7th Fall, 513AV
Tsaba, as always, carried her sling at the ready while outside the safety of Zeltiva. As always, she was keenly aware that it wouldn't do a thing to protect her. The real difference from every other trip outside the city was that this time, Tsaba felt blind.
No personal magic for a few days. That had been Master Marin's warning. No Auristics, no Reimancy. Fine. In theory.
It was driving Tsaba insane.
She'd spent most of the night at work, copying books for the library, trying to ignore the itching in her wrists. The itching was her imagination; the neatly stitched slash wounds were clean and sterile, she knew they were. But she couldn't shake the feeling of her master's res forcing its way into her, cutting her up on some metaphysical level, changing her. And copying books in the quiet wasn't helping. Normally, she'd distract herself with magical practice... but that wasn't possible. Not safely.
So Tsaba had taken her weapon and headed outside. Carrying a weapon in the city was basically asking to be attacked by either the Wave Guard or rogue elements at such a time, but a sling was innocuous enough to no be noticed, and Tsaba had taken to wearing hers like a belt when in company. Outside the city, there were no insurgents to worry about. Just bandits. And monsters. And normal predators. And...
She tightened her grip on her sling and focused on where she was walking. Letting her imagination run away with her wouldn't help. Tsaba wasn't a very imaginative person, and for that, she was grateful.
She headed along her familiar path to her familiar practice tree, where she could easily locate the Pass but couldn't easily be seen from such a distance, and paced back fifteen paces. Then she loaded the sling with one of her practice stones, and let it fly.
The tree she used was tall, sturdy and, most importantly, surrounded bu bushes. That meant that she could identify not only the rare hit, but a near miss, by its disturbance of the bush. She was pretty sure her 'near miss' ratio was improving and her 'complete miss' ratio going down. Pretty sure. She really should keep score, but it would interrupt her rhythm. Her first shot was a near miss. So was the second. The third missed completely.
Thwack. Thwack. Tsaba set up a steady rhythm of practice shots, eating through her supply of stones, and tried to tell herself that she wasn't so defenseless after all. Who would disturb her out there, anyway?
Tsaba, as always, carried her sling at the ready while outside the safety of Zeltiva. As always, she was keenly aware that it wouldn't do a thing to protect her. The real difference from every other trip outside the city was that this time, Tsaba felt blind.
No personal magic for a few days. That had been Master Marin's warning. No Auristics, no Reimancy. Fine. In theory.
It was driving Tsaba insane.
She'd spent most of the night at work, copying books for the library, trying to ignore the itching in her wrists. The itching was her imagination; the neatly stitched slash wounds were clean and sterile, she knew they were. But she couldn't shake the feeling of her master's res forcing its way into her, cutting her up on some metaphysical level, changing her. And copying books in the quiet wasn't helping. Normally, she'd distract herself with magical practice... but that wasn't possible. Not safely.
So Tsaba had taken her weapon and headed outside. Carrying a weapon in the city was basically asking to be attacked by either the Wave Guard or rogue elements at such a time, but a sling was innocuous enough to no be noticed, and Tsaba had taken to wearing hers like a belt when in company. Outside the city, there were no insurgents to worry about. Just bandits. And monsters. And normal predators. And...
She tightened her grip on her sling and focused on where she was walking. Letting her imagination run away with her wouldn't help. Tsaba wasn't a very imaginative person, and for that, she was grateful.
She headed along her familiar path to her familiar practice tree, where she could easily locate the Pass but couldn't easily be seen from such a distance, and paced back fifteen paces. Then she loaded the sling with one of her practice stones, and let it fly.
The tree she used was tall, sturdy and, most importantly, surrounded bu bushes. That meant that she could identify not only the rare hit, but a near miss, by its disturbance of the bush. She was pretty sure her 'near miss' ratio was improving and her 'complete miss' ratio going down. Pretty sure. She really should keep score, but it would interrupt her rhythm. Her first shot was a near miss. So was the second. The third missed completely.
Thwack. Thwack. Tsaba set up a steady rhythm of practice shots, eating through her supply of stones, and tried to tell herself that she wasn't so defenseless after all. Who would disturb her out there, anyway?
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