and compared it to the other. The second bowl had less in the way of imperfections within the walls of smoothed quartz, but it had more dents within the surface of the bowl itself. Taurina put the two halves together again to find that they matched at least close enough that her sphere would not look silly or lopsided. It would look like a sphere and it would do what she wished it too. Her smile broadened. Her creation was nearly done and half the battle had already been fought. This was going to be a success. Nothing less was going to be accepted.

Common | Pavi | 'Thoughts'

NoteWord Count: 1,003
Word Total: 3,061


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Taurina
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Digging Deep, Sinking In [Reimancy]

Postby Taurina on March 12th, 2018, 5:25 am


The molten gaze swept over the length of beach that could be seen, checking to ensure that she was still alone. It was not that her magic was forbidden per say, but she preferred to be left alone. She preferred not to let anyone know except those she trusted most. Which was, these days, not very many. Her bondmate was perhaps the only one who she still could say she trusted with her life. There were others, potentially, who were growing on her, but everything took time. When it came to giving her trust away, that was especially true. Considering the last person she had given her heart to left it in pieces, whether he meant to or not, she was not too eager to open herself up again. Not eager to loose another person she cared about.

The beach was free and clear, the Eth its sole occupant for the morning. Taurina sighed softly to herself, satisfied, and went back to her creation. She put the shell in one of the bowls before closing the other on top of it. The fit was tight, there was no space for the shell to rattle around in. That was not the most desired result, but Taurina decided she would work with it. She did not want to start from the beginning which is what she would have had to do if she wanted a different result. There was a space between the rims of the bowls when they were put together with the shell in the middle. Taurina had a plan to fix this, having known she would have to figure out a way to connect the bowls together anyway from the beginning.

First thing was first, however, Taurina wanted to get her quartz bowls as free of sand as she could. Sliding the shell into the pockets of her wet pants, the Eth took a bowl in each hand and walked towards the edge of the ocean where waves crashed and became foam over the shore. Taurina stayed where the water was calmest and clear, standing a little over ankle deep. This was where she leaned over and dunked the bowls into the salt water to rinse them. She took care to hold onto them, not wanting to loose them to the waves even though she did not believe them light enough to be ripped away by the waters. Better safe than sorry.

Taurina gripped the bowls tightly and flicked her wrists, attempting to get as much water off of them as she could. Once she was satisfied, the Eth walked up the beach to the rock where she had left her shoes. The rock was large and flat enough for her to sit on which is what she did. She sat cross legged once more and put all of her things -the two quartz bowls and the conch which she had taken from her pocket- in her lap. She organized everything how she wished for it to be, the two bowls put together so they created a sphere-like shape with the shell inside. Then she went on to focusing on creating more res.

Breath in… Breath out…

The Ethaefal feared overgiving. She had done it before, many times before, but never very much because she always stopped herself. Even when all she wanted to do was conjure more, she had been able to stop herself or distract her mind until the magic was no longer all that she thought about. So far those effects had not kicked in. She did not hear sweet whispers or taste the metallic of blood in her mouth. Not yet, anyway. Which made some sense. She was getting better after all and was able to handle two elements now. It made sense that she would slowly be able to handle more without barreling straight into overgiving. Did not mean she stopped worrying though. Did not mean she was no longer afraid.

Instead of just pooling the res in her palms, Taurina directed it in a snake like stream towards her disconnected sphere. She raised her hand and faced her palm towards the sphere, using her hand to help focus her mind as she directed the res where she wished for it to go. The stream wrapped around the gap between the spheres and began to quickly overflow into the bowls themselves. Taurina pulled back, not wishing for the sphere to be completely filled with res. That would likely create a very cloudy effect that would not allow the shell to be seen very well.

After cutting off the connection between body and res, Taurina used her fingers to smooth the gel like substance over the gap between the bowls. She wanted it to match as closely as possible and wanted it to be very hard for one to tell that there had ever been a gap in the middle of the sphere. It was unlikely she was going to fully succeed her first go around, but she was going to try.

With that molten gaze, Taurina was careful to smooth out any gaps and ensure there were not too many air holes. She worried over the remnants of res that had gotten inside the soon to be sphere. She had worked on drawing as much of it out as she could, but she could not really see so she could not be completely sure. The only thing she got to work with was what she felt through the res and the powers she was dealing with and hope for the best. Soon it was time for her to turn res to stone. It was the moment of truth.

Taurina took a breath and sent her silent demand for res to turn to stone. The breath was exhaled slowly as the spell began to work. The gap was sealed and there was a single sphere in her hands instead of three separate pieces. The Eth smiled, pleased that her idea had worked. As she had expected, it was not perfect. One could tell that it had been two separate pieces put together as each three of her spells had turned out quartz with varying levels of blemishes, but it was pretty nonetheless. Taurina stood, her new paperweight in hand. She smiled down at it, feeling pretty pleased with herself over her small success.

It was too soon to celebrate, however, for not all was right… Was that blood dripping from her nose?

Common | Pavi | 'Thoughts'

NoteWord Count: 1,078
Word Total: 4,139


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Taurina
Lost in the Stars
 
Posts: 411
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Digging Deep, Sinking In [Reimancy]

Postby Avela on March 14th, 2018, 12:41 am

Image
Taurina

XP Award:
  • Observation - 3
  • Reimancy - 3
  • Meditation - 1
  • Endurance - 1

Lore:
  • Taurina: Likes solitude
  • Taurina: Homesick for Endrykas
  • Taurina: Hates sand
  • Taurina: Shattered, but still standing.
  • Taurina: Wants a challenge
  • Taurina: Afraid of overgiving
  • Endurance: Determination to achieve goals despite opposition
  • Sand: Coarse and gets everywhere
  • Lost love hurts
  • Horizons are beautiful
  • Reimancy: Res is beautiful in the morning light
  • Reimancy: Solid state is difficult
  • Reimancy: Easier to follow steps than to skip them
  • Reimancy: Creating quartz spheres
  • Reimancy: Forming solid Res
  • Overgiving Effect: Nosebleeds

Notes:
+ Quartz paperweight with a shell inside, made with Reimancy
- Overgiving: Taurina's nosebleed will eventually slow and stop within the hour. However, Taurina will feel the temptation to cast more Reimancy throughout the day. She will also feel shaky and have mildly erratic behavior. If Taurina uses more Reimancy during this same day, the effects will worsen.

Great thread! I really enjoyed getting to see a glimpse of Taurina's story and personal struggle, and I loved that she saw a little of herself in the paperweight that she made. Also, thanks for being my first grade ever! Please PM me for questions or concerns if you feel like I got something wrong.

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~Avela~
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