Closed [Judgement] Colors blind the eye / Sounds deafen the ear

[Elsa Marin]

Those who know do not speak.
Those who speak do not know.

40th of Winter, 513

The steady ringing of bells filled the air as Elsa strode into the lecture hall with all her dancer's grace. For once her hands were still, kept open and relaxed at her sides. She was so focused on not signing her stomach-turning nervousness or scratching the glypher's ink off her itching palms that she almost crossed center stage and kept walking. She stopped and took a steadying breath. She was washed, painted, glyphed, and as ready as she'd ever be. This is just another show, she told herself. Except instead of dancing she would be doing a, considering her recent overgiving and concussion, stupid amount of Voiding in a short amount of time. And instead of an audience who knew her and loved her she had an audience that was dead.

Having entered the stage, Elsa sized up her audience. Various wizards, apprentices, and hopefuls, were spread around the lecture hall. Spectators, they were. Some of them watched her, others talked amongst themselves. The ones Elsa really had to worry about were her judges, which she assumed were the corpses propped up behind the desks she was now standing in front of. They watched her, and did not blink. She could probably skip step three, captivating the audience, then.

Half a season on Sahova had taught Elsa a lot about how the Sahovan wizards thought. Until you proved yourself, you were nothing to them. You worked until you died, then you got back up and kept working. So, Elsa did not speak. Words were wind in the Void, and these corpses wouldn't give her the time of day unless something was in it for them. Mystique and petty revenge in one gesture. That, and her nader-canoch was garbage. And she really didn't want them to judge her in comparison to Anna, if they didn't know about her already.

So she was silent, and looked into the judges' eyes, and managed to suppress her visceral disgust down to a shiver.

[Elsa Marin]

Six measured steps forward for luck, Elsa made a flourishing bow, throwing one arm out to her side while setting a bell on the floor with the other. She was surprised how much she missed even one bell. Cutting it off had been like cutting off a finger. She hoped and prayed she wouldn't Void it accidentally. She'd have to make it seem intentional if she did, and she wasn't sure she wouldn't completely lose her concentration if she lost that bell.

Stepping back to center stage, front and center before the judges, Elsa took her stance. Feet planted solidly on the ground, arms extended. She made sure her palms were in plain view, displaying the focus glyphs she'd so painstakingly painted there. As her mind touched the Void, Elsa's nervousness faded almost entirely. Trepidation on the edge of nothingness was lethal.

Starting from a single point, the world became unfocused and sank into an inky darkness. She had formed a Void portal made to push. The world recoiled from it, and Elsa focused the impulse forward and down, towards the bell, hearing it tinkling as it rolled across the floor, fleeing the darkness. She willed the portal to shrink, relieved to see that the bell hadn't gone too far, and filled it in.

Her nervousness vanished completely, and she allowed herself a small, proud smile. She was a Voider, and a sight better than many other Voiders she'd met.

The next portal had pull, and was spawned closer to Elsa than the first, and the bell tinkled again as it rolled towards her. She was entering the danger zone now. The world was turning flat at the edges. She felt the Void creeping up behind her. She decided to forgo shrinking this portal, filling it in before it could Void the bell.

One more, then she was done. This one was closest of them all, as the bell had stopped right by Elsa's feet. She formed the portal a few feet away, and stretched it as far as it would go, throwing her will against the world. Without pull, the portal was noticeably bigger than her first two. She moved the portal closer to herself and down, shifting it with utmost care. Almost half the portal sank into the floor, and Elsa brought it close enough that her toes grew cold reflexively, remembering what happened to that stick on the beach. The portal left an icy sheen on the floor even in the dry lecture hall. She was standing on the absolute edge of the Void. She froze at the thought, fighting down panic as she looked into the abyss at her feet. Behind her, below her, the Void was all around. The world was flat.

Stick something into a Void portal, let the portal close, and whatever sticks out of the portal will be sheared off as the part inside the portal is Voided. Reality reasserted itself with such force that anything that wasn't safely in the bounds of Mizahar was rejected. This meant it was possible to Void things in parts. Big pieces of small things, or small pieces of big things. As long as Elsa didn't try to push the portal more than halfway into the floor, which would break the portal, she could maintain it. Part of Sahova, a man-sized piece of floor, now protruded into the Void. If the portal were to close, it would take that piece of floor with it.

The bell teetered on the edge of nothingness.

Oh crap, the bell. Snapping out of it, Elsa filled in the portal. She was left standing over a deep, perfectly concave hole in the floor, wide enough for a man, and half as deep. That hole was probably more comfortable than the floor of her cell in Quarters, she realized. Cleaner, too. She'd have to remember to Void her floor.

After a long, silent moment, with a little help from a surreptitious nudge with Elsa's boot, the bell rolled down into the hole. Elsa finished with a bow from the waist, bowing over the hole. "For your consideration," she said, unbelievably relieved that her voice didn't waver. "Elsa Marin."

[Mirage]

e
The Judges sat on a raised platform before Elsa, each quietly observing the performance as it went on. Starting from the left there was a female Isur missing her left arm, and like the rest of the judges she was obviously a nuit. Two human males sad beside each other, one rather large and the other was missing an eye. Next was a Sym Male, long fingers steepled before his eyes and he observed with a thoughtful expression. The last of the judges was a Human female whose hair looked like it had not been brushed since her death.

At the end of her spectacle the Judges looked to one another, leaning in close to whisper quiet words between each other before the woman who wild hair on the end stood up, "Elsa Marin," She began, reading from a sheet of parchment which obviously held the names of all those presenting this day, "After consideration of your skills you are found to be at an acceptable standard for your level of proficiency. As such we Judges give our consent to begin your apprenticeship within the walls of Sahova. You have been assigned to one Serverus Solomon of Lab 24-G. Report to him to begin your apprenticeship and to receive your ring."

Sitting down the woman shuffled a few papers. The Sym male then stood, extending out a folded sheet of parchment to Elsa, "Present this to Wizard Solomon at your meeting. It will give you temporary access to the upper floors of the Gug Andjak. Make your way to him immediately and begin your work."

And with that the Judgement was over. The crowd was already preparing for the next applicant up for judgement, and the Judges had lost interest in the new apprentice. Now all that was left for Elsa was to go and meet her new master.

OCCSorry for the wait! Please make a post going up to meet your new master, and we will continue from there
e

[Elsa Marin]

When she was told she'd passed Judgement, Elsa smiled and hopped with glee. All her suppressed energy unleashed. She barely managed to still her hands long enough to take the parchment, signing her relief and gratitude and excitement. "Thanks a bunch! I'll head right there." She skipped out of the hall, smiling.

Some searching later, Elsa entered lab 24-G. She hadn't seen living animals in ages, and had to fight to resist the urge to coo over every cage. Considering her experience with Sahova so far, Elsa suspected none of these animals had a bright future ahead of them. Besides, dead or not, messing around in a stranger's lab was just rude. "Hello? Wizard Serverus Solomon? I'm your new apprentice. My name's Elsa. The judges told me to give this to you?"