Fable - Ask Fumbles and Foibles

[Kristen Pirian]

The nice mug had a strikingly Obanese flair to it, what with that dour griffin (did they spell it "gryphon" up there in the northeast? The debate among scholars raged fiercely over the proper spelling, this much Kristen knew).

Kristen held the mug with both hands. The little wisps of steam that rose from it were warm, the scent...rather mouthwatering, despite the best efforts of Proctor Rennou it would seem. Kristen would've loved to learn how to brew her own tea, but alas, all of it had been reserved for the servants of House Pirian, despite the occasional plea to mother. But it couldn't be too hard, now could it? Lemon balm and chamomile--jot that down in a mental note.

Kristen, following the "instructions" dutifully, lifted the mug and took a long and hearty sniff of its aroma. Mayhap with Raf's own teachings, this combination would prove to be quite effective!

Speaking of.

"Well," Kristen said. "The drinking of this tea shall be quite easy. And delicious! Meditation I have attempted before with advice from Raf. Yet...I must admit, I am at a loss for how a journey of the mind and soul begins in earnest. Such remains your area of expertise, Chasmine."

Chasmine

 

[Chasmine]

"We are taking the first step," Chasmine assured her, "tea cleanses the body and nourishes the soul. We musn't allow the soul to wander while it is wanting."

Blowing over her tea gently, Chas carefully tested it and found the temperature to be quite manageable. She sipped deeply and gave a soft hum as the flavorful drink warmed her throat all the way down to her belly. Simply sublime.

"It is good to think on the things that weigh your mind down, then release them into the steam," repeating the process of gently blowing on the tea, Chas watched the steam roil and sputter away before taking another long sip.

"When you have finished, we breathe."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen, despite not wanting to appear rude, nevertheless cast a dubious glance down at her tea. Tea certainly was a delicious drink, an especially wonderful treat after a day spent outside in the cold of winter as well, but...cleanses the body and nourishes the soul? Chasmine spoke of it as if the tea were half-medicine and half-prayer.

Well. Goodness. Suppose she was right, at least with respect to her own particular brew. How much more cleansing and nourishing would it have been with honey?

Kristen let out a little breath, resolving to keep an open mind. She lifted the mug of tea to her lips and drank shortly after Chasmine drank. Certainly delicious, that part hadn't changed in the slightest. She could feel that delightful warmth in the cradle of her stomach and it was as welcome as a hearthfire on a snowy day.

"Think on my concerns. Very well."

Kristen thought of her anxiety, both in general and with regard to Proctor Magomo's assignment. She thought on the pressure to perform, to do well and bring great honor to her House. She thought on the Battle of the Blades, the Warlord Dominic, cursing him ineffectually and wishing that she had the power to do something.

She likewise blew on the wisps of steam rising from the surface of the tea and sipping again. She lowered the mug to her lap once more.

"And we breathe..." she echoed.

Chasmine

 

[Chasmine]

"We breathe and we still." Chasmine said gently, placing her empty mug into the larger chalk circle near the center in a space between two of the raven's feathers.

Her hand returned to her knees where she placed both lightly curled, palms facing upwards. She breathed slowly. In and out.

"We breathe and we quiet."

Chasmine closed her eyes.

In and out.

In and out.

"We breathe and we hear."

The gentle wind outside the windowpane. The song of a mockingbird in the cedar trees lining the outer walls. The soft crackles of the fire in the fireplace of her room. The quiet murmurs of the beating heart.

In and out.

"We breathe and we feel."

In and out.

Chasmine slowly began touching her thumbs to the finger tips of each other finger on her hands one at a time. Pointer. Middle. Ring. Pinky. Pinky. Ring. Middle. Pointer.

In and out.

"We breathe and we are."

In and out.

"Now," her eyes opened again, veiled by the weight of ease as she leaned in to a small wooden bowl at the center of the circle to gently retrieve a single dried mushroom that was long and spindly and pale, "we take in the earth and release the soul."

She brought the mushroom to her mouth, popped it in, chewed for a moment, then swallowed.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen tried her best to mimic what Chasmine was doing. For the sake of lovely symmetry perhaps as much as any practical or mystical quality, she placed her own empty mug within the larger chalk circle as well.

The breathing part was easy enough. Certainly easier than Raf's method of meditation, which was to do nothing and purge thoughts from one's mind. Much like breathing, thoughts seemed to arise by mere undeniable reflex, and halting them was far more difficult than going with the flow.

Remaining still was easy. The tea absolutely helped with that, having relaxed her already--it was much like snuggling into an even more comfortable spot on an already luxurious bed. Quiet. Oh yes. Quiet she could do. Silence was often golden, father was keen of saying, and while Kristen loved to chat she also strove to make ample space to listen. Which, appropriately enough, was next. Much like her meditation session at sea with Raf, all of those smaller background sounds took on a special significance when she allowed her ears to open up to them. We feel. What struck her most was the warmth from the tea, like a little candle within her. My how she loved the feeling of warmth in all its kinds.

We are.

Kristen was lost a bit (alright, more than a bit) on this last part. But, praise be, Chasmine didn't leave her wondering. She procured a...was that a mushroom? One of those strange, spongy little plants? Kristen remembered plucking one in her curiosity as a child and receiving something of a worried admonishment from the House alchemist, telling her not to do that again because some may be poisonous.

Well, hopefully...her soul would not be literally released by partaking of Chasmine's offer.

So Kristen did as Chasmine did once more. She reached for and picked a dried mushroom from the bowl and sat back and studied it for a second.

Then, gingerly, she ate it.

Chasmine

 

[Chasmine]

Having partaken of the sacred earth on a fairly regular basis, Chasmine eased into her blooming wonderland with a level, fluid grace. For her, it was the sensation of weightlessness. The warmth of security. The color of a world opal and pearl, gently gleaming beneath the radiant gold of release from her prison.

It was the calm shore of serenity where she could find peace between the turmoil of a dark sea of memories repressed and the curated promises of a life carefully fed through rose-colored lenses. In this place she was free of her fears and regrets. Settled in a gown of white satin layered-frills before a fireplace, poring over books far too advanced for one so young.

Far too esoteric for one so noble.

In the days before her curse and the breaking of her life in Vel Anir.

Chasmine slowly rolled back to lay on her floor, bleary pale eyes staring upwards into the bloom, expression caught between distant wonder and weary yearning.

"What do you see, Kristen Pirian?"

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Within a short matter of time, Kristen's demeanor melted from the proper if anxious noblewoman to something certainly less refined. That of a scared and confused kitten, who by some mishap had found herself in wildly unfamiliar territory, shrinking away from all matter of harmless, benign things which she perceived as being frightful.

She was sitting on her butt, legs splayed out before her and arms tented out behind her as if she were seated on a fair knoll and gazing up at a starry night sky. Except, for Kristen, all those metaphorical stars were bleeding into and out of one another with each tiny shift of her eyes. Eyes which were hilariously dilated and wide, wide, wide. She kept making these snap movements of her head as if she'd spotted something moving to the left in her peripheral vision, now to the right, now to the left! Her shoulders were making a valiant attempt to rise up and provide a retreat for her face to shrink into.

"Too much! I see too much!" Kristen whined. "Chaaaaaasmeeeeeen! I-Is this supposed to happen!? I d-don't think this is supposed to happen! Where's the ceiling? Chaaaaaas, where's the ceiling!?"

Chasmine

 

[Drastus Tal'deneshaar]

Drast whistled as he made his way up the stairs. Gods above was it a long jog. He wasn't sure what he was going to teach Kristen, all he knew was they said something about today.. or tomorrow.. and he definitely woke up late for it, so now he was trying to find her.

Everyone said she was up in the tower. A weird place for them to meet for training. He could have even sworn someone had a room up there, but like, that was impossible, right?

Cursing, he rounded the last few rounds of stairs. "Rupert.. fuck the grounds, we're using these stairs for running now, yeah?" He said talking aloud to his undead friend within his backpack. Normally, he kept their convos to in his head, but he was getting tired. "Note to self, ask Kristen why.. why is it in a tower?"

"Well, Mister Tal'deneshaar.." he would begin to answer, doing his best impression of Kristen, it was very much posh and refined, like her. "Thou shast know that thine air is better for training at such tremendous heights.." he would laugh. "..Ooh.. wonder if shast is even a word. I'll add that to the list of asks, too."

Reaching the port to the room, Drast stopped, fixed his hair, it was on fleek. Checked his breath, minty. He then licked his forefinger and thumb and smoothed out his brow game, then his goatee. Oh yeah, he was feeling himself. He took a step towards the door and heard Kristen whining.

"Too much! I see too much!"

Was someone trying to expose themselves to Lady Pirian? Hell no, that was the Inked Elephants job. He grabbed that door knob at twisted it, using his body to force it open. One hand glowed with necromantic energy as he was prepared to change the gender of her assailant. "Kris?"

.....only to stop in the now open doorway. This was someone's room, Chas's room? If he could remember her name right. The blackish glow would flicker in his hand as his tensed muscles relaxed. "Oh shit.." the noble Lady Pirian... was zonked.

Kristen Pirian Chasmine

 

[Chasmine]

"It's all -" Chasmine blinked dreamily up into the ceiling that had begun to warp and boil before her very eyes, "part of the journey ~ "

From that ceiling a black curtain descended as she closed her eyes and tilted her head to look over at Kristen who was now appearing to her in the form of Belinda, the lovely cook from the kitchens.

"Think on your recipe and the ingredients shall appear. What makes a Divine Magic Cake?"

And Not Kristen began to glow in the halo of the fire softly popping and crackling in the fireplace. Chasmine offered a soothing sort of smile and watched as a large Raven appeared in the gaping cavern mouth that was the doorway to her room. Chas turned round, pale, and wondering eyes up at it.

"Hello there, Sir Raven, have you come to help Kristen on her journey?"

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen was doing her best impression of an absolute fluffball of a kitten, scared of the entire world, shrinking down and balling up. Quick little flicks of her head here and there, saucer-sized pupils tracking some hallucinatory movement skittering this way and gliding that way.

"Divine Magic cake! Divine Magic cake!" Kristen was saying, repeating the words again and again in a quivering voice, reciting them as if they were some sort of mantra that would keep her safe, a talisman against the thoroughly unprecedented state of mind she found herself in.

Someone came into the room. Of course Kristen wasn't very much aware of a room right now—even her worries of the ceiling had departed. Somewhere vaguely to her "right" in that infinite cosmic landscape came a familiar voice. Familiar enough. Chasmine called him Sir Raven.

"Divine Magic cake...!" Kristen said again, in a comically pitiful fashion. She reached out her hands in a cautiously exploratory manner, probing about in the air vaguely in Drastus's direction. "Where is it? I just want to go home!"

Chasmine Drastus Tal'deneshaar

 

[Drastus Tal'deneshaar]

There were a million things that Drast could see and not.. Chas looking up then looking at Kristen. She muttered something that he couldn't quite hear then she looked at him. Sir Raven.

He had no idea who or what was a Sir Raven so he hopped about thinking someone was behind him.. they weren't. More confusion.. "Wait.. am I Sir Raven?" He mused to himself, before looking down at his arms. "Rude.. could make me like a parrot or an eagle.." he muttered to himself before shutting the door.

"Divine Magic Cake!" Kristen just started screaming towards him and he looked back at her.

Her goofy ass was yelling about cake and pointing to his.. ass? I mean, he couldn't disagree, he worked hard on it. Another Sir Raven, he'd have to have a talk with them later.

Then he remembered Chas had asked him a question. "Uhh.. yeah.. Sir Raven is here to help." Okay, maybe no talk. The nickname was starting to work for him. Besides, he had agreed to help her train, so if this was the test, the New Republic was wild.

Drast would sit down beside Kristen, one hand taking hers that was clawing at him. "Uhh calm. Kris.. calm. Sir Raven is here?" He glanced at Chas to see if he was helping.

Chasmine Kristen Pirian

 

[Chasmine]

"Oh," a woozy, pleasant reply, "how wonderful...to have you with us, Sir Raven." Chasmine smiled, though the expression failed to connect with a face. It was a smile given to the warbling expanse of existence within which she presently partook. Sir Raven now perched on a tree branch, but the branch was Kristen's arm, and Kristen was a sprawling meadow of silver, white, and gold flowers. At the center of it all was the ceremonial bowl.

Chasmine reached for the bowl at the center of the chalk circle on the floor, brushing past the loose raven feathers strewn about, and held it up to Sir Raven, "Perhaps you would journey with us," she said, voice airy and light. Chas gently shook the bowl of dried mushrooms at Drast, "for cake."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"Drastus? Is that you...?"

Her own voice seemed to be all the way on Epressa. And she was finding it exquisitely difficult to focus on him, or what she thought was him. Her eyes were like a painter's rejected canvas, awash with semi-solid sights which blended into melting, streaking color...before becoming other dream-like sights with hazy edges. She was vaguely aware of something in her hand (was she holding it, or was it holding her?) and she was looking in an unfocused way at seemingly every point but Drastus himself.

"There's a bird in here, be careful! And there's too many colors! I don't...even know what raspberries taste like. There's a ladybug on my nose."

Kristen tried to touch her nose. She failed.

"Wait...my nose...is the ladybug!"

She yelped. Toppled backward in slow motion, and teetered on her back like an upside down turtle.

Chasmine Drastus Tal'deneshaar

 

[Drastus Tal'deneshaar]

Had Drastus seen this play before? Maybe if he was a man of the arts, he would have had warning bells slamming off all around him. But he wasn't. He was Drastus and who was Drast to turn down some cake questing?

He fired off a grin at Chas. "Chassy, if we talking funnel cake, I got the cake and the funnel." Between whatever Chas was brushing off the floor and Kristen speaking nonsense, he knew that whatever was in that offered bowl was going to be the best he could experience.

"Sir Raven has joined the fight." There would be no confirmation nor denial in the years that lie ahead on whether he took two or one, all that would be known was he popped the portable spirit quests into his mouth and said.. "Blast off."

He honked Kristens ladybug. "Sure thing its Drast, girl. Keep your hands and feet inside the carriage at all times during this ride. Your pathfinder is here, let's go find some cake."

Chasmine Kristen Pirian

 

[Chasmine]

"I suppose one cannot choose the cake they are given," Chasmine answered quizzically, "I for one find all cakes to be equally divine." A nod in affirmation - she was no cakeist. There would be no shame in type or flavor. Kristen had a Divine Magic Cake to make, and by gosh, they were going to help her do it. The bowl found its way back to the floor before Chas turned to look at Kristen, whose nose bloomed into a buzzing ladybug right before her very eyes ... and then the Raven pecked it off her face.

"Oh my ... don't worry Kristen, we'll get you another ladynose. Surely they are in the pantry next to the funnels."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"Where's the carriage?" Kristen asked plaintively, still seesawing on her back on the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees. She seemed to not notice overmuch that her nose had been honked (or perhaps even stolen). "Am I in the carriage right now?"

She froze for a moment and her eyes tracked some phantom moving left to right in her vision.

And she spoke as if she'd just seen Aionus himself descend down to Arethil. "I saw my ladynose go by...!"

Tentatively, she started to reach a careful hand up, the movement of her eyes and that hand matching, fingers and thumb trying to grasp something that wasn't there. Then by chance her wandering hand brushed up against Drastus's ear and she clasped it, her thumb roaming around the curving ridges within.

Somewhat excited, she said, "Chasmine, Drastus...I believe I have found the funnel cakes..." And then quizzically, "Am I actually in the pantry...?"

It was going to be a long journey to the Divine Magic cake, fraught with psychedelic peril.

Chasmine Drastus Tal'deneshaar

 

[Drastus Tal'deneshaar]

Kristen started to ask about the carriage and she was a literal wreck, just rocking back and forth. "Yup, you're in the carriage. Oh yeah, just ride the wave out. Good carriage, a comfy carriage." One arm would go around to steady Kristen, like she was sitting in what he imagined to be a posh Pirian carriage. This was definitely not his first rodeo and the way he looked at it, he had a few more minutes before his kicked in.

He looked back to Chas, only to fall victim to his second most intimate moment in front of others. The first was the borderline sexual handwashing with Eve.. and now? Kristen had begun to caress his ear and just downright seduce him. He wasn't gonna complain. His gaze shifted back to Kristen and he grinned. "You're very close to the funnel and definitely in the pantry."

He looked back at Chas and paused... was she always draped in a fuzzy blanket?

Chasmine Kristen Pirian

 

[Chasmine]

"Carriages with pantries are going to catch on," Chasmine remarked as she rolled back onto the floor in slow-motion, pale eyes languidly watching the ceiling shift. For several moments it was a blitz of ladynoses scurrying every which way, then a flurry of teacups and saucers dancing out of cupboard doors.

And that was about how their evening would continue to go.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

What goes up.

Must come down.

Kristen lay on her back staring up at the ceiling, her arms splayed out wide with her palms up. She'd gone quiet for a while as the psychedelic effect of the mushroom had gone onto the backslide and the world became less amorphous and whimsical and more defined and stark. The low light of the setting sun had given way to the full dark of night and the candles provided their gentle glow.

The entire experience had been...unique. Yes, that was a fitting enough word. But Kristen was most certainly glad that it was over, and one could not say that she was exactly keen on embarking on such a journey of the mind and soul again.

Yet, despite what could only be described as an absolute parade of silly frivolity:

"I know what I have to do," Kristen said.

Drastus Tal'deneshaar Chasmine

 

[Drastus Tal'deneshaar]

Drast watched in mild horror as that blanket crawled up Chas's back and shrouded her face. A lions face. When she spoke, she roared, but she was gentle. A gentle lioness.

He lost track of Kristen's had as the pair had become a soup. A soup of cakes, ears, lady noses, feathers. He honestly had no idea what happened.

________________​

Eventually there was a lull in the madness. He found himself relaxing on the floor, Ruperts right arm in his hand as he shook it all about it. It was... entrancing.

He forced himself to sit up with a groan. He had to get back to his room. The arm got shoved back into his pack and his gaze shifted to Chasmine. "We'll do this again sometime." He remarked as he shot her with a finger gun.

"Kris.. let's go." He forced himself up to his feet and then reached down for her, pulling her gently to her own feet. "So.. I take it today wasn't my day." He said with a grin.

One hand on Kristen to either keep her upright or steady himself, the other hand would pull the door open and begin the long trek down they would.

And beyond that, Drast had a hunger for cake and he couldn't quite place why.

Kristen Pirian Chasmine

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen waved a meager farewell to Chasmine (she certainly had earned her reputation as "The Odd One" had she not?) and left the room with Drastus. Ugh...now that she was on her feet and moving around, she had a headache. Mayhap, like soreness in the legs after running for a while, this was the exhaustion felt after a journey of the mind and soul.

She kneaded her palm into her forehead, descending down the mountainous stairs back into the dormitory proper.

Despite the headache, she spoke with a familiar good cheer. "Better early than late, I suppose. I should hope that I've been set upon the right course, and I do believe it to be so."

She had some deep prayer to engage in once she arrived back at her room. Aionus, the God of Time, was not a deity who bestowed some of the more typical powers of Divine Magic, the ones she had read about in the tome on the Radiant Church. His domain, time, was neither good nor evil, but it was strictly ordered. Things came to be and eroded away with time: hence the basis of her Conjurations. Rare was it for time to give Blessings, such was its relentless march, so such (much to Kristen's chagrin) was not a wise path to pursue—at least not at her novice stage of magical development. But, because of that relentless march, a march which waited for no one, time was far more often...

...a Curse.

"When I am ready," Kristen said. "I would still like to practice upon Rupert. May I?"

Drastus Tal'deneshaar Chasmine

 

[Drastus Tal'deneshaar]

"Consider yourself lucky." Drast said with a grin. "The first time I have ever been this early, was with you." He laughed. Oh boy. He couldn't wait to get back to his room, he had a lot of coming down to do.

He kinda got lost in the sauce until he noticed Kristen was looking at him expectantly. His brain did a slow rewind. Rupert. She wanted to train with Rupert. "Coitenly." He said with a faux accent.

"You just let me know the time and the place." He would come at a stop before the door of a room, he could only assume was hers. Nice. He shot her with a wink and a finger gun. "Til then, catch ya later, Kris. Don't forget the funnel cake."

With that, he turned on his heel and headed back for his room. Gods, he was definitely high still.. and cake sounded way too good. A small detour to the kitchens wouldn't hurt, would it?

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen blinked and then giggled at the peculiar way in which Drastus had pronounced "certainly."

"Give me another..." she thought about it, "three days! I believe—I hope—I shall be ready in at least some passing manner by then."

She stopped by her door.

"In the meanwhile, I've a fair bit of praying and contemplation in which to attend!" She waved goodbye. Then mused to herself, "Oh my, funnel cake...I feel as though I've heard that recently...?"

Refusing to become distracted, she entered her room.

Drastus Tal'deneshaar

 

[Kristen Pirian]

DAY THREE​

Kristen was close. Close! She could feel it.

Her prayers had done much, her contemplations on the essence of curses productive—at least she thought so. Curses, unsurprisingly, required touching a certain darkness within oneself, engaging with negative, acidic emotions. Thinking of Dominic Foresend, of Duresh, brought such malicious emotions to the forefront of mind, absolutely. It also helped that some of her experiences here in the Academy with some select Initiates were also a bubbling cauldron from which she could plunge a ladle and scoop out a heaping helping of said emotions to provide fuel for calling down curses.

But that was the thing. She might have practiced a familiarity with the mindset, but she'd yet to actually channel a successful curse from Aionus. Still, progress had been made! Already she was farther along than she would have thought only a scant two days ago!

Kristen was hurrying along the hallway in Building A, one of the Academy's stark class buildings. Proctor Fernando (the new one with the...unique approach) had a class this period in which Kristen and some others were slated to attend.

She rounded a corner in the hall.

And, ahead, coming opposite her way, Liliana Lorel and her small flock of "peers." Ignatius saw Kristen first, scoffed, rolled his eyes, and turned into the open doorway on the right to his assigned class. The others also broke off in their turns, filtering into the classrooms. Just Kristen and Liliana heading toward one another now.

Kristen (still with a queerly blank opinion of Liliana, as if the girl was an incredibly distant cousin in her family that she struggled mightily to remember) raised a hand awkwardly and hazarded a half-smile and just said:

"Hi...?"

Liliana

 

[Liliana]

The posse around Liliana began to fall away as she approached Kristen, the Proctor's having worked hard to make sure that they were all separated in their classes.

Most of them had learned long ago that keeping them all together was most often worse than the small length of freedom they'd been granted. She couldn't blame them for that decision, though her objections had been offered more than once.

Why not keep those more useful together.

It most certainly helped her bonds with them. Bonds that very much resembled strings that hung from marionettes on a stage.

As the Pirian girl approached her and offered the little wisp of a wave Liliana couldn't help the rolls of her eyes. A part of her wondered just how the little Pirian could have remained so fucking ignorant in the Academy. Especially when surrounded by knuckle dragging neanderthals like Ralene and Edric.

"Kristen." Liliana remarked, regarding the much taller girl. "What are you doing?"

She asked, her words like a needle. "Don't you have a garden to look after? Some field to tend?"

Pirians did enjoy their fields, planting crops, tending flowers. "I assume like the rest of your family you have some...plowing to attend?"

Liliana's eyebrow raised as she asked.