Private Tales Dreams Shared With Ghosts

[Bebin Theros]

Syr Theros stood at a corner of Sanctum Ops, a bound ledger filled with pages of information on their crop of squires. Details on their studies and mannerisms. The sorts of things needed when considering assignments. Quests. Missions.

Bebin hated it.

Flipped through the papers all the same. Stopped. Paced about as he mulled things over.

---

Squire: Saella
Family: Orphan
Year of Recruitment:269
Notes: Cunning, quick on the uptake, fearful of conflict, firm understanding of magical principals, forming grasp on channeling and manifestation.

---

He shut the the file, and returned it to its proper place in the stacks.

It was still light outside. Maybe a conversation would lead to more.

 

[Saella]

Saella sat cross-legged in the gardens, a book propped over her ankles on its spine. She sighed in tandem with the breeze, shoulders rolling against a tension nestled deep in the crook of her back.

Early winter held a chill to the air, and she bundled against it: wool-lined coat and trousers with a matching pair of gloves laid thick about her.

The day came slow in the passing for her. Morning drills delayed lunch, and the reheated stew and chilled cheeses gulped down in a frenzy did little to satiate her. The rush of it all hung heavy in her stomach. When she dwelled on it, she noticed a stalk of cilantro still stuck in her teeth. It was nestled deep in the corners of her mouth, too far to extricate with an easy pick.

Then the afternoon hit in full. Laps around the sycamore bends, commune with the roots following the dryads' curriculum. An hour of meditation beneath a crown of acorns, her nose filled with the scents of rushing water and fermenting fish oil from the back of the cookery. Another hour of errands, patting down bedding and peeling potatoes.

Routine, really. All that set this particular day apart was her lack of sleep the night prior.

A shadow stained the page she lazily plodded through. Glancing up, she bowed at the neck and slipped a finger between the pages. She closed the book around it, taking a breath to judge how far along she had read.

"Syr Theros?" she asked, setting aside her book.


Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

The beturbaned knight looked upon the squire. "Squire Saella," he responded.

Little hint of fear, or the usual tension a Pursuant was oft met with.

Rank did funny things.

"How is it you spend your time, on this day?" he asked, and folded his legs under himself as he sat down before her. Felt the grass of the gentle hill with the tips of his fingers as a breeze blew by.

Saella

 

[Saella]

Saella set the book aside, folding her hands about her lap.

"Well," she said, tasting each word before putting it to air. She nodded to the cover of her book, the leather emblazoned with bronze lettering that read 'Filaments on Fitness.'

"Reading. The scripts of Mistress Anayellan are fascinating. She addresses the necessity of proper posture when breathing, and how it affects the 'sanctity of calm' in one's mind."

Trailing off, she covered the title behind a glove. Looked down, away from the Knight's eyes. Leveling the excitement from her tone, she picked up a neutral smile and continued:

"I spent my morning in drills, the afternoon assisting in the kitchens, and the evening reading."


Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

The Basilisk's eyes were not upon the youth. His gaze was set upon the small portion of the world that was around them. His perception upon the touch at the tip of his fingers, the blades of grass that tickled the calloused and scarred digits that ran betwixt their bend and flow. The gentle breeze that caressed, sweet against his skin.

"Prefectly ample," he said with a deep calm. His gaze shift up, and set upon the squire. His eyes as dark and full of that same mystery that was borne into rain soaked earth. "Does it challenge you?"

Saella

 

[Saella]

"Yes," she replied, automatically, a frown settling upon her brow. Hesitation found perch within her, however. She paused, rolling it over her tongue, hands clutching the binding of her book.

"No."

The admission came with a measured reluctance, with eyes averted from the Pursuant. The drills formed a routine: rise early, break fast, sweat the sleep away. It instilled discipline, kept her limber and fresh. But to call it a challenge? No, not in full earnestness.

She demurred at that, shying from the reverie that sought to hold her. All too easy to sit idle, yet it defied her purpose here.

"I appreciate the work," she said, "the activity. But, Syr Theros, at times I wish I could do something more. I don't feel myself progressing, not nearly as I should. The others, the Squires, they learn so fast and reach the heart of our Order. I... well, I don't know what more to do?"


Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

"There is always more to do, Squire Saella," he put forth. Always more to do. With the world caught in churn around them.

Skirmishes breaking out. Borders shifting. The Everwatcher's constant threat, all while the Blight festered not a day from their home, and the small folk dealt with all those things, and the where, when, and how to make it past winter.

"Our order is spread thin, our threats ever growing," his eyes did not waver, but they did close, and he bowed his head to the youth. "You need but seek the path which you pursue, and challenge will find you,"

Saella

 

[Saella]

Saella smiled, chin turned down. Mollified.

"Yes, Syr Theros," she said in bashful intonation.

It was foolish, to linger here in the sanctity of safety. Where others ventured forth, drawn to the maws of danger. Set foot after determined foot into the quenching salt of battle. To cling instead to platitudes, to languor in ineptitude with no plan for improvement... to shrug that burden on another's shoulders.

Her hands clenched white on the book's cover, imperceptible behind the leather of her glove. A small blessing.

"If I may," she said, dragging the words out as she raised her gaze to the Pursuant. "I wish to seek both Loch and Ley, to speak to the wyld and shape it... but I have made little progress in this. May I ask for your aid? Or"—and she hesitated here, faltering around the form of her words—"is that something I should find for myself?"

A small finish. A quiet thought.


Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

A nod to the first question, and his eyes came open once more as they sat upon the raised earth. "Wherein lies the lay?" he let the question linger. "Whereout lies the Loch?"

Saella

 

[Saella]

She blanched.

"The Ley," she said, reaching for some solid description, "lays about us? All around, just beyond sight." Each syllable drew confidence about her, a mantle of experience she drew upon. The faint ghost of a smile fell over her, and her eyes cast far beyond the Pursuant.

She looked to the garden, to the grove so misted with the kiss of autumn's end. The turn of leaf and tree, the thrum of life yet verdant at the precipice of perception. It was apparent to her, a scrawl vivid to her fledgling gaze. She reflected it back, unable to grasp the whole of it.

"And Loch... the language. In the spaces between, in the words we can never quite find to describe... I don't know. Things?"


Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

His eyes came shut once more, and he gave a second bow of his head. "Such is the Kingdom of Mud," he said as cool as the early winds of winter.

There he let his head hang. Drew in his breath. "The Ley is around us, and the Loch is but one trail, through which we understand those timeless paths of magick," let out that air from his lungs that had been so cooled by the heat of his blood. He rest his hands upon his knees, palms upturned, the fingers of both hands mirrored the mudra of tranquility. Calm.

And there he sat. In silence before the squire.

Saella

 

[Saella]

In the silence, Saella squirmed. Breath upon breath it stretched as she waited for him to continue. Nothing came.

"Well," she said, still on the cusp of hesitancy. "The more I try to understand, the further I feel from the truth."

Frustration trickled into her voice. Where the Pursuant sat in ease, swathed in the armor of well-practiced calm, Saella managed only a tight baring of teeth. She brushed back the hair that fell over her brow, sucked in a breath laden with the chill of an approaching dusk.

"What else can I do?"


Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

A breath in. A breath out. Stillness undisturbed save for the gentle rise and fall of lungs and shoulders. A cycle he would let repeat, again... and again. A pulse like the rise and fall of the tides. Strong and unyielding, for there was still so much there behind it all.

"What else can you do?" he echoed. "When the waters are turbulent, the current strong. Are you so bold to try and best the tides?"

Saella

 

[Saella]

She thought to meet the Pursuant in his stride, breathing matched to the waning pulse of wind that stirred their gentle grove. It held her rapt, the cadence drawing her into repose. Atop a mantle of calm, she sat, letting sensation act the part of guide through the tenor of Bebin's voice.

"No," she said, admission humming from distant lips.

"As the stone sits at the river's bed," she said, "I would be carried by the tide." Her eyes were shut in mirror of the Pursuant's rhythm. A frown.

"It is not very impressive. I don't think I could fight the tide, I don't think I'd want to?"


Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

Neutrality.

A mirror made of flesh and bone. Reflected through the sounds of tranquil breath. Deeper they fell, with each pull of lung. Into that shared feeling that spread between them. Each lungful, full of the potency that came with strong and measured breath.

"Who are we to impress?" A breath between each question. A long pause that dove into the silence. Further, and further from the surface sounds of bird song, of wind, of dragonfly's wing stirring the air.

"Ourselves?" The rustle of the grass. The beat of the heart.

"The tide?" the rush of blood that rivered through the veins.

Saella

 

[Saella]

The pauses drew Saella into herself, into contemplation. A reverie that mirrored the evershifting tide welling from the font of knowledge within.

She felt the stir against her. That cacophonous amalgamation of noise shifting across the monastery's glade. Her eyes shot open. Her fingers twitched in momentary want of flight. The question rung within her; a gong that trebled to vast silence that sought revelation. And yet, none were revealed to her. Who to impress indeed.

"I guess I'd thought to impress"—and her voice grew small, shoulders hunched in facsimile of defense—"you," she said, gesturing wide to take in the whole of the courtyard, of the monastery itself.

A wisp of a smile ghosted across her lips.

"But I don't have to, do I?"


Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

A smile curled across his lips. "Do you?" he asked. Let his breath fill his lungs once more. Spill out, slow, measured. "Would you gain, with my esteem? Would you lose, without it?" words like ripples come across the surface of the air that gathered about them. Swirled between them. Caught against their forms and set to stir those energies that pulled them down into the depths.

"As the veil between Wyld and Loch, thins, how do we stay afloat?" Breath buoyed them.

With exhale. They sank. Further down. While the day's star burned bright over head. Their eyes, shut, would see the shadows grow thicker. Each breath, grew heavier.

Saella

 

[Saella]

She caught the skeins of thought in the furrows of her brow. The abstract nature of it eluded her, and she felt her head swim with the implications; each word demanded weight, forced her to measure what might otherwise spill haplessly from her lips.

Frustrating, really. It radiated from her with a shake of the head, hair catching around her eyes and nose in a makeshift veil that cracked her gaze from its inward cant. In using a hand to brush it aside, she gathered a moment to compose herself, coming back to roost at the cover of her book.

By opening her eyes, she broke through the reverie that had settled about her and found an easy calm. The autumn tint that crept cool over the breeze brought it to her. And she spoke, releasing the couch of cage and saccharine mewling of an earnest pupil that she previously adopted (in its wake, a sigh borne of feeling, the essence of words that filled her without regards for the meaning).

"Much the same as we float above the lake," she said. "By laying slack and letting ourselves rise without fighting it."


Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

A nod. Another breath. The push and pull of lungs, long and audible as they say.

The breeze felt slower. Thicker against their skin. The sound of the birds, deeper and warped. As if muffled by water.

But their breath. That was clear. The feeling of the world beneath them, form. Save the darkness that flooded their minds.

"And if one dives beneath the lake," he continued. "How does one keep from falling to the silt?"

His eyes came open. And he was a phantasm of refracted light amidst a world of black glass. Sat upon a mirror of midnight. On the other side of its surface, the world of the waking mind. His body, a long with Saella's.

He could see her mind's echo there, beneath the Loche. But would she open her eyes within the realm of dreams? Or would she remain blind to it still?

 

[Saella]

Thoughts crystalized, water from the mid-winter falls; an ebbing flow that forced Saella to consider the Pursuant's words from angles yet foreign to her.

Consternation narrowed her gaze, left her lips pursed as she worked over the question. She approached it in silence, letting it breathe before opening her mouth to reply.

"I don't know," she said. "If I dove too deep, how could I keep myself from falling into the silt?" In repetition she found some measure of solace, bought herself another line to cast about the murk of consideration.

"Limits, then? Knowing the inner and outer boundaries of the lake, of myself. Fighting the current drags you deeper, so doesn't it make sense to follow that the same is true if you are caught out? Like a foot sinking in a bog. The harder you try to pull it out, the faster you sink. Instead you have to work around being stuck, work with the flow not against."


Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

She might feel the weight of the Loch bare down on her.

Use words to struggle amidst its currents. Hold on to what she felt she knew, lest she be swept away by the endless sea of possibility.

"What of the fish?" Bebin asked. A cruel curl to his lips as he went on, observing the squire he tried to guide. "What of the octopus, with its eight arms, and bulbous head?"

Saella

 

[Saella]

"The fish?"

Equilibrium escaped her. It shifted in the murk, disrupting the easy calm she had adopted.

"The octopus?"

Frenetically, she searched for commonality and found none. Her eyes shot open with a skew that fell over her brow; countenance scrunched, she forced a breath for composure.

"Do they not work within the flow? The fish swims and feeds and follows the current. The octopus..." Hesitation accosted her, and she eschewed it with a helpless shrug.


Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

The specter of Bebin grinned, there amidst the endless sea of dreams. The field of clarity, expanded, by his own force of will, projected around them.

Darkness. Clear and true and without silt, as far as their eyes could see.

Their luminous forms there amidst the pitch. Stars across the night sky.

"The octopus flows, with more grace than a fish can ever hope for," the Pursuant said as he looked into the young Squire's eyes. "Boneless, mantled," he closed his eyes, drew in a breath into lungs that did not exist. From the phantom of his essence, an aura of blue light swirled and waved and formed into an orb that split from his own mantle.

Grew arms. Eight. Spread wide. Flattened. Pulsed forward through the clear black that surrounded them. The water's of the Loch that threatened to drown a mind untrained. Threatened to crush those who could not imagine being beneath such a body.

Saella

 

[Saella]

Dwarfed by that wicked grin, Saella shrank within herself. She watched, mute and small as words transmuted fiction to reality; she blinked, and the image flickered within the Loch. The shifting murk, the longing, haunting friction of it hummed along the concave of her chest.

She shuddered to behold it.

"To what end?" she asked, a whisper across the facade of night. "Is not the fish, in its ease and instinct, as graceful as the octopus? They both ride the same current."


Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

How the play of false light shimmered and shined. Dapple and flickered as the being born from Bebin's mind, drift about. Lazy as it was sure in its confidence.

"Yet," he posed as the luminous form of the thing he had summoned, flew through the abyss about them. "There is no fish, here within this current," he went on, and the octopus scrunched, ever so about its body, legs gathered just, before it pushed itself out once more. A thing alive. A thing as real as they, amidst the midnight mind's simulacrum of the world, turnd upside down, and the endless expanse beyond.

How its arms moved. Like streamers against currents that flowed all around them.

Saella