[Flashback] Reflection (Solo)

[Solicah]

505 Summer, 73

As for any pubescent child some days were better than others for Solicah, in fact some hours were better than others. This day was one of the not better. He was usually an optimistic child, even when hormones raged, usually raising him to a fevered pitch of elation and excitement, rather than dips of depression. Still, as all laws of nature deemed, what goes up must inevitably, eventually, come down. And, Solicah balanced the rarity of such falls with the fierce compensation of both strength and endurance.

"Fine! I'll just get in my bed and stay there like an obedient little child so I'll never be in your way. And, I'll never come out so you don't have to deal with me! See? No conflict, I'm not being difficult, I'm doing what I'm told. So, pet-" A stern look from his mother brought the sentence to a premature end.

"Solicah." The tone was condescending, implying he was acting childish, amongst a million other implication. A tone only a mother could give to their child. Solicah loathed that tone, the fact that with a single word she could counter, and undermine everything he had said before. Coupled with that unforgiving, yet unfairly loving expression of hers.

Solicah simply turned and fled from the room with little grace, purposefully disrupting the smudge filled air in his wake, hoping on some level that his presence would remain in the room. And it would. It brought his mother no pleasure to dismiss her beloved son, but he was growing, and she needed her privacy to do her work. Solicah would understand one day. Solicah did understand most days, but not that one.

[Solicah]

He kept running past the working adults, ignoring the kids he passed, not daring stop for anything till he passed through the opening to his family's private tent. Tears poured from his eyes as he turned and tied the flaps of the tent closed behind him, so nobody could enter after him. This, however, brought him nothing but more unhappiness, for he knew that neither his mother nor father would be attempting to come in for some time. Not till the sun set, and their duties were done.

Alone, he theatrically fell to the dirt beneath him, pitching his face so the tears could fall directly onto the ground before the entrance, perhaps to leave evidence of his pain for the next person to come through. In time the tears stopped, but he refused to relinquish his sobbing. He couldn't, in all truth, remember what had caused the outbreak when he finally rose to his feet again and stepped not into his own portion of the tent, but his parent's. But, that didn't much matter to him, still stuck in the grips of the turbulent emotions.

Grabbing the small basin of wash water from the foot of his parent's bedroll that had yet to be dumped out. He settled down in the center of the mess of sheets, which neither of his parents had bothered to tidy that morning before getting to work. He knew what he was looking for, and after some rummaging found it tucked into a small morning sack full of hygiene supplies.

[Solicah]

His hands emerged from the sack containing a bundle of rough cloths, that he peeled aside to reveal the well protected delicate inside. A beautiful, yet simple, iron bordered mirror. He turned it over and looked at the back of it, smooth an unreflected, then the front, where he found himself.

Or at least what he would guess was himself. It seemed foreign, as if he hasn't seen this boy before. His puffy eyes, the dirt about his face, disrupted by streaks of muddy tears, and sheening snot along his upper lip. The dark red, and condensed dirt line that ran just along the part of his lips. Most shocking was the expression, so diminished, and defeated. It took him a moment before he realized what the major difference was. No smile. Just the same, the look did match how he felt on the inside.

He tried a tentative smile. But, instead he saw a grimace. It was still wrong, how he looked. And, the situation only worsened when he reached up to rub at his eyes, matting together his thin golden eyelashes, and splotching the dirt bordering his eyes. He felt like crying again, but hasn't the tears to do so. So he let out some scattered sobs, which ruined all attempts at a smile.

Several minutes later he finally came to a conclusion. He didn't like the child in the mirror. He was so pathetic. He was covered in dirt, and his eyes were pussy, and he couldn't smile. Worse of all he hurt his mother, and was impatient, and over demanding. He decided he would change the child in the little hand mirror. He would fix his reflection, till it was perfect again.

[Solicah]

He grabbed his father's pillow and set it in front of him, leaving the washbasin just before that, then gathered up a few stretched of the rough cloth. Once everything was in place he finally brought himself to let go of the hand mirror, setting it before him, propped securely against the pillow, angled directly up to his face.

With a last sniffle against his emotions he armed himself with a cloth, dipped it into the water, and began washing away at his face. He began with his eyes, carefully pushing the tear marks away, revealing the clear skin beneath. Then, rinsing the cloth in the sink, rubbed away at his brow, and cheeks. The lips required some rubbing, and a slight split ripped open in it do to the dryness in the summer air.

Then, pulling his shirt off he rubbed away at his neck, behind his ears, and along his chest. The whole process took some time, time that was lost in the focused mind of the young Drykas. What did not loose relevance was his emotions, however, still laying stagnant and strong within him. Unrelinquished.

He finally finished tidying himself, as he grabbed for his mother's comb, and ran it through his unruly hair, using some water to help shape it to his will. What was left in the wake of his work left him perplexed.

The boy in the mirror looked better now, his face was still a little red, but his hair was calm, the dirt was gone, there was no evidence of tears or snot. But still, the rest remained.

[Solicah]

He still felt the same. Him emotions still welled and rose within him. And he thought a moment as if he would begin to cry once more. But something stopped him, and intrigue. He couldn't piece together why, against all the emotional turmoil he felt within him, his reflection seemed so calm. Almost serene.

He pondered upon this for a long time, as he stared down into the mirror, before he finally decided to experiment. He gave a stressed, mean glare to the mirror, and growled slightly, like a hunting dog, showing his teeth aggressively. It looked angry, but didn't change how he felt inside. Same with his expression of sadness, and then finally a smile. The smile seemed a bit off, but still didn't change how he felt on the inside.

Solicah was dumbfounded. He had always been so honest, no on principal, but just be default. He had always been a very expressive person, but never one to lie. In fact, until that exact moment he had never realized what a lie truly was. That one could feel way on the inside, and look another on the outside.

This choking revelation lead to deeper speculation, however. If he could feel one way on the inside, and appear another on the outside, then what was an emotions? Where were his feelings if they could be so easily concealed? Were they even real, even there at all?

[Solicah]

He immediately cast that thought aside. Of course emotions were real. He could feel them, at vividly as he could his own skin. Sometimes even better, like when he dreamed. So this begged the question of what emotions were. They were not what one looks like. Or the expression one wears, or even how put together they look.

He tried something new, a command, speech. "Solicah, be happy." Aside from a slight shock at hearing his own voice, pulling him out of his self imposed focus nothing changed. His emotions still lingered. He frowned at himself, and tried again. "You are happy, Solicah." Nothing.

This fascinated the boy to no end. He continued to speak to himself, with a clear concise voice. Then after what must have been nearly a bell continued onto others voices, more excited, or anger, or commanding, or sad, or sometimes just plain funny. The longer the words came the more and more cereal the boy in the mirror seemed to become, and the more Solicah wondered what emotions were. He couldn't figure out why the idea was so allusive to him.

The truth was, that a boy who had never bothered to think of how the world saw him before, never understood the idea of ego. This freed him from so much, but in the process had stunted his understanding of emotions. He did not think of the world like other children, not how he should behave and how he shouldn't. Only how he felt and acted, which to him had always been one in the same. Only when he found himself greatly disgruntled had he begun to fracture himself, speak out with words that were false. Realize a separating within himself that he had never seen before then.

[Solicah]

This process stretched on for the remainder of the day with with little progress, only cycling and repetitive thought. He eventually became aware of the time as the light around him began to fade, and he put his parent's belongings away, and untied the flap to the tent. He didn't speak of the day's findings to his parents, and instead ate his dinner quietly, obediently, with little passive aggressiveness, and went to bed like a good child. He tried not to let go of those feelings he had, however.

The next day after breakfast he sat down again upon his parent's unkempt bed, the mirror perched again upon the pillow, and looked down at himself. This obsession would fill his time for several weeks before he finally began making progress, began finding his mind in new places, and seeing the world, and other people in new ways.

He had decided that emotions, were parallel, but not reflective of the physical. Just as on can reach out with their physical body and touch the world, they also could with their emotional. That emotions were like muscled of will, that one could exercise. And this fascination, this sudden and occultic revelation lead Solicah to begin exercising these new muscles at ever chance he could win away from chores.

[Solicah]

It was well into autumn before he began to see outside of himself, began to look away from his mirror, and realize he was not the only person within the Moondirge pavilion that possessed this secret knowledge, this special way of looking at the world. It was one of the elders he spotted first using this knowledge, but not in a mirror, on another within the pavilion to calm their nerves after an accident.

They spoke, like Solicah had been trying to, with force behind their words. "Calm down. You're fine now." they spoke with not only physical strength but emotional. Solicah was spellbound, as the man she spoke to silenced immediately. Just as the healed, and calmed the young man physically, they also did emotionally, using those emotional muscles.

Solicah waited a few days before finally building up the courage to ask the elder about it. He explained what he saw, and tried to explain what he felt. And in response he won merely a skeptical look at first. Then finally, some words of knowledge, starting with one that would fill his mind forever, shape his idea of emotions. "Hypnotism." The elder spoke willfully to the boy, and Solicah could feel an air of seriousness, studiousness seep into his 'emotional body.' "Such knowledge is not for one as young as you, especially not at this time in your life. It, like all magic, is dangerous. You know this, Solicah. You work with the webbing and you know the risks present, and the precaution that must be made."

Solicah had no idea what he was learning had been magic, or even dangerous in the least. He still spent much time practicing his webbing, priding himself on it. And yes, he knew full well how careful one must be with all kinds of magic. He felt as if he should apologize for not knowing, but couldn't iamgine why he was allowed the knowledge of webbing but never instructed in hypnotism. What was wrong with his age? If he was already an accomplished novice of webbing then why not learn hypnotism as well? The answers would all come to him in time.

"I would request of you that you do not practice this any more, that you wait till you are older to study this magic. But, I know the temptation of hypnotism, and I realize that you must have true potential in yet another magical art to have gotten this far on your own," her voice was almost envious in tone. "Thus, I will not forbid you from the knowledge. But, I will find you a teacher, one that can properly teach you your limitation, and the," she paused a moment as if concerned the words might be lost on the boy, but then pressed on, "moral implications of the magic. But for now, you sleep. Rest your mind, and tomorrow we will sort this. Shoo."

Solicah did as instructed, chewing over that word "Hypnotism." He tried to developed an opinion of the word, to wrap his mind around the idea that what he had seen in himself, that magical emotional body of his was in fact a real force, and one that can be exerted on other people. It would be some time before he truly understood what that meant.

[Lariat]

Solicah

Experience:

Meditation: 1 xp
Hypnotism: 1 xp

Lores:

Rumor of Magic: Hypnotism

Comments

Apologies for the delay. As per your request, for further development you'll need the help of a player character or a NPC, since progressing through self-discovery while possible will be very slow going, processed by generations of continuous trial and error. Not much exactly to critique hypnotism wise yet, though I might suggest looking at Rayage's threads if you wish to see it in action. Look forward to seeing more of your threads, if you have any more questions feel free to shoot me a pm.