So We Meet Again (Coren)

by **Sliver** on October 12th, 2012, 6:03 pm

48th of Fall 512 A.V.

Sliver walked slowly down the winding paths of the Boardwalk, eyes trained on the ground as if keeping an eye out for something she dropped. She had been trying desperately to work on meditation, for it seemed a practice that she was going to sorely need in the days to come, but it seemed there was always something going on in the barracks, always something going on in the city. The only benefit to the increased patrols and the ban on leaving Avanthal was that you had more days free since roaming Icewatch patrols were kept closer and closer to the city. Long hours also meant an extra day off, for which the newly minted guard was sincerely grateful. She found herself on an abandoned pathway, people seeming to have abandoned the Boardwalk in favor of the temple to pray. Sliver felt that she would need to go back there, even if it was only to give thanks to Lee’ena for her help in joining the Icewatch, but she couldn’t face all those expectant faces looking to her for good news.

The Kelvic sat down just off the path, folding her legs beneath her and attempted to clear her mind. It was a difficult task, she was consumed with fear, anxiety, and the sense of failing something before she had even begun. On top of that every time she tried to find a sense of camaraderie in the barracks, all she got was a serious feeling of loneliness at all the bonded pairs, even if there were plenty of Vantha and Kelvic just as lost as she in this matter. Even Shylir, Kennen, Simon, and Yilarra, her closest friends in the Icewatch felt too far away to confess any true feelings to. So she just brooded upon them more and the feelings with in steeped into something dangerous. She growled in frustration. This was not helping. She focused on breathing, entirely on it in fact. At first her eyes were open, watching the steam from her mouth get consumed by the cold, making sure all of her mind was concentrated on that one action: In and out. Her breathing steadied, and her heart beat slowed. Once she had grasped onto that she lowered her head and closed her eyes, trying to internalize the outward breathing, to keep calm on the inside. She heard a plea for help in the back of her mind, and was suddenly drawn to the dead bodies carried into the city that she was unable to aid. She struggled for control, trying to get back her focus on the breathing. After a few minutes of the mental struggle, she let out a long breath of defeat. Well she wasn’t getting anywhere with that it seemed. She let her eyes stayed closed, head bowed in defeat, trying to enjoy the silence at least.

by **Coren** on October 17th, 2012, 5:56 pm

Like usual coren was taking a short walk through the paths of the boardwalk. Keeping of the more used paths and sticking to the less walked and narrower paths that branched of it, he always enjoyed the silence and calm that settled in these parts. It lulled him into a sense of peace and he could almost feel his troubles and worries fall of his shoulders no matter what his current mood was.
And best of all, even if people walked past him here, the mayority of them where either not in the mood to give him those dirty glares he got when he walked in the streets. Heck a few day's ago he even had received some basic courtisy from a random passerby. Though now that he thought about it, being glad you received something that basic was quite pathetic.

He rounded a corner and was quite surprised at the sight of sliver sitting to the side of the path he was following and was meditating of all things. She was a kelvic, didn't they hate meditating and silence as much as a frostfawn hated leaving his animals alone? He briefly entertained the idea of just ignoring her and walking past her. She probably wanted her peace to work through the troubles she was so obviously having. Still in the end he decided it couldn't hurt to be civil. He stopped in front of her.
“Good day.” He said in his usual polite and monotone voice. “Something troubeling you.” The last one wasn't a question. More a statement of an obvious fact.

by **Sliver** on October 17th, 2012, 8:06 pm

She heard the footsteps approaching, but did not look up. Hopefully whoever it was would pass in peace and she could just try again, she had to try. She sighed. Who was she kidding? Wolverines didn’t meditate, they slept ate, hunted, and ****. It was about that time she realized the soft steps had stopped, and her head looked up just as she heard a familiar voice.

She peered under the hood, but the way the light shown down through the trees prevented her from catching a hold of his eye color upon this meeting. She was surprised that he stopped. At his second statement, for that’s what it was, no question, she smiled grimly.

“Many times in my short life people have said I am an open book. I do not like books, so I do not appreciate the saying, but yes, you are right, I am rather troubled.”

Her emotions may have been apparent on her face, but it didn’t mean she was just going to share all of her fears and worries with the mage. She had tried to help him as much as she could, but it wasn’t as if she trusted him, she was simply confused and curious about him and the way other’s treated him. The Kelvic shifted her position to a more comfortable seated position and tried to find his eyes under the hood of his cloak.

“Staying out of trouble?”

by **Coren** on October 17th, 2012, 9:14 pm

Coren just nodded at her reply, of course he was right unlike the majority of the population here he both had brains and eyes in his head. “Strange, always enjoyed books myself. Lots of information to be found in those. But I guess everybody has their own preferences.” Coren threw out in response as he observed the female kelvic sitting in front of him. Trying to figure out why a member of the icewatch would coop all of her trouble up when she had dozens of people to talk to about them in the barracks? Well, unless it was either illegal or embarrassing, but she was an icewatch kelvic, so both of those wouldn't be a problem, since the thought of doing something illegal never crossed their minds and they didn't know embarrassment in the first place.

“Yes, I haven't been apprehended again by the icewatch since their unjust interrogation of innocent bystanders.” He ignored the rather obvious attempts of the woman to look under his hood. “Though I think that if I ever got into trouble again you would one of the first to notice, being icewatch and all.” coren paused for a while, trying to figure out a way to put his next words in a way that wouldn't cause the icewatch in front of him to take offense to. He didn't enjoy being maimed very much.
“I wonder what kind of troubles you have if you can't talk to the other icewatch members about them. I was under the impression the majority of them hung together as if they where another hold.”

by **Sliver** on October 17th, 2012, 11:15 pm

Sliver contemplated his statement for a moment, bottom lip protruding slightly in thought, body rocking back and forth in an almost hypnotic manner as she kept the blood flowing. She wasn't offended by the question, though she was unsure why he was prying. She wasn't an especially secretive creature, however, so she so no reason to hide why she was outside.

"They are very kind to me, but I am still an outsider. I do not understand the Holds as they do...and many forget what it was like before they were bonded."

That was the biggest problem wasn't it? The empty bed that she stared at every night before falling asleep, the reminder of her past failures marking her present emptiness. Sometimes she wondered which was worse, losing a bondmate or never having experienced it in the first place. Since she was in the latter category she could only imagine the former, but both had their own particular torments, and at the end of the day there was no one to share her feelings with that she truly trusted. Which begged the question of why she was opening up to the mage. Her lip curled.

"I assume you must have similar problems, save worse due to your profession."

She cocked her head to the side. Deciding to ask her own rather invasive and rude question, seeing as how he seemed to owe her an answer.

"Is the magic you perform...Is it worth all of the hate? Is it worth losing your Hold?"

by **Coren** on October 18th, 2012, 6:25 pm

Coren nodded at her reply, that did make sense. Icewatch or not it was quite clear she was an outsider and that would of course pose some trouble, not to mention that if she wheren't bonded at the moment seeing all the happy pairs in the icewatch would probably be very painful for her.
“yes... we both don't fit in very well don't we? ” Coren deadpanned at her remark of their situations being vaguely similar. “At least you have a chance to integrate yourself if you keep at it. I don't.”
When the woman suddenly asked if it was worth it he didn't even think before answering.
“I don't think anybody else who doesn't study and practice magic can understand. But it is worth nearly every single sacrifice you make for it. The means that present oneself when you learn those things that most people can't even fathom are just so varied and empowering that you soon learn to ignore those who shirk away in fear when you present them with it.”

Coren cocked his head slightly to the side in curiosity, a slight shift of his hood in the direction being a telltale sign if one paid attention to it. The minor shift in his hood allowed Sliver to get a glimpse of his eyes and their color. A dark navy blue. Coren silently observed the kelvic sitting in front of him for a few moments, trying to get a read on her. She hated mages, that was obvious, but still she was talking to him like he was a person. Not as if he was some kind of madman with an incredibly contagious disease. It was something he had been hoping for, but he still couldn't help but feel suspicous about it. Was it a trap of some kind? Lure him in, try to open him up and gain his trust before shoving a dagger in his back? What would she have to gain with that?

by **Sliver** on October 18th, 2012, 7:36 pm

The Kelvic nodded at his response. What he said was true. If she was dedicated and patient eventually she will bond, surely through some Vantha recruit, and someday she would understand this city as intimately as anyone born within it's walls. On the opposite side of this: The stronger Coren became as a magic user, the more feared and reviled he would become, growing farther from his people.

"I am sorry, it is not exactly fair to compare us. It is like comparing a puddle to a lake because they are both filled with water."

She listened to his reasoning about his magic. No she did not understand, wasn't that the reason she asked? The mage would notice that as he spoke her face got a bit pale, his words rang like echoes of another voice's response when she had once asked him to explain magic to her. "You simply would not understand it until you used it little wolverine, and you won't be doing that, will you?". She nodded, brown eyes catching his blue ones that emerged ever so slightly from under the hood.

"I cannot argue something I do not understand."

She now leaned back a little, assessing the cloaked figure.

"One thing I cannot grasp..." She hesitated. The mage's downfall and his defense were his magic, and she was unsure if he would readily share any information with him, but she was quite curious. "You broke a man's shoulder with a rock, but with magic...I can do that without any magic." She grinned now, exposing sharp teeth amused at her own little joke.

"So what's the point in that?"

by **Coren** on October 19th, 2012, 11:47 am

Coren shrugged at her apologies, not really caring how she paled as he was talking about magic. That was just normal behaviour around him now. “You just asked something, you don't need to feel sorry for asking a question. Its the only way you can figure out what is going on most of the time anyway.” Coren said in the same polite tone. “That way of thinking isn't wrong though. A lake and a puddle are the same no matter one looks at it. A indent in the ground filled with water. Just because something becomes more or larger doesn't change what it is. Just the same with our problem, isolation. You just feel out of place, I'm an outcast. Fundamentally the same, an inability to connect with people in a positive way. Only difference is scope and the origin of the problem.” After his explination he fell quiet, letting what he said sink in. hoping to find something else then confusion on her face. A small smile pulled at his covered lips as he heard her say that she wasn't going to argue against something that she didn't understand. That was a lot more then the other vantha or kelvic's could say.

When she asked what the point was in using magic to break the mans shoulder, he shoved both his hands in his pockets, seemingly trying to think about how to explain that to her. He was just putting on a show though, in this case letting her see why was better then any demonstration. He let his djed surge through his right arm, pushing out his astral body. The sagging of his arm as it went limp was masked for the most part by the heavy robes he was wearing.
“Well, you probably don't know why because you haven't seen me break his shoulder.” coren patiently continued as he reached towards behind the kelvic with his ethereal right arm. Grabbing some snow with it.
“Because if you did, you probably would have figured out why I would have done that already.” Coren continued without missing a beat, even as she bared her teeth at him with that rather strange feral like grin of hers. Probably because of her being a kelvic.
A small grin went up underneath his mask as he manipulated his projected limb and slammed the handful of ice cold snow on her shoulder. It harmlessly was flung around and though it didn't fall in her clothes it still landed all over her. Making for a rather comical sight. Coren let out a slight laugh, his mind momenterarly being pulled back to the pranks he did when he was a child, before he focused back on the task at hand.
“Now do you know why I used my magic?” Coren asked.

by **Sliver** on October 19th, 2012, 1:19 pm

He was very good with words, she noticed. She was better with them then she realized, but only when explaining things that were logical to her, and his manipulation of her metaphor was not one of them. She didn't exactly grasp what he was saying, but at the very least he seemed to fix what she said. A couple of the fancy words in Vani she did not yet understand, regardless of whether or not her grasp of the language was growing exponentially.

And as she listened to him she cocked her head to side, mirroring his own movement. She almost thought she heard him smiling, if that was possible, but what would he be amused by?

Then it hit her. She jumped, eyes widening as the snow fell on her shoulder. She tried to fathom how he did it. Khilo had usually written his spells down, but she had been tripped more than once by mages thinking it amusing to scare a young Kelvic. Projection. For a moment unpleasant memories flooded back, but Sliver closed her eyes and pushed them away. It would do no good to appear afraid of his Magic, even if that was exactly how she felt. It was just a snowball, what was she a whelp not yet weaned from her mother? She brushed off the snow, leaving one arm behind her as the other one brushed her lips in thought.

"I see your point, but I guess I'll have to stick to throwing snowballs the old way."

She smiled, this one less toothy, and then from behind her back flung a snowball she had been making, this one small, but rather compact, square for Coren's chest.

by **Coren** on October 22nd, 2012, 9:17 pm

Coren couldn't help but let out a laugh when Sliver jumped up at the feeling of the ice cold snow hitting her. He couldn't help it, the expression that was on her face when he had hit her with the snowball was simply priceless. He quickly forced the laugh down with a polite cough though.
“You should have seen your own face.” he offered as an explanation for his outburst in the calmest tone he could manage, even though he doubted the majority of the people would care in this city. But acting a bit childish wasn't something he wanted to do, before he would know it everybody was thinking he had regressed to his childhood or something.

Coren pulled back his astral body, nodding at Slivers rather expected quip about how she was going to stick to doing things the normal way anyway. He frowned slightly as he noticed the grin on her face, before realization about what she was about to do shot through his head.. A few seconds to late to be of any use though.

Slivers snowball harmlessly splattered against his chest. The heavy robe he was wearing muffling both the impact and keeping the wetness of the snow firmly at bay. Honestly coren didn't know how to react, he hadn't had a decent conversation in ages, let alone was dragged in any kind of friendly competition like a snowball fight. After a few short moments of an awkward pause consisting of him being rather obviously confused he reached downwards with his projected limb, grasping up a small amount of snow and began kneading it into the vague form of a snowball. Would it really matter much if he loosenend up a little bit? It wasn't as if anybody else was around to see it, and sliver didn't seem like the kind that would use something like this to try and pull somebody over.
“Well then.” he felt a smile tug at his lips. “You started it.” he passed over the snowball to his left hand and threw it as hard as he could at her head.

Closed So We Meet Again (Coren)