The Art of Shielding [Solo]

[Seven Xu]

The Art of Shielding Summer 10, 511 AV “Focus was something that never came easy to me ...” The spell of ink-blackness had been broken by a luminous orange flicker, moving through a heavy sea of dank and humid air towards the center of the small apartment. The candle I had bought from the Bazaar bells earlier (it smelled like lavender, not my first choice but it was relatively inexpensive) and lit by a torch a few paces outside my door flickered and protested in my haste to get it to my table. Its fat wax bottom thudded against well-worn wood and I took my seat in one equally worn wooden chair. It creaked, maybe a little too loud, as the man that lay exhausted and threadbare in the nearby bed shifted and faced his back to me. What had it been … a week? Victor still hadn’t moved, or done little more than speak nonsensical, fragmented phrases. Despite being little more than a comatose stranger, he was beyond interesting. What it must have been like, to have been so tired. My attentions turned back to the candle on the table, burning and filling my senses with the perfume scent of flowers to an almost sickening apex. I forced my eyes to narrow in on one focal point: the tiny flame that trembled and glistened against a growing pool of melted wax beneath its fierce heat. I could feel my eyes glazing over. “Pay attention,” I murmured, maybe a little too loud. It was an attempt to stir more reaction in something far more interesting than the light of a candle, but when no murmur or shifting of linen sheets came I begrudgingly settled on the task at hand. I could feel my dry lips tightening in an uncomfortably wide smile before I afforded them relief beneath the wet sweep of a tongue. A familiar acid taste lingered. I lifted both hands, placing them side by side in front of the flame, feeling the warmth, physically blocking off the soft orange light that I intended on blocking entirely, if my concentration held. I inhaled, allowing my eyelids to grow heavy and finally shut, painting the image in my mind as it manifested beneath my fingertips. I could feel it, that shudder of djed leaving my skin as if a layer of my very being was being drawn out, materialized in that shimmering violet color. My fingertips twitched involuntarily, and for a moment, I nearly broke my concentration. Focus was something that never came easy to me. Whenever I tried, everything else became infinitely more interesting: the feeling of my clothing against my skin, drawn tight at the knees where my legs were bending beneath myself in my cross-legged stance. Or the growing aches in my thighs from sitting in such an awkward position. My bangs were tickling my forehead. Stop it. My eyes snapped open and as I focused on the eclipsed candlelight, I could feel the triumphant grin returning to my slack mouth. My hands dropped to reveal the shimmering violet starting at the tabletop and ending just above the wavering light it was now doing an incredible job at blocking. Blackness encompassed most of my body, but a faint glow from the border of the shield and the shadowy objects illuminated on the other side showed the obvious magical influence. Brilliant. The corners of my mouth began to strain, and though my smile faded, the pride in my handiwork remained. How odd it must have looked to anyone that couldn’t see the thin barrier that separated me and the putrid candle. “Victor!” I turned, slinging one elbow over the back of my chair to eye the motionless lump in my nearby bed. “Hey, Lark.” When the mass failed to respond to either, I turned back to the obscured candlelight with a huff. I should have been relieved he didn’t wake; the curious way light danced off of the walls would have spurred question after groggy question and spirited requests that were likely to go unfulfilled by my unskilled hands. “You really know how to make someone feel alone,” I remarked, venomous sarcasm falling on deaf ears. The shield had already started to decay, and I let my hands pass through it to watch that beautiful violet shimmer - I’m not sure I’d ever get sick of that. In a moment of absentminded forgetfulness, fingers wandered too close to flame and the shock of heat caused me to jerk away. Thumb now placed safely in my mouth, running along a straight line of upper teeth and down the point of one canine, I glared at the offending flame and drummed over the next exercise in my mind. “What do you think?” An amused pause, “Yeah, that’s what I thought too.”

[Seven Xu]

Part Two ‘When casting a shield, meditation is key …’ My hands sat prone above the shield for a long time. So long, the flickering candlelight grew almost unbearably hot beneath my fingertips before I let myself pull away. It was difficult shutting out distractions: heavy breaths and shifts in linen, the crackle of a hearth lit long ago to heat a meal, and the smell of which that still lingered stale in the thick sweet air of the small stone apartment. Once again, I let djed pour from my hands, envisioning the glittering, wavering film to be paint on a canvas – but this canvas was in three dimensions and the paint had a job that was more than making off-white cloth look more appealing. The weave in its entirety wasn’t much larger than the candle itself, amassing at the top in a bulbous form that covered a flame and prevented its light – but not its heat – from passing through. The entire thing looked a bit strange, and it could have looked even stranger to any onlooker. Beneath the violet shell was the blackened outline of a candle, flame included, flickering and warm but appearing as little more than a shadow. Grabbing the candle by the base, I slid it between the walls of the dome I’d placed over it, back and forth; watching it illuminate the room then plunge it into darkness again when it slid beneath the shield. I hadn’t figured out if there was a way to make shields disappear, and a wave of my hand through the dim structure did little more than make it protest and shimmer as flesh passed through it. I finally offered my stiff muscles relief as I uncrossed my legs and leaned forward to snatch up a nearby book, thick and worn in use and travel. Parchment was such a resilient material, but time had ravaged the first few pages of The Art of Shielding: Volume I to something nearly illegible. Moving the candle from its quickly degrading sheath, I could make out the title, but its authors or the date in which it was written – likely copied over from a much older master book – were all smudged and faded. Flipping deeper within the dog-eared and water-worn folds of the volume, my lips moved as I read in silence. ‘When casting a shield, meditation is key; a distracted shield thrown carelessly will tend to have gaps in tasking …’ Meditation. Meditation. I growled. “I can’t meditate with so many distractions!” It sounded ridiculous when I voiced it, but I jumped to my feet just the same and cast aside the trousers that pulled too tightly when I sat. The sweater that made the back of my neck itch was next to fall to the floor, leaving me in little more than shorts and a sleeveless cotton shirt. Reaching down, I yanked the drawstring from the sweater’s hood and tied it around my head, drawing back tangled blond bangs before sitting down in a huff. I must have looked insane, lips crinkled in a pout and my blood-red stare that startled most in my calmest moments glaring, wide-eyed, at the dying candle before me in all of my lanky, awkward, half-clothed glory. The shield was already falling apart; djed was dispersing and disappearing from my own sight – perhaps if I were skilled in auristics or better tuned with some spiritual source I could see it once it left my weave, but I could not. Another bead of wax rolled down the side of the candle as the flame hungrily burned away at the blackened wick. The lavender scent was almost overwhelming, and was mixing with the stale smell of bread and sweet onions. I could swear the cacophony of odor would wake any lighter sleeper up. The volume clapped shut beneath my fingers with conviction and it went back onto the pile that was shorter than usual because of the absence of a certain notebook. As the remnants of my work faded into obscurity, my hands slid flat against the tabletop and I leaned back. I filled my lungs with the dank air and allowed my eyes to close.

[Seven Xu]

Part Three ‘‘... it had happened to nearly every mage recorded in any book I could get my hands on, and it sounded absolutely terrible...’’ One chime, two, five—ten passed before I opened my eyes again. The very act was an effort in itself after nearly drifting off to sleep; my lids felt glued together. A stiff neck made an unnerving popping noise as I righted myself. The candle had burned down a surprising amount; leaving a paltry remnant of a deep purple cylinder, melted and merged into the very wood of the table I’d laid it on. I’d grown used to the smell by now, surrendering to the fact that it had likely could have permeated my clothing, sheets, and even the very stone if it were so zealous. I lifted a pair of fingers to press against a pool of wax, long melted and cooled but still pleasantly warm beneath the surface. I had no idea what time it was, other than that it was becoming exceedingly late. A yawn punctuated the thought, and I stretched forward to grasp towards the far side of the table in a catlike stretch. My nose drifted dangerously close to the candle and it sputtered under light breathing before I began the third and last exercise I’d attempt in a night. While the book spoke of overgiving with shielding being mild, I didn’t want to chance some horrible side-effect by working my very djed too hard; it had happened to nearly every mage recorded in any book I could get my hands on, and it sounded absolutely terrible. From my fingertips flourished the familiar violet weave, tasked to keep out the flame of a candle destined to melt away and burn the surface of a table that had been through its share of trauma already. The shield came out flat, lying flush against the tabletop. Still uneven in its weave, I stared down at it, ran my fingers through it, and then finally plucked the ravaged candle from its berth to hold it against the table. Wax dripped down from the cavernous purple dent the fire had made, sliding down towards the lowest point in the slightly uneven table. Before I could determine whether or not the wobbling shield was successfully protecting my table against the flame, it sputtered and flickered and went out, plunging the room back into the blackness that would be expected of a stone box in the belly of Stormhold Citadel. I sighed. My legs swung down and I stood, stretching my arms over my head and stumbling bed-wards. “That’ll be enough, then,” I murmured, urging the comatose body that had taken over the majority of my mattress towards the wall. The hug of the mattress was like no other, and as soon as I found myself horizontal and wrapped in body-warmed sheets I realized how exhausted I really was—although, it very well could have been the product of the shield that still lay uniform across the top of the nearby table. End

[Secret]

THREAD AWARDS Seven Xu   Skills Skill Gain Notes Shielding 3 Meditation 2 Observation 1 Reading 1   Lores Meditation: Removing Distractions Pandering to an Unconscious Audience   Injury Report Description Heal Time After Effect Extremely Mild Burn (Finger) 1 Day None   Notes A nice simple solo, well done.