Solo [Gilthas' Workshop] Weaving Air

[Kelski]

Timestamp: 25th of Winter, 518 A.V.

Kelski perched on one of Gilthas’ workbenches, her feet swinging back and forth. She was animated, happy, and glad to be able to spend some time with him. “How have you been?” She asked of the mage who was bent over a bubbling cauldron adding herbs to it. He glanced up at her, smiled indulgently, and went back to stirring his pot.

“What are you making? Some potion or spell? Something to feed those spiders you are trying to supersize?” She asked eagerly, tossing her mane of black and white ombre hair and squirming like a child who could hardly contain themselves.

Gilthas laughed, his mirth cutting into the shadowy workshop. “It’s my soup, Kelski. Dinner, for both of us in fact if you are staying.” He added, looking back up at her with a grin and shaking his head. A causal observer would indeed have read his expression clearly. Kids. Youth. Oh to be young again. He gave the pot one more stir and smiled. “Clam chowder. Courtesy of a Kelvic I know who loves digging them and a brat I know that steals them from her as fast as she digs them free. One would think she knew she was digging them for me.” He added, studying the woman again, watching her curiously.

“Of course I knew. I don’t mind sharing. I love being out on the mud flats with a rake and getting clams when the tide is out. The salt smell, the sea air, the gulls that don’t worry me but bother everyone else…. it was a lovely day besides. I packed four bottles of milk into Snowflakes backpack too. I take it those went straight into the chowder as well.” She added, and the mage nodded.

“The potatoes, celery, and carrots too.” He added, his voice an amused rumble. “Kelski, I’ve been taking care of myself for four hundred years. You don’t have to feel obligated to feed me too.” He said, moving around the workshop and coming upon her. He reached out, stroked her cheek, and smoothed down her hair. “I miss you though. When you get busy in your workshop. I had a bag packed to walk up and visit you today if you didn’t come.” He said converstationally.

Kelski nodded. “I had a commission. A big one. It paid enough to make me a tidy profit and put some money aside for the party I want to have at the end of the season.” She said helpfully. “You know you are welcome any time. We like you dropping by. I know this is your home, but since you’ve carved the stairway in and made traveling down here just an hour walk all said and done, its far easier to visit for both of us.” She added, reaching out and hugging him. Gilthas, unlike some of the people she knew, liked touch and liked to touch her. He touched all his animals as he touched the Kelvic, often absently petting them when lost in thought and accepting any affections then tended to hand to him.

“Have you been studying? I want to see some notable improvement in your Reimancy.” He asked, and she nodded suddenly sitting upright to show him.

Kelski took a deep breath and tapped her well, pulling forth djed which she converted to Res as she breathed out. The moment the translucent glittering blue and purple mist passed her lips it transformed into an air current that began darting about the room. Kelski’s eyes followed what looked to be a random pathway at first, until Gilthas saw that she was simply pushing the res around the room, controlling it, and snuffing out all his candles.

They were plunged into darkness immediately.

[Kelski]

He laughed, and with a flick of his hands, the candles burst into flame once more. Her little breeze darted to and fro, then eventually burned itself out. “I am fast with one, but I can make multiple breezes and send them all about too. They go slower though. Its harder, dividing ones attention between so many. But as long as I can see them, they behave…” She said, smiling at her Mentor.

He frowned. “So, you mean if you cannot see your Res you have troubles controlling it?” He asked cautiously, not having expected that comment from her. His probing question was obviously designed to see if she was already building limitations into her magic.

It turns out she was. “I have problems when it gets out of sight.” She replied in the affirmative causing her mentor to frown. Kelski had no reason to be dishonest with him. It was one of her hangups. As long as she could SEE where she was sending the Res, it went obediently. Part of that reason, she suspected, was her nature. She was a Sea Eagle and they relied heavily by instinct on their sight.

“That needs to change. I’d like you to work on two things today. They won’t seem very magical to you, but again, I’m going to be emphasizing building your skill and confidence, not on teaching you flashy mage tricks. I want you to work on air pressure…. you can condense and relax air enough to grab hold of things and release them.” He said, reaching out and stroking her head once more. Then he grabbed the leather tie that was securing her mane into a pony tail and released the mass of hair down, letting it cascade over her shoulders. “Very pretty…” He muttered, lost in thought, and then nodded to himself out of her view.

“The other thing I want you to work on is multiple units you are controlling at once. Air pressure… multiple units of air… release two at first… then work up to three… then four… more and more… as many as you need. And I want you to concentrate on firming the air around something… say a strand of this lovely hair… and manipulating it. A decent Air Mage with a mane like this one should be able to plait their hair hands free while doing anything else. I won’t make you do more than multi-task the process at first, but eventually I want you to have multiple strands of air magic going – you fully controlling them – and you doing something else while doing it… perhaps reading aloud from a book.” He added, shaking out her hair for her and chuckling.

He crossed the room to re-check the soup and then glanced sharply at her. “Well, what are you waiting for? Get to it.” He said, shaking his head, laughing slightly, and busying himself setting out a tray with two empty bowls and slicing some bread for their dinner. He covered the bowls and bread with a cloche and surreptitiously watched her first attempt.

[Kelski]

Kelski wasn’t brave. She knew Gilthas had said start with two, but air pressure was a worrisome thing to her. So she inhaled, exhaled a firm long strand of Res, and transmuted it to air. She snaked it awkwardly up around her head, slowly, and attempted to wrap it around a strand of her hair. The strand fluttered, as if picked up by a gentle hand, and then yanked itself hard away from her scalp as she lost control and pulled too hard. Kelski yelped as Gilthas suppressed a laugh, and the Kelvic lost the strand of air altogether as the pain broke her concentration.

“Try again. This time if you pull your hair, hold onto the strand of air. Don’t let it go. Your life may depend on you picking up something with air that’s out of your reach someday. Fight through the pain you yourself cause yourself or don’t cause yourself pain.” He said firmly, knowing she’d find countless instances that this was true.

Gilthas’ words were easier said than done, but Kelski wasn’t about to give up. She tried again, breathing out a rope of Res that almost instantly slipped into air. It firmed up as it creeped up around her head and picked up the same strand her previous attempt had. It roughly pulled the strand taut, and she concentrated keeping the air pressure strong enough to manipulate something like hair. Once she had that one tight, she breathed out a second strand of res, converted it to air, and snaked it up the other side of her head grabbing a loose strand of hair. As she did so, the first strand dropped like a silken rope, her concentration breaking on the first strand’s pressure and location. Her curse was immediate which caused the second strand to yank her hair again. Kelski yelped, and the control she had slipped, sending the rope of air around the room like an angry breeze.

The Kelvic reached up, scrubbed at her head to dissipate the pain, and tossed her head.

“It’s not that you fail, Kelski. Everyone fails, especially when learning a new thing.” Gilthas said gently. “It’s how you recover from it. Throwing a breeze around the room in a mini fit of temper at not succeeding on your first or second attempt reveals a weakness of character like that sort of behavior does in any circumstance in life. Try again. If you fail, you fail… don’t get mad about it. Try again. Practice. This is not easy things, such as stacking children’s play blocks. If you don’t master the fundamentals of control now, you won’t be worth a shit as a mage when you gain more experience and get more elements.” He said gently, and went to sit himself down. He seemed to be starting a new project because he pulled out a notebook, took out pen and ink, and began taking some notes.

With his … pep talk finished… Kelski turned back to what she was doing. She inhaled, centered her mind, pulled from her well, and began again. This time she made it as far as two strands of hair sticking straight up from her head, waving gently in the firm grasp of the ropes of hair she was holding firm. She tried to twist them together behind her head – deciding fish boning a braid would be easier than a three strand plait – and she lost hold of them. She bit her bottom lip in frustration, started again, and managed to fairly easily get back to holding the two strands aloft.

It took her a moment to figure out how to cross one over the other and then breathe out third bit of res to create another small pressure of air to hold the criss-cross tight to her scalp. Then, if she’d been using her hands, she’d have gathered up another strand, added it to the both on either side, then cross them over again. Kelski realized, miserably, that to hold both strands aloft, the fish-bone tight to her scalp, and gather more hair she’d need two more ropes of Res.

[Kelski]

Gilthas watched out of the corner of his eye, surreptitiously gathering glassware to start philtering a potion that he could use as a workshop cleaner. Now that Kelski was visiting fairly regularly, he’d started taking pains in cleaning the cobwebs and making the space look more livable rather than a hermit’s den. He tried to be quiet, as to not distract her. Noises and distractions would be his job later, once his Learner figured out what she was doing without being interrupted.

Kelski breathed out two more strands of Res, transmuting them to air and sending them up the side of her head to gather more hair like the first two had. Meanwhile the first two strands were still floating aloft. She picked up additional hair, keeping the new strands taught and then had to pause and work out how to combine the first strand with the newer second strand on the right side. Naturally, she dropped both. This time, rather than get mad, she simply took a deep breath and tried with the left. She almost had the left two strands combined before she dropped those to… the sheer number of things she had to think of and concentrate on at the same time tough for her.

There were so many layers to the thinking… to combining strands of the Res generated Air and weaving her hair the same way. It was doing two things at once, and if she did both sides together, it was four thought processes. Kelski took a deep breath, cleared her thoughts, sunk deeper into her concentration, and began again.

This time she had two strands gathered, crossed over the back of her head, a third finger of air holding the cross pieces to her scalp and she started on number four and number five Res born tendrils of air. The ropes of Air gathered strands and due to her intense concentration, four of the five strands combined into each other – blending hair – and she went back to three she needed to control again.

Not thinking of failure, not thinking of how hard it was, Kelski breathed out two more strands, bringing her total to five fingers of Air she was controlling. She brought the newly gathered strands up each side of her head, combined them with the two already lofted, bringing her five fingers of air down to three again, and crossed them over the back of her head – loosening and then snugging up the crossover once more with the third finger of air.

Gilthas, out of her sight, balled up his fist and clenched it in a jerked motion whispering a wordless ‘Yes!’ as he watched his Learner slowly and painfully succeed.

She’d proved to herself it could be done. And once Kelski had done that, working with the five strands, combining the strands of thickened air back to three, manipulating the light strands of hair… her brain slowly got used to the multiple lines of thought and multiple lines of control. She was sweating with exertion and her fish-boned braid looked more like a child made it than an adult did. But it was a braid and her mind was slowly starting to wrap around the process of controlling more than one strand of power at a time.

[Kelski]

That was when Gilthas approached. He had paused in whatever he was working on and gently took her hands. Kelski was actually breathing hard and trembling a little with the exertion. She looked up and met his eyes, slightly ashamed she’d done so poorly. Gilthas only smiled, then moved her own hands into her view.

“From birth… even before I suspect… your brain gets practice moving around ten fingers. Its astonishing really, because you move them independently really. And you move around two arms… with two hands… each with then fingers… all at the same time. All you have to do to know this is true is watch a dancer or pay attention to how many parts of your body moves at the same time.” He started out softly, kneeling down before her to meet her gaze, still holding her hands in his.

“You get years to learn to move your body well, and sometimes even as adults people are not graceful or are often considered clumsy because they still haven’t mastered moving all their parts at the same time. You’ve had less than a season, Kelski. And if you consider it, you’ve probably had only a few bells to practice. It will take time. For this being your first staggering steps as an infant climbing to their feet and walking… you are doing incredibly well. I am proud of you.” He said softly, encouraging her gently. Then he reached out and hugged her, patting her knotted hair proudly. “I honestly couldn’t be prouder.” He said gently. Kelski smiled against his shoulder, returning his hug. She had no words really, to respond to what he told her.

Instead she simply smiled softly and nodded when Gilthas asked abruptly. “Hungry? The Chowder is ready.” Kelski laughed, knowing her hair looked ridiculous. But she had an idea now how to stretch her magical muscles.

“Thank you, Gilthas. Thank you.”

[Kelski]

G R A D E S

Kelski

Reimancy: +5, Logic +2, Cosmology +1

Reimancy: Snuffing Candles With Air, Reimancy: Handling One Strand of Res, Reimancy: Handling 2-6 Strands Of Res, Reimancy: Manipulating Air Pressure, Reimancy: Braiding Ones Hair With Reimancy, Reimancy: Training Res Manipulation Without Seeing It, Reimancy: Pulling Ones Hair Due To Lack Of Control, Cosmology: Fish Boning Ones Hair, Gilthas: Proud Of Her