20 Glade, Year 123
[Closed]
“You had an eventful trip abroad, I hear,” Sentinel Ævril remarked when they stood in the centre of the training circle. He had given her a fairly substantial homework assignment, one that was a bit challenging for the Vastiana who had yet to select an Arche element, but it was a crucial lesson for the girl in many aspects. Much of an elementalist’s stronger skills came from their bond with their Arche element, and without one, Hilana needed to meditate and attune with a larger local elemental spirit. He had left it up to her which one to choose; she had access to all four within a stone’s throw of the city. It would be no surprise to him that she had selected Earth.
Not with what was all around them.
This lesson was not taking place in the Praetorium like it usually did. New attempts at blending elements necessitated extra safety measures and space requirements. Certainly she could practice those on a smaller scale, but at the same time, Ævril wanted to put her to work. The training grounds to the East of Sorokyn, outside of Solunarium Proper, remained neutral ground. They belonged to neither the Golden Guard nor the Silver Sentinels, which made it an appropriate place for him to take his discipula out to. It wasn’t a field trip or even a trek, certainly not by Hilana’s standards. When she had asked him if she needed her camel, he had just looked at her and shook his head.
Not going quite that far, apparently, much to Hilana’s disappointment, but one couldn’t always get what they want.
“It was,” Hilana admitted. “And it made me realize that I was not prepared properly for going beyond the borders.” Seeing as she always considered herself to be quite solid about provisioning and preparation, this stuck in her craw. She should have done a lot of things differently, but all she could do now was learn from the bitter lessons and prepare for her next trips out. And part of that preparation involved a request for her paedagogus. He would know how and where she could accomplish this - she wasn’t sure if it was somewhere Daemon could go, considering it was the antithesis of his divine influence. That meant she had to find another way. If someone would know, it was the Silver Sentinels. And she would have to go through the proper chain of command, and that was where Sentinel Ævril came in.
“That is often the case,” he remarked. “But understand something. Anyone who goes out should be prepared for it, and have some method of protecting themselves. Even if that method is backup.” He looked her over. He could tell she had beaten herself up with it enough and there was no point in beating a dead horse. “We will come back to that later, but for now it’s time to see how successful you were in your attunement and how well you can blend. This is another important aspect of Elementalism, and as a generalist, it means you need to what?”
“Meditate and attune to an element that has a strong presence in the area,” Hilana supplied. “I selected Earth, Sentinel, for today’s lesson.”
“As expected. But you can find all four in Atraxia, as I’m sure you’ve found by now. Water in the Vasta, Fire by Sorokyn, Earth everywhere, and Air along the cliffs and mountains,” he nodded. The Sunborn looked the girl over. It made sense that the desert-crawler would chose the element that resonated the most with her for this exercise. “What would you make with Earth, Miss Chenzira?”
“Lava with fire, or perhaps glass,” Hilana offered. “Sand with air and mud with water.” She had had a lot of time to think about it, what with trying to figure out her Arche element and what combinations could be had thereof. There was sure to be more once she got into the other five elements, but Hilana would deal with that when the time came.
“Correct. Now, Attunement is harder with blending than with an Arche, because it is going to take more aether and effort in order for you to produce the same results,” he knew she knew this, she had been told before, but it didn’t hurt to remind her. Still, he was not interested in pushing her to make that decision. That was hers to make, not his, and if she wanted to take her time, there was no rush. It was commendable for her to wait, especially since she was determined to access those that were almost never broached, and certainly not by the general public. But at the same time, the general public did not receive private training from the Sentinels. If she understood the difficulty she faced as a generalist, then it was on her to continue that path. There was no shame in it, many Elementalists discovered their Arche later. Some jumped in, some did not. As boisterous as the girl was, he expected her to be of the former, but it seemed that she would not be.
“Now, you’ve already had practice channeling different elements at once, so effectively, what you are doing as you blend is to produce the para-element. You are whisking the earth that you have attuned with another element, and doing it through your Rune, inside of you, so that when you manifest that… you will produce lava, or glass, or sand, or mud. Let’s try with mud, Miss Chenzira. Focus on your aether and the earth that you have attuned to, and through your Rune, you will add water to it, so that rather than turning your aether into soil… you will produce mud.” He was glad she had chosen earth to start with; there were others that he knew of that had gone directly for fire and that was always an interesting endeavour.
Hilana focused as he had instructed her, feeling the earth that was so much closer to her now, as if the element was within her. Perhaps Arche felt the same, but she didn’t dwell on that. As she drew on the earth, she called water to her as well, churning and mixing them through her Rune as he had told her to before Manifesting it. What formed in front of her, instead of a nicely shaped orb of earth, was a sloppy, dripping mound of mud that did not look unlike a particularly wet camel patty. She bit her lips, and adjusted her mixture, drawing back on the watery element to decrease its impact on the final product. Her next attempt was still quite muddy, but it was better formed than it had been. “Now throw it,”[/color] he told her. “Focus on it and throw it with air.”
She looked at him disbelieving for a moment, before she looked amused. Instruction was instruction, and she seized the dripping lump of mud and hurled it off into the distance. She didn’t chuck it so far that it was out of sight, but it landed a great distance away from them and landed with a resounding splat. Even from where they were, they could see it explode. She had to stifle the laugh that wanted to come out, and her teacher ignored her amusement. “Very good. Again.”
She spent the next half an hour producing mud balls before applying air to it to dry it out and further produce sand. He did have to wonder if she had picked this one to hope to start with lava, but she had made no mention of it to start. “Fire and earth, Miss Chenzira. Let us see what you can make. Try for glass, please.”
This was taxing work, using her relationship to the Earth through attunement, and the girl had to dig deep. If she wanted to get around to lava, then glass had to be conquered. "Earth and fire, glass," she repeated, visualizing what she wanted and beginning to manifest it. She went with a small single pane for the time being, something that didn't require a great deal of effort in shaping and sculpting, and by adding the fire to the earth, she was delighted to see a small square forming, getting bigger, before she added to its thickness instead of size. Soon she had a square that was roughly 8" by 8", and it was thick.
"Not bad, though the clarity can use some work. Again."
“Sentinel? Is there a way to get to the Shadow Plane?” Hilana asked him, folding her arms behind her back. “I’d like to be better prepared next time, and I have a feeling that that might help.”
Ævril was quiet for a moment as he studied his student. “There are ways,” he allowed. “Your skill is sufficiently advanced enough for you to handle an element beyond the base four, and your grasp of the fundamentals is solid enough. You would learn Shadow to handle the creatures and darkness?”
Hilana nodded. “I would like to attune to the others as well, all of them, but I feel Shadow is perhaps the most pertinent and pressing considering the great darkness and encroaching shadows.” He studied her for a long while, considering. His face was unreadable, and his Sentinel blacks meant Hilana couldn’t even attempt to scour him with her fledgling Semblance. Not that she would have quite dared to do so.
“Very well,” he said finally. “I will put forward your request, Miss Chenzira. I make no promises about whether you will receive the answer you are hoping for or when you might get an answer at all. But we shall see what happens. In any event, let us return home. You’ve done enough for today.” He motioned her to start back towards the city. “When you are ready, you should thank the Earth and release your attunement. That will make it easier to go about your way normally now that you are done blending for the time being.”
“Yes, sir,” Hilana nodded. She wasn’t quite done, but she wasn’t about to argue as she shouldered her rucksack and they started back home. She could practice again, and she would. And then she could make the lava lodestones to put away until later. She was definitely feeling the extraordinary effort that blending had taken, and she had a feeling she would definitely sleep well tonight.
Ævril bowed to Sentinel Valaera when he was shown in, and once allowed to approach her desk, he did so. “Sentinel Valaera," he greeted her. "The discipula that I was assigned, Miss Chenzira, has asked about accessing the Elemental Plane of Shadow,” he told her. “She would like to travel there in order to attune to it. She has progressed sufficiently in her Elementalism studies that I support her request as her paedagogus.”
[Closed]
“You had an eventful trip abroad, I hear,” Sentinel Ævril remarked when they stood in the centre of the training circle. He had given her a fairly substantial homework assignment, one that was a bit challenging for the Vastiana who had yet to select an Arche element, but it was a crucial lesson for the girl in many aspects. Much of an elementalist’s stronger skills came from their bond with their Arche element, and without one, Hilana needed to meditate and attune with a larger local elemental spirit. He had left it up to her which one to choose; she had access to all four within a stone’s throw of the city. It would be no surprise to him that she had selected Earth.
Not with what was all around them.
This lesson was not taking place in the Praetorium like it usually did. New attempts at blending elements necessitated extra safety measures and space requirements. Certainly she could practice those on a smaller scale, but at the same time, Ævril wanted to put her to work. The training grounds to the East of Sorokyn, outside of Solunarium Proper, remained neutral ground. They belonged to neither the Golden Guard nor the Silver Sentinels, which made it an appropriate place for him to take his discipula out to. It wasn’t a field trip or even a trek, certainly not by Hilana’s standards. When she had asked him if she needed her camel, he had just looked at her and shook his head.
Not going quite that far, apparently, much to Hilana’s disappointment, but one couldn’t always get what they want.
“It was,” Hilana admitted. “And it made me realize that I was not prepared properly for going beyond the borders.” Seeing as she always considered herself to be quite solid about provisioning and preparation, this stuck in her craw. She should have done a lot of things differently, but all she could do now was learn from the bitter lessons and prepare for her next trips out. And part of that preparation involved a request for her paedagogus. He would know how and where she could accomplish this - she wasn’t sure if it was somewhere Daemon could go, considering it was the antithesis of his divine influence. That meant she had to find another way. If someone would know, it was the Silver Sentinels. And she would have to go through the proper chain of command, and that was where Sentinel Ævril came in.
“That is often the case,” he remarked. “But understand something. Anyone who goes out should be prepared for it, and have some method of protecting themselves. Even if that method is backup.” He looked her over. He could tell she had beaten herself up with it enough and there was no point in beating a dead horse. “We will come back to that later, but for now it’s time to see how successful you were in your attunement and how well you can blend. This is another important aspect of Elementalism, and as a generalist, it means you need to what?”
“Meditate and attune to an element that has a strong presence in the area,” Hilana supplied. “I selected Earth, Sentinel, for today’s lesson.”
“As expected. But you can find all four in Atraxia, as I’m sure you’ve found by now. Water in the Vasta, Fire by Sorokyn, Earth everywhere, and Air along the cliffs and mountains,” he nodded. The Sunborn looked the girl over. It made sense that the desert-crawler would chose the element that resonated the most with her for this exercise. “What would you make with Earth, Miss Chenzira?”
“Lava with fire, or perhaps glass,” Hilana offered. “Sand with air and mud with water.” She had had a lot of time to think about it, what with trying to figure out her Arche element and what combinations could be had thereof. There was sure to be more once she got into the other five elements, but Hilana would deal with that when the time came.
“Correct. Now, Attunement is harder with blending than with an Arche, because it is going to take more aether and effort in order for you to produce the same results,” he knew she knew this, she had been told before, but it didn’t hurt to remind her. Still, he was not interested in pushing her to make that decision. That was hers to make, not his, and if she wanted to take her time, there was no rush. It was commendable for her to wait, especially since she was determined to access those that were almost never broached, and certainly not by the general public. But at the same time, the general public did not receive private training from the Sentinels. If she understood the difficulty she faced as a generalist, then it was on her to continue that path. There was no shame in it, many Elementalists discovered their Arche later. Some jumped in, some did not. As boisterous as the girl was, he expected her to be of the former, but it seemed that she would not be.
“Now, you’ve already had practice channeling different elements at once, so effectively, what you are doing as you blend is to produce the para-element. You are whisking the earth that you have attuned with another element, and doing it through your Rune, inside of you, so that when you manifest that… you will produce lava, or glass, or sand, or mud. Let’s try with mud, Miss Chenzira. Focus on your aether and the earth that you have attuned to, and through your Rune, you will add water to it, so that rather than turning your aether into soil… you will produce mud.” He was glad she had chosen earth to start with; there were others that he knew of that had gone directly for fire and that was always an interesting endeavour.
Hilana focused as he had instructed her, feeling the earth that was so much closer to her now, as if the element was within her. Perhaps Arche felt the same, but she didn’t dwell on that. As she drew on the earth, she called water to her as well, churning and mixing them through her Rune as he had told her to before Manifesting it. What formed in front of her, instead of a nicely shaped orb of earth, was a sloppy, dripping mound of mud that did not look unlike a particularly wet camel patty. She bit her lips, and adjusted her mixture, drawing back on the watery element to decrease its impact on the final product. Her next attempt was still quite muddy, but it was better formed than it had been. “Now throw it,”[/color] he told her. “Focus on it and throw it with air.”
She looked at him disbelieving for a moment, before she looked amused. Instruction was instruction, and she seized the dripping lump of mud and hurled it off into the distance. She didn’t chuck it so far that it was out of sight, but it landed a great distance away from them and landed with a resounding splat. Even from where they were, they could see it explode. She had to stifle the laugh that wanted to come out, and her teacher ignored her amusement. “Very good. Again.”
She spent the next half an hour producing mud balls before applying air to it to dry it out and further produce sand. He did have to wonder if she had picked this one to hope to start with lava, but she had made no mention of it to start. “Fire and earth, Miss Chenzira. Let us see what you can make. Try for glass, please.”
This was taxing work, using her relationship to the Earth through attunement, and the girl had to dig deep. If she wanted to get around to lava, then glass had to be conquered. "Earth and fire, glass," she repeated, visualizing what she wanted and beginning to manifest it. She went with a small single pane for the time being, something that didn't require a great deal of effort in shaping and sculpting, and by adding the fire to the earth, she was delighted to see a small square forming, getting bigger, before she added to its thickness instead of size. Soon she had a square that was roughly 8" by 8", and it was thick.
"Not bad, though the clarity can use some work. Again."
***
“Sentinel? Is there a way to get to the Shadow Plane?” Hilana asked him, folding her arms behind her back. “I’d like to be better prepared next time, and I have a feeling that that might help.”
Ævril was quiet for a moment as he studied his student. “There are ways,” he allowed. “Your skill is sufficiently advanced enough for you to handle an element beyond the base four, and your grasp of the fundamentals is solid enough. You would learn Shadow to handle the creatures and darkness?”
Hilana nodded. “I would like to attune to the others as well, all of them, but I feel Shadow is perhaps the most pertinent and pressing considering the great darkness and encroaching shadows.” He studied her for a long while, considering. His face was unreadable, and his Sentinel blacks meant Hilana couldn’t even attempt to scour him with her fledgling Semblance. Not that she would have quite dared to do so.
“Very well,” he said finally. “I will put forward your request, Miss Chenzira. I make no promises about whether you will receive the answer you are hoping for or when you might get an answer at all. But we shall see what happens. In any event, let us return home. You’ve done enough for today.” He motioned her to start back towards the city. “When you are ready, you should thank the Earth and release your attunement. That will make it easier to go about your way normally now that you are done blending for the time being.”
“Yes, sir,” Hilana nodded. She wasn’t quite done, but she wasn’t about to argue as she shouldered her rucksack and they started back home. She could practice again, and she would. And then she could make the lava lodestones to put away until later. She was definitely feeling the extraordinary effort that blending had taken, and she had a feeling she would definitely sleep well tonight.
***
Ævril bowed to Sentinel Valaera when he was shown in, and once allowed to approach her desk, he did so. “Sentinel Valaera," he greeted her. "The discipula that I was assigned, Miss Chenzira, has asked about accessing the Elemental Plane of Shadow,” he told her. “She would like to travel there in order to attune to it. She has progressed sufficiently in her Elementalism studies that I support her request as her paedagogus.”
