PM to join [The Kabrin Road] Constant Suplication (Caesarion)

[Leeta Snow]

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65th of Summer, 515 AV

Leeta managed to get some good sleep, not to mention stay warm. Upon first light, as per normal, she rose and gave a little yelpy yawn. There was a cool air that had crept over the grassy valley where they had stopped just off the road. Calmly she fluttered her eyes open and looked around the dull grey light that was in her tent. Getting a head start on the morning was the key on the road. You didn’t want to hold anyone up, but she also didn’t want to freeze, so she rose, put on a dress, her undergarments, and then slid on some boots. Immediately she felt a bit warmer than first rising, and now she felt a bit more ready to begin packing up. She had made a mess primarily on her fur, so it was easy to locate everything to store.

A few minutes later, she began to take down her tent as quietly as she could, not wishing to wake anyone. There was a cook up and about poking around at the fire, trying to get it started, and she said to him quietly “Good Morning. Sorry I don't remember your name.”

“Ahh good morning miss. It's Carter. Sleep well?”

“Yep” she replied gingerly and didn’t take the conversation any further on her own regard. The man eventually went back to what he was doing and occasionally watched Leeta tear down her tent. It was a wonder she could even figure out how to fold the thing, and when it was done, it was a bit sloppy, but it fit in the sack. Silently she slid her chest over to the wagon on the grass, sat on it a moment to relax and took in a deep breath. She was sure getting a workout early this morning. The sun was just creeping up over the mountains, illuminating the valley a bit when she decided it was a fine time to go bother Caesarion.

If they were going to do anything in the morning it had to be before the caravan really got going. She shuffled over to his tent flap and in like manner she wanted to inquire of him. For the first few moments though she listened to see if she could hear snoring inside. Unsure she said nervously. “Um…*cough* Caesarion? Are you up? Helllooo?”


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Other's Words -- My Words -- My Thoughts

[Caesarion]

Picture her in your head, Caesarion, he thought. Focus on her - only her. Clear your mind of everything but her. And so he did this. All the lush green surroundings that constituted his thoughts were pulled back into a black void. All was empty like the night sky, except for a few stars, each representing a different person - a different form. He had begun to embrace the visual, physical and philosophical of Morphing. It turned out that this magic was certainly his cup of tea. What does she look like, Caesarion? he pondered. She is very thin. This applies to her face too - gaunt. But not so much as her body. Her face is actually very particular. Distinctive from most women. She has a round jawline, a trait common of men, but she doesn't look masculine as a result. He pictured her more clearly. Brown eyes, he determined. Long, silky smooth black hair. Pristine eyebrows. Long eyelashes. Typically shaped nose, curved slightly upwards. Typical lips. Cheekbones are smoothed in rather than pronounced. Every feature that consumed her face - he thought about. He thought about her skin tone, too. Light. Not pale, but a creamy bright tone. It suited her.

Then, he began the Morphing. Djed consumed his facial appearance, smoothing hers onto his face. The process took over a minute, and it did not quite feel very sweet. When it was done though, he looked into his steel mirror and seemed relatively pleased. The forehead was a bit wrong, the shade of brown seemed more like something you'd find in a chamber pot, and the eyelashes were barely recognizable . . . but still, it was not bad for a first attempt. It had taken Caesarion many more attempts before he was even this close with Rhaenon. He'd gotten . . . relatively better at imitations. Not absurdly, but not minutely. Though, these imitations had models to them, and they were only quick reconstructions of faces that he knew well. Not something to be altogether too proud of, true.

Then he tried to remember the voice. Kind of high-pitched. Quirky, crazy - not like a regular person. It fit her very well, though its uniqueness meant it would be hard to pin. He tried to raise his voice using Morphing to effect his vocal chords, the Djed running over. He spoke, "I'm Leeta Snow," quietly. Totally off. Sounded like an intoxicated chipmunk. He tried again, majorly adjusting the tone. "I'm Leeta Snow," a second attempt. Not quite as bad as the first. This time he at least sounded like a woman - albeit a very annoying one. Again. This time he adjusted it to be less high, more 'quirky'. He remembered her voice. Meditated upon it - let it resound in his mind, infinitely. Now that he knew how to produce a higher sound, he could let the voice do the work for him.

"I'm Leeta Snow," he said, and the voice was very close. He smiled upon his progress, then as he heard steps nearing the entrance of his tent, he opened up his tent and stared at the girl - her improper face meeting her real one. "Hello, Leeta," he grinned, eyes closed. He attempted, very clearly, to make her expression look stupid so as to tease her. "How do you fare, my beautiful twin? I am absolutely . . . simply riveted to see you this fine morning!" He couldn't help but laugh half way through that sentence, following riveted. The man was having too much fun using other people's voices to say stupid things. "I petch badgers," he said. "I sing with dolphin-ducks. I smell like a mixture of dead fish and fresh cadaver. I sometimes eat children when no one's looking." He, at this moment, was outrageously laughing like the idiot he often was.

His eyes blinked open and he stared back into her mirrored eyes. "But really-" he shifted back into his regular form, "do you require anything of me?"

[Leeta Snow]

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“Do I require anything of you? Get your arse in that tent ya vagrant!” she said laughing a bit too loud for the morning hours and she pushed him forcibly into the tent and shutting the flap behind her. It didn't look all that good to the cook, Carter, who was out by the fire, seeing a young woman approach a man's tent and her seemingly tackle him inside and slam the flap shut. Oh how the rumors could so easily spread if Carter was a loud mouth. Lashing out she said, “You are goofball. I half expected to find you asleep snoring in here, not lookin’ like me ya peshing dolphin-duck.” She glared and stuck her tongue defiantly playful out at him.

With sass she said quieter, “Well now that you are up so blasted early practicing magics maybe you are willing to do something else. So you’ve started to get the hang of Morphing, but now I want to teach you why you’re probably sore this morning. We need to practice malediction tonight. And for that Mr. Pathos, we need to hunt for something this morning. Anything will do I suppose, but we should get out and look for something to hunt if we can. Not to mention it would be good to have something for breakfast...I’m already sick of eating rations.” With that she patted her belly. He could probably relate. Rations just had a way of sticking to your gut after a while, especially with rationed water and the like. It was not a super pleasant experience, even if you had good rations. "Do you know how to hunt?"



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Other's Words -- My Words -- My Thoughts

[Caesarion]

Peshing dolphin-duck? He grinned. "I'll show you a peshing dolphin-duck! Come at me, you morbid fishwife!" He wrestled with her playfully for a moment, then peaked out of the tent and winked at the chef. He didn't realy care if people thought he was doing anything indecent. If anything they'd just be jealous of him, considering they hadn't gotten any 'loving' on this journey. Even though Caesarion wasn't quite interested in this form of loving, it was an enjoyable thought to imagine that others might envy him for his skill in seduction. Which, to be quite honest, was actually sorely lacking. "I never sleep in the morning. I go to bed kinda-late, wake up kinda-early. It's my way. How else will I keep up on top of all of my obligations? Work out for at least an hour each day. Do Reimancy training to maintain my control over Res. Theorize and practice new forms of Hypnotism and Reimancy. There's so much to keep on top of, Miss Snow! Morphing too, now? By the Gods." He laughed. Though, sadly enough, it was kind of true. His days were going to be very, very busy from now on. Even moreso than the very, very busy days of before.

He was always willing to do something else, though. Like right now - as she was talking, he decided to do something else. He contemplated Rhaenon's model, and continued to try and assume mastery of his form. He looked down as she was speaking and began to Morph his face - first the jawline, the chin, then the lips, the cheekbones, the nose, the eyes, the forehead, the ears . . . hair, shape, tone of eyes, tone of skin, eyelashes, stubble. Everything had to be just right. He looked back at her from a different face. "I'm up so early because I'm getting blasted good at it," he called from a different voice - that dark and dubious one. "And the soreness isn't that bad. I've experienced much, much, much worse. Initiation into Reimancy for example. And - exercising heavily while nearly overgiving? I experienced that on the daily in Sahova. This is nothing." He lifted up his fist, turned it then raised his thumb. The man leaned back into the pillow of his bedroll, which faced the tent's flaps, and he exhaled.

She spoke of Malediction, however. Maledictor, Malediction. And another name. He couldn't help but grasp at strings that he'd tugged on before - a rumor about something in correlation. But these were only whispers in Sahova . . . "I love hunting!" He exclaimed. "It's kind of - what I do. I mean, how do you think I maintain a form like this eating carrots and bread? I kill things. Lots of things. Feast on them! Aha. Deer, wolves, more deer, more wolves . . . Gibbat Dogs, Thorn Hare, regular hare, squirrels, raccoons, I've even killed a wild horse before. Of course, I make sure not to upset Caiyha, yeah? This is all for food. Survival. And a bit of magical training by association." He looked to her deviously. To be honest, much of this was for physical, mental and magical improvement more than it was base 'survival' - but all of those things were necessary for survival too. And the way he saw it, humans were a part of nature. They were just a bit more devious than other members of the food chain.

He was reminded of his past in Syliras, when it came to the hunt. The Bronze Wood. Ah yes. That was where he was taken as a slave. "I was a hunter back in Syliras. I would Hypnotise Deer and then sick my dogs on them. Sometimes I'd fling a fireball or two instead. Generally tried to keep it clean - don't want to start a forest fire." He bit his lower lip. That was a good way to upset Caiyha, surely, and he didn't want any divine enemies broaching him. "This is not to say I'm the best Hunter. I'm actually not all that great at it. But I'm better than most, yeah?" He raised his arms up as if to cheer for himself, then lowered them back down. The man grabbed his scabbard and longsword from the side of his tent and started to fasten them around his waist. He yawned. Shortly afterwards, he rose up and moved past Leeta to exit the tent. "I'm going to be practicing Morphing while I hunt. World magics don't use Djed, so I'll probably be fine for our Malediction session if I gauge my Reimancy-Morphing usage." If not, then he at least had another mage to supervise his overgiving, keep it from going too far. He wouldn't die, he was positive.

The man started to move out of the encampment, gesturing for Leeta to follow him. Assuming she kept relative pace, he'd begin to talk, though still from that alternate voice. "Hunting here is different. It's intricately tied to Wilderness Survival. In Syliras and Sahova, every day I went to the same location. The Bronze Wood, at first. Syliras has easy animals. Deer. At worst, wolves, rarely ever anything like a monster or an apex predator like a bear. Sahova was a greater challenge - but not compared to . . . mobile hunting. Every day this caravan moves many miles. As a result, the landscape changes every day. Sometimes I hunt in a prairie, sometimes a savannah, sometimes a forest, sometimes a riverland. It's quite challenging - and it requires extreme situational awareness. That creature moving in the brush may not be a mongoose, but instead a carnivorous beast. And then there's always the fear of monsters. This environment is hazardous as it is a worthy opponent." He continued to walk the Kabrin Road, all the way until he left the premises of the encampment and pointed at the environment around them, scanning what was in front of him, then the sides, with his eyes. Trees.

On the ground - a small river. It seemed like a creek-heavy environment. He didn't quite know the terms for what, but he'd certainly encountered this environment before. "Backwards is camp. We stay going forward. Side detours are only taken if you remember the exact route you took. This is a . . . delicate craft." He supposed she wouldn't mind the lessons. "Here, we might find bears. There could be fish in the water. They would go to the edge of it and try to kill them. Be careful. If you see a bear - especially one running at us - whisper to me or yell depending on the urgency." He was sure he'd notice anyway, though. Caesarion was observant if nothing else. "Come on, let's go," he said, taking a direction of the creek and leading himself down it, along the side of the water on a dirt path.

[Leeta Snow]

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A little squalking scream erupted from her mouth, drowned out by a fit of giggles as he wrestled with her. She brought her arms together in his arms in protection and squirmed as her form of wrestling. She really had no idea how to wrestle as her brother was much younger than her and her sister was...well...not nice. As he let her go she stepped back a couple steps further into his tent as he popped his head out of the tent. She held a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles and fun as she listened to him with open eyes. With a brilliant smile she listened to his excuses and when he was done she dropped her hand from her mouth and said, “And then there is going to be hunting, carving, malediction. You might as well just turn into a cow now and find peace chewing cud the rest of your days. It might be a nice break, you pickled herring.” She actually didn’t mind him practicing morphing before her. It made her happy to see his brother’s face again and to hear his voice. She watched him lay back and she chuckled nervously at what he said. “Reimancy sounds like it could be painful, even from what little I know about it.”

She was actually not too surprised that he liked hunting. Most men could hunt or at least fish. After giving her a big list of things he enjoyed hunting she give him a steady nod. It seemed to make sense. He told her of his past in Syliras and she chuckled at him hypnotizing poor deer. “That’s one way to do it haha… but I want to come too though when you go.. My father never took me...the woods have strange things in them near Zeltiva.” She shook her head and wondered just how much of his magic use in hunting was actually out of necessity and what that looked like. She had rarely seen her father hunt anything, let alone someone hunt with magic.

“Well…” she said as he praised himself. “You are probably a heck of a lot better than I am.” She nodded to him about using morphing. “That sounds fine. You can practice something simple, yet difficult at the same time. It’ll teach you control. I want you to duplicate my tattoos. The human skin has many layers to it, like an onion. Each layer sloughs off over time to reveal a new clean layer. However tattoos are essentially drilled down to a very low layer of skin that rarely ever sees the light of day, this is why they last so long, essentially your whole life!” She brushed her arm as he grabbed his sword. “You cannot duplicate the ink per say, but just as how you learned to change your skin different colors, you can focus that change to take place on specific cells of your body, thus duplicating something that looks like a tattoo.” she then opened her palm to him and showed a tattoo of a bird starting to appear in her skin. It looked exactly like one of her tattoos.”The challenge is to remember all the designs exactly, maintain the current ones you have morphed on your body, and investigating new ones to do. It partially is why I have so many tattoos. It keeps people from -truly- becoming me. You probably don’t even understand the depths of their complexity.” With that she held two arms together that were seemingly random and suddenly a mural came into sight of a hunting scene with birds, a deer shot by an arrow and even one of the seemingly random symbols now looked like a man with a bow in the distance. She smiled and then lowered her arms so he could study them a bit.

He beckoned her to follow him as he left and she got excited. Not fighting her about going on this hunting trip put good points in her mind toward him. She knew you had to be sneaky so she tried to walk quietly as they went and contemplated what he said about the challenges of hunting in different terrain. She really had no idea. “What is so different and difficult about the different terrains? You just point and shoot them right?” She thought to herself as they went. Eventually when camp was a ways away she came upon a small river with him. She stared at the flowing water for a little while being entranced by the flowing white water over the shallow rocks. She wasn’t really paying attention to what he was saying about finding her way back and it being a delicate craft at the moment. “Oh? Sounds good.” She said in deep thought, though it was clear she didn’t hear him. When he spoke more and poked at her brain to seemingly listen, she snapped to about the time he was speaking about bears. The seriousness of the situation. “Okay...I’ll keep my eyes open.” She headed down the path in tow behind him and kept looking about the forest.

As they went down along the creek there wasn’t anything for a while. Off to the right were some dirty colored rocks, old washout from the river from where it once moved, and as they got closer to one of them one of the rocks moved. It lifted its head and she could see it was a moose. The large antlers that were previously next to the ground now were painfully obvious and she whispered to Caesarion. “Moose...Moose!”

Leeta was trying to be sneaky in her whispers, but didn't know how to let him know without alerting the beast. They weren’t too far away and she knew from her own homeland that moose could be very temperamental and even charge if it was the right season. Now hearing her whispers fairly clearly, it stepped defiantly forward, moving toward them menacingly, as if not threatened by them, and Leeta’s eyes went wide with how big it actually was.


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Other's Words -- My Words -- My Thoughts

[Caesarion]

oocThis post is gonna suck so badly, and sound so mechanical, but I'm proud of myself for even writing it. I don't know why but it's my number one worst issue to have to rewrite posts, especially ones I actually enjoyed. Nothing in the world gets me angry except for that. So . . . just imagine me as wrathfully keyboard bashing while constantly having to tell myself 'it's okay, it's okay, you can do it, it's okay' when I begin to falter. lol

The man began to shift his form back to its natural state. His face curved in some places, compressed in others, rose in some. He closed his eyes and accepted the slight, burning sensation, reopening them to see Leeta. The man shook his head, then exhaled. He felt somewhat uncomfortable - the Morphing experience always did that to him, no matter how many attempts. However, the discomfort was steadily decreasing. Such simple transformations were not so awkward or painful. It was . . . better, at least when re-using a familiar model consistently. Rhaenon was fairly ingrained into his head. He did not imagine that his brother's face would really be so difficult to continue to duplicate. The body was a different sort of thing altogether, however.

He decided to keep some parts of him maintained, as if to test whether he could focus only on reverting some parts of himself and not others. He kept Rhaenon's hair atop his head, which may have not looked entirely normal, but he gained some insight from the conversion back to his regular face: it can be done all at once by removing the Djed supplicant entirely, or individually by focusing on removing individual features. That would be useful for . . . later purposes, if Leeta's mixed morph earlier with the horse hoof and all had any indication. You could evidently mix your forms, and if that was the case, he would need to know how to convert and revert each individually instead of this broad picture method he'd been using as a beginner. Caesarion theorized and theorized, thought on all of the functions of the magic, watched patiently and learned quickly. He was a student of magic indeed, and luckily Leeta indulged in his prattling.

As she revealed to him his tattoos, he tried to copy them earnestly. But they were difficult, and the method was difficult, and the form was difficult considering what he'd learned so far - imitate something entirely, not necessarily a small feature of it. Leeta's arms were much smaller than his, so he didn't quite know how to place her tattoos onto him. He tried to imagine the tattoos inside of his mind, concentrating, essentially entering a state of half-meditation. He imagined the tattoos on his arms. He imagined them touching his skin and laying themselves in, deep beneath the layers. And they were the same proportions, just placed differently on his arm. The birds, the bowmen. The bird on his palm - he could imagine that easily. He began to Morph and a color stained his arm. He pictured the intricate tattoos deep in his mind.

But, when he opened his eyes and looked, it was very inaccurate. The art wasn't so bad as one might think, but it was more idyllic, less realistic. It looked as if he painted it with a brush. It looked ephemeral. The one on his palm was the more accurate one. He removed all but that one, figuring it would be interesting to maintain transformations on more parts of his body than simply the face - and more than just a slight alteration of tone like matching his skin to Rhaenon's facial color. A darker shade. A perfect scribing of the lines and contours.

As he did this, they would come upon the creek. He kept his eyes open for everything around them. He kept the location of the encampment in mind and he focused thoughtfully on his surroundings. He looked to the trees, to the bushes, he opened his ears and his mind to the sounds. He held an arm in front of Leeta to prevent her from moving, as Caesarion required that he get to see the surroundings before she charged in and made a mess. He didn't want his magical instructor getting mauled by a bear. These predators had a habit of appearing when you least expected them to - or wanted them to for that matter. Then, as all stood silent, he noticed the moose long before Leeta did. He recognized it, there were some like it in Syliras' forests. He began to hold his palms forward, gaseous Res flowing from the fingertips of one of his palms. His fingers aimed forward. Everything was calm, quiet, focused, precise. He took a deep breath and balanced his Djed flow, reverting all of his Morphing save for the tattoo that covered the hand which he aimed at the beast.

Then, before he launched his attack, Leeta spoke and the beast quickly rose, growing startled. He stood and began his attempt at intimidation, glaring at Caesarion and Leeta. The mage looked back at the girl and gave her a are you serious? look before opening his mouth to speak - quietly. "Leeta, get behind me. Stay behind me when we're in the forests." The creature was a threat in reality - to a regular man. A regular man might be pierced by that thing's weapon, whatever bones it had on the top of its head. Antlers. Something like that. A regular man might succumb to the weight and the force of the beast. But Caesarion was not a regular man, he was a mage.

"Reimancers are never threatened by a singular opponent. It's only large groups that are more risky," he said. "A singular opponent can be incinerated from many leagues away. Opponents that surround you can kill you as you try and incinerate their front-line. Even with all of my power, I can still die to an arrow or a blade. But against one moose, right in front of me . . ." Needless to say, he was not afraid. He focused the Res - determined that it would release lightning, then transmuted. In an instant, a jagged bolt of lightning flung forward and struck the creature on its side. The result was a stunned cry . . . and at the moment of impact, an untransmuted Res core within the bolt of lightning released and convulsed, sending a wave of electric voltage through the creature's body that would kill it instantly. The moose dropped dead before it could move an inch. Caesarion placed his palm back at his side.

"I tried to make sure I didn't break any bones." He said, coughing. That one took a little out of him. "So - that was lightning Reimancy. Air and Fire together make that para-element. It's my most offensively powerful, though it doesn't have much utility outside of killing things." He had to admit that, at least.

As the beast fell down and died, he moved closer - keeping wary of his surroundings - and began to examine it. The structure of the bones. Ribs on the side. If he could imagine the hair as being devoid, the skull seemed fairly simple. But they'd have to remove all of the meat and coat to be sure. And he never really knew how to do that properly, he always sort of chunked away with his longsword. Which wasn't a fun experience, and he hoped Leeta knew a better way. "Do you have a skinning knife? A tanning knife? I don't know what these things are called. Something to get this creature's skin and flesh off." He looked to her and stared.

[Leeta Snow]

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With careful study she watched as he began to morph back to his natural state and remembered the awkward and slightly painful feeling it gave. She watched as he tried to sort of filter out certain things back to his normal face but retain things of his brothers.

“Good, now you are missing and matching. Eventually you will learn individual processes, learn how certain noses of people look. Like the nose of a Syliran is different from a Sahovan, and they are different than a Benshiran or Isurian. That will be something that I can’t teach you...well I can, but some things are best to study and learn on your own.”

With a pleased grin she watched as he then attempted to convert his skin into her, displaying the tattoos. What might have seemed to him to be something simple surely was growing more difficult with each tattoo he tried to duplicate. As they walked she kept her arm out for him to see in the dark dim morning light. Soon it would be brighter, but as they headed down the creek bed, the trees stole light from them. The creek was beautiful and reminded her of the one near her own home in the forest. She likewise kept her eyes open for danger, trying to distinguish the brown hues from the green, trying to spot any sort of wildlife. All she could see of note was a couple birds zipping through some underbrush from one bush to another. As they came upon the moose, Caesarion seemed to already have it in sight and held out and arm for her to stop. She didn’t know why but upon seeing the moose she whispered it forcefully to him. Evidently it was enough to warn the moose, though it was a shock to her that they could hear so very well.

He glanced back to Leeta and she gave him a toothy embarrassed grin to show her shame as if to say “What meee?” And upon his words she shuffled almost to cower behind him, looking down his held out arm like a sight of a bow. She listened to his lesson, not wanting to say a thing until he shot down the beast, and as his words grew in threat, it seemed like the moose in turn grew in threat to them. Looking down his arm, she could see he was aiming right at the moose and when he unleashed his power she could feel the air crackle and burn. The moose let out a high pitched yelp and then fell over dead.

There was no gaping hole through its side, nor flesh burned, instead she figured that perhaps he stopped the beast's heart through his magic, though she wasn’t sure how. Perhaps lightning when it hits you stops your heart? She merely theorized in thought as his hand returned to his side. Leeta seemingly crawled out from behind her protector, sliding up to his shoulder to rest both of her palms lightly on it, peering at the moose where it lay; almost as a parrot on the shoulder of a sea captain. She whispered to him, watching the beast go through its death throes, “Can you teach me that sometime?”

She then pulled back from his shoulder, letting go of him and let him take lead to the beast. She knew that sometimes animals play dead, especially rodents, but she didn’t know if that was the case with a moose. For that reason when he seemed comfortable that it was dead she instead reached a finger out and poked it in the eye. Sure enough, it was dead. Finally she felt comfortable enough to talk and looked around her briefly to observe the area. He asked her sort of what was next and she shook her head. “We don’t want to do that yet. We want to de-gut the beast and then drag it closer to camp. We can examine it there and then use my tools for what we want to do. As for opening it up and degutting it…” she raised her foot, resting it on the beast as she pulled up at the bottom of her dress. Sliding her hands up her leg until reaching her thigh. There on the upper portion of her thigh was a fabric and leather strapping case that held a holy flask to Laviku and a set of three sharp looking throwing daggers. She slid one out of the sleeve it was in and then lowered her dress.

“Ok, no doubt you’ve de-gutted animals you’ve hunted before, but in this case we need to do it carefully, we are learning after all. “ She decided to point out some obvious things to take note of on the outside of the animal. “Well from right here we can see its front legs are a bit longer than its back legs and it looks like ...maybe with that big hump in its back that maybe it is built for climbing fast. We won’t know until we get in there, but here, let’s just dig on in.” With that she began to cut just below the animal’s sternum and down a bit. As she went she would teach him the positioning of where the beast’s lungs, heart, and vital organs are. “Generally these are behind the ribcage, just like in you if you didn’t know. It protects your vital organs from harm.” Most people didn’t really know much about their own bodies, however she had done extensive research on them in her own home. Father would always find people who went wandering the woods and would bring them back for experimentation after whatever killed them had their fill. She continued to show him further down, the liver and the spleen. The moose had four stomachs after all, and a whole mess of intestines.

Leeta definitely wasn’t one afraid to get her hands dirty and really just dug in there. She of course didn’t have armor to pick clean or any clothing that wasn’t dark. Even if some blood splattered down onto her dress, which was rare, it didn’t seem to bother her in the least. “Okay, this might get a tad smelly, but we can see what it ate, and therefore know what we can eat if we take its form.” She began to cut open the stomach and it wasn’t actually too bad of a smell. Carnivore’s bellies smelled worse. It smelled like digested grass. “So it is a giant cow basically. Hmm” She looked up to him to see how he was doing; if he was squeamish at all. She didn't think he would be but wanted to check to make sure. Her hands up to her forearms were covered in the animal’s blood and so now that there was a pile of guts outside of the animal, she took herself to the creek to clean herself off. The water was cold so she made a squeamish cry at it. The lesson all in all only took about fifteen minutes as she just gave him the basic run down of anatomy, so they didn’t have to linger next to stinky animal guts that would likely attract other things.

“Now we have the privilege of hauling this back” She looked to him now for answers. She could change into a small beast of burden like a dog or something, but maybe he had an easier answer like Air Reimancy or something.
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Other's Words -- My Words -- My Thoughts

[Caesarion]

The man looked to her as she asked: can you teach me that? He smiled as he took a breath, relaxing himself after that fairly heavy assault. The mage then nodded. "I can teach you Reimancy, yes," he said. "But you won't get to that point for a while. Reimancy is one of the more dangerous magics to learn. It's about patience, relaxation, pacing and research. Everything you do - everything you learn - everything you put to the test, is surrounded by time and effort spent on theory and constraint." Reimancy was really a magic that fit Caesarion. He was ambitious, heated and passionate enough to use the offensive capabilities to his advantage, but he was also patient and disciplined enough not to harm himself. His theoretical nature on top of that had resulted in him learning many, many abilities, and right now he could say in honesty that he was one of the best Reimancers he had known. Even on Sahova . . . though he'd only seen a little.

Moving on, he patiently waited and observed Leeta, taking in her words. De-gut the beast, she said, drag it closer to camp. Closer why, he wondered? If not completely in camp, why not out in the open like this? Was it so she didn't have to walk back as far to gather tools? Was it because she didn't want the caravan to take off without them? Was it because she was afraid of animals in the surrounding environment? He questioned each word and what meaning it might carry: every fear, every worry, every truth, every piece of wise advice. He continued to listen regardless, without asking questions. Use her tools. Open it up. Degut it. Degutting was not something he had ever been a fan of. He'd always done so recklessly, with the sharp blade of a longsword. That was - really - how he did things. Not a man of perfect refinement when it came to the physical. He grew impatient too quickly, always wondering, 'could I not enjoy far more if I didn't take the time to sweat the smaller details?' He wasted a great deal of meat from every animal he killed, and yet he never thought about it, simply due to the vast quantities.

His gaze continued. Front legs, longer than back legs, he nodded. Big hump maybe built for . . . climbing fast? He wasn't sure if that was the case. "Perhaps it's a second phallus," he said jokingly. Wasn't sure any creature would ever want to play around with something like that. "I hadn't known that, really. Thank you for teaching me." He grinned, though only as a pleasantry. It wasn't creepy to him that she knew how to do this - it made sense considering what type of magic she practiced. It wasn't gross either. He'd dealt with far grosser than this. Putrid corpses. He dealt with Nuit too. Hundreds of them. They were far more despicable than the dead body of a creature whose time had passed. He continued to observe peacefully, especially interested as she opened the stomachs, the flesh being split to reveal the contents of its bowels. The smell wasn't all that sickening. He watched with continued eagerness and ignored all of the elements considered too 'disgusting'. "I'm not a man of weak immune system, Miss Snow," he whispered as she continued on. "If I were, do you not think I would have shied away from you when we first met?" He would remind her that their first encounter was over the squirming body of a dying bird, crushed and bleeding.

What sort of weak-willed man would approach a scene such as that so eagerly? The answer was simply that Caesarion was not a weak-willed man.

Through the lesson, he closely remembered the anatomy. The bones, the intestines, the stomachs, each organ and what protected them - their purpose. Everything she explained, he would keep up in his big jumped up world of memories reserved for different subjects. He would remember the anatomy of the moose as being something related to Morphing and Malediction, and perhaps even for further wilderness survival. When it was all over and she mentioned hauling, the man would frown. "Erm..." he sounded. He'd never used Reimancy to haul something so... large. So absolutely beastly in size. Hell, he always tended to simply use his muscles to bring back his game. It consisted of wolves and deer, not of something this heavy. And how would he keep it all in-tact as he pulled? "I'll run out of Djed quickly if I try to carry it with Air Reimancy alone," he said. "So . . ." The mage stopped to think. He supposed he was strong enough to move this creature some, and he could use Air to help carry some of the weight. But he'd need Leeta's help. "I imagine you're physically weak," he admitted, "but you can help me anyway. I'll lift the front part of its body and create a bed of wind for it to be pressed down against. The result should be the reduction of how much of the creature we need to suspend ourselves. So - we would haul it back. But sustaining the bed will be difficult for long. I will only be able to maintain it for perhaps, several minutes before I start to grow exhausted." He stepped silently over to the moose's head, his boots breaking branches and ripping through the dirt. He placed both of his arms out in front of himself, the muscles on them revealed - the biceps, triceps, forearms, he relaxed himself and began balanced breathing as he attempted to lift the moose off of the ground. It worked for the most part. He supposed all of that bodybuilding had some use.

Res began to flow from his fingertips and create a weaved bed of Air Reimancy to lift the moose gently off of the ground. But he couldn't really move the creature much - nor suspend it further - without Leeta's assistance. He dragged it over to her the best he could, then looked and asked, "Can you help lift up the other side? Maybe you can Morph your arms like mine for added muscle?" He grinned. Wasn't sure if that was a possibility, but, he figured it deserved a question, especially if he could do much the same as a result.

[Leeta Snow]

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Leeta seemed at peace that he was able and willing to teach her. He caringly gave her a warning, just as she had been giving to him in regards to Morphing. She nodded and said “Of course. I prefer to take my time doing things anyways.” She shrugged and focused on the task ahead.

“Hah!” she laughed silently and yet full of mirth at his joke. She nodded her head a bit, “You’d be surprised at how close you probably are. I’m sure just like how women rats look to bigger rats as potential mates, I’m sure the size of that lump has to do a lot with just who they mate with. Just like how people may look at what big muscles you have and say ‘ooo he’s strong and sex’. Very animal-like behavior” she tsked and shook her head. “We are very similar to animals ourselves if you think about it.”

He went on to explain how he himself was not squeamish. He made a case in point that when they had first met that he had not shied away from her stabbing the bird in the head and burying it. “I believe you are right. You must have a stern stomach. What I wouldn’t give to make one of those uppity women in Zeltiva get in here and dig around. They’d likely faint.” She chuckled.

As the two of them formulated how to move the body she said “At least it is much lighter now.” she pointed to the pile of guts. It really did take a lot of the weight from the corpse. The light was just now hitting the valley they were inside and it was likely that soon breakfast would be started to get ready. They had to indeed hurry, and at Caesarion’s worry about not being able to hold the air long enough to do much with, she took his suggestion and nodded, “Yes I can help”

Focusing her Djed she imagined her legs, her back, and her arms to resemble that of a weight lifter. As she began to bulk out, part of her was still true to her body, as if she was some sort of bulky woman. Her dress stretched a bit but did not rip. She muttered words in Nadar-canoch to aid her transformation, and in just a few moment’s time she was ready. Her arms, legs, and core, had literally almost doubled in size and now with strength she heaved up the backside of the moose underarm. “Good gosh it’s heavy! How do you guys drag these through the forest for miles? Cut it up?” She tried to hurry back to camp, following him with as much speed as she could. It was hard and after a while it got to be harder as he likely couldn’t hold the air res all the way back.

When the body would eventually hit the ground, she would move to the front with him and help drag it. The weight was tremendous, yet together they could do it. Eventually she began to feel as if she was reaching her limit and began to breath heavy. Her focus waned and she began to change back to herself. She was not one to like overgiving and the destruction it caused to her body. She still could help him out though and they by this time were not far at all from the camp. “We can stop here and cut it up maybe?” In truth she didn’t want to drag it the rest of the way. “Then in pieces we can carry it in? I want to investigate further before we hand over all the meat to the cook. The only thing we have left to check out is its brain, mouth, and that hump, though I’m sure it’s muscle now that we’ve taken all these organs out and saw its spine. Sometimes the little things can matter. But it shouldn’t take too long. I think we can take the skull, the antlers, the teeth, and maybe some leg bones to practice malediction and carving on. What do you think?” If he told her something along the lines of "Man up" or "lets just go the extra distance", she would push herself with her magic and would pull it the rest of the way with him, though she did not enjoy the thought of doing so.

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Other's Words -- My Words -- My Thoughts

[Caesarion]

Watching the woman shift her body to extremes was certainly . . . bizarre. The frail girl suddenly became so muscular, and she displayed a fairly advanced level of strength. Lifting the body became much easier - though still difficult - it could be pulled from the ground. The bed of air that he'd created with solid Res stood mostly fast. He only wished that he had the earth element, as surely this whole process would have been much easier. He could have created something like a cart. It would have been exceptionally difficult to pull, even with wheels, but not quite as difficult as this. The Air Res required constant maintenance that quickly grew taxing on his mind. He wasn't near the point of overgiving, but he was certainly not enjoying himself.

The further they pulled it, the more difficult it got. His actual muscles started to feel the heavy strain. Pain.

"Don't like this," he forced the words as his muscles strained and his face started to grow red. Lifting a grown man was as if a feather to whatever this beast was. And considering he was maintaining the structure as well as the forward-side of the creature, it was much heavier and more focused for him than even Leeta, despite the fact that she was forcing herself to maintain a Morphed musculature. After around the same amount of time that she determined this wasn't going to be possible, he made that determination too. He gently began to focus the weave of Air he'd laid beneath the creature before lowering it down onto the ground. They weren't all that far from the encampment, but they were certainly not close enough to carry it back.

We can stop here and cut it up, maybe? A decent proposition. The man nodded and drew much of the air from the bed back to his Res. This way - he could conserve at least a little Djed to prevent himself from overgiving. To be honest he knew that with all of his practice this season he'd become an exceptional Reimancer, and he was gauging himself based on a simply 'decent' professional's capabilities, but the man liked to play it safe. Even though he didn't nearly feel the exhaustion that came with approaching overgiving, he was still very patient and precise with his Djed, so as to not over-exert any, and always maintain a proper balance of Res. So - the transmuted air came back to his fingertips and he began to transmute a slightly more copious amount of air. This air was extremely compressed, and it weaved into the existing amounts. They formed what looked like a blade of air Reimancy, and the man focused before launching his palm forward and the blade with it - which acted like a guillotine, cutting through the flesh and bone. He ripped through the center point of its body, cutting one part of its spine from the other, a completely halved moose laying on the ground. Considering he cut efficiently the compressed air blade could make the complete journey, despite his lack of experience in such methods of Reimancy.

"There are three types of Res," he began to explain. "Solid, liquid, and gas. With solid, things like this can be achieved, even with air. You simply refine the air to a point, shape it into many thin strands all piling up on one another - reinforcing one another - picture a perfect little saw. Then you release it with force and speed, and it will precisely cut through something. It's a more advanced technique however. I've been theorizing and refining it lately - to, not the greatest amount of success I might add." This was a success on its own, though.

The moose was broken in two and Caesarion didn't have to hack and swing with his longsword until the blade broke off. The technique wasn't all that costly either - it was precise, not vast in quantity; some air or much air could perform it, and he only needed some. Shortly afterwards, whatever air that remained floating around his Res was put to use to cut another portion of the creature - into its spine again, through the meat and skin. It was not easy and he was sure that it didn't completely cut all the way through. He tried not to rip into any vital organs, though he was sure he'd be bound to make mistakes. He was not very knowledgeable on anatomy, with or without Leeta's lesson. Caesarion was much more skilled at burning, breaking, incinerating, shocking and slashing through things than precisely manipulating their elements and parts of their figure. It would be a long trek before the beginnings of Malediction began to make sense to him.

"Let's lift the first quarter of the creature back first - the one with the head. I would very much enjoy making an artifact from his antlers." He grinned. They were strong and sturdy from what he felt of them - exceptionally, and also beautiful. He wouldn't mind wearing them as a strange, overly flashy tribal necklace, especially if they did something well for you. "Perhaps we'll write a story about the sturdiness of his bones. How even through the hell I've put it through, these bones are still far from brittle." The man stressed his muscles and lifted up the front quarter of the creature. He calmed himself and exhaled, though Leeta would hear the grunting and panting that came with such stress to his body. "If Malediction depends on how they lived and how they died, might this artifact result in strong bones but vulnerability to lightning?"