Treading White Waters

by **Estrellir Konrath** on June 2nd, 2014, 9:28 am

OOCSorry for the delay and shortness of this post! Your reply totally slipped my mind.

Estrellir noticed his eyes staring a hole into her back, but it wasn’t the kind of stare she’d experienced before. Nobody had ever looked at her like that, as if she was merely an ingredient in a scientific experiment, and she found it oddly appealing. The unusual fascinated her more often than not.

Focusing and learning. Those were things Estrellir enjoyed too, despite being vague enough concepts. As Matthew spoke, his voice and tone slowly changed. Narrowing her violet eyes, the Konti tried to discern what brought about that change, but couldn’t quite put a finger on it. Her attention wandered to his finger drawing lines into the sand. Watching those moves had a soothing effect, a little strange and almost beyond her notice. It did serve to loosen her tongue though. “I’ve never tried it before, but seen others do it. Some of my sisters and our blue brothers, the Akalak. They usually do it before telling fortunes or sparring. It seems to increase clarity of the mind. If that’s true, I’d like to use it for learning and thinking. Seeing connections.” The words came before she knew what they meant. Somewhere in there was an important bit of what she wished for herself, what she wanted to do, but Estrellir still didn’t know which part it was and how it connected to her present self.

So she turned her attention back to the pretty human, although the mild frown stayed on her features like an echo. “What do you use it for?”

by **Matthew** on June 3rd, 2014, 10:05 pm

If only he knew that she found such a stare appealing. He would find it quite interesting. He wasn't exactly sure if he was the type who found the unusual fascinating, but any form of new knowledge was something that he appreciated. Unfortunately for Matthew, her uniqueness was subtle enough for him not to notice it. Sure, he would notice that something was off about Estrellir, that she was different in some way that he couldn't quite put his finger on. He wouldn't be able to understand the specifics of such a feeling, though.

He nodded at her explanation, finishing his drawing of a perfect circle after a few tries. Her frown was not noted, hands reaching out to sit on the sand between them, spread to allow the circle to exist in the middle of his separated wrists. He offered the fingers to her, palm up and digits spread. "I've wanted to use it for learning and thinking as well, though in a slightly different sort of way. I often find that once I start thinking about a single thing, my mind starts to think faster than I can handle. I start thinking about everything that is related to that one thing, how they work together, how they don't work together. My mind goes everywhere at once, and even if the topics of thought are related, it is often too much for me to process at once. I would like to use it to allow me to focus more intensely, if that makes any sense."

The young student tilted his head towards the circle he had drawn. If her hands took his own, he would lace the fingers lightly, his touch gentle and non-invasive. "From what little I understand, meditation allows one to clear their mind of thoughts and outside forces. I have no formal training in this, but I've come to a few conclusions by myself. I've imagined it to be like a circle. In this circle, in our minds, only the two of us should exist. The two of us and whatever thoughts we allow. The rest should remain outside of the circle and not be allowed in, no matter how many there are."

Blue eyes blinked at her, Matthew already in a focused state of mind where only the Konti existed. Even his novice skills at meditation would allow for a state of focus when there was nothing on the outside that could interrupt it. Instead, this place was peaceful and quiet, helping the process immensely.

Instead of directing a lesson, he opted to try and walk them along a learning path hand in hand. Their levels of knowledge were perhaps close enough to merit this. "What do you think? How would you suggest we reach this state of mind?"

by **Estrellir Konrath** on June 4th, 2014, 8:29 am

Estrellir curled her lips just a little. She knew that feeling he described, knew it all too well. When observing people, Dynasty brats more often than not, she would sit and stare for bells, trying to figure out what a particular word or gesture meant in the situation. Then she’d trail off to general matters concerning hierarchy and its connection to politics, never returning to what she’d originally sat down to do. Sometimes that was insightful, sometimes not. In any case, meditation seemed useful for narrowing as well as broadening one’s frame of mind, whatever was preferred.

As he laid his hands on the sand, offering them to her like pets, she crossed her legs and inched closer, taking care not to destroy the circle he’d drawn. Her hands hovered in the air for a moment before falling into his palms, fingers still cold from the water, webbing between them slick and rubbery.

Then her violet eyes met his blue gaze as she thought about the question. “We only look at each other. We try not to see what’s around us, to ignore the sand, water, rocks and trees. We only focus on listening to what the other says… how their hands feel like.” Her grip tightened momentarily before Estrellir realized and let go. A spark of apology appeared in her eyes and furrowed her brow. “But we don’t think about them or us, what they might think of us, instead we just let them exist and focus on that existence. Nothing else.”

The words were falling from her lips like drops of clear water, impossible to control. She didn’t know what half of them meant, truly, but as she talked and listened to his voice, she started seeing and hearing things in a different way. Matthew came closer while their surroundings shrunk into the distance. His hands became an anchor for her mind and tied it down.

by **Matthew** on June 4th, 2014, 8:28 pm

His fingertips absentmindedly traced the webbing between her long digits, reminded that any sort of lacing of their hands would be impossible. He often forgot about the unique structure of the Konti race, their beautiful scales and unique webbings. The touch could perhaps be taken as a somewhat intimate one, perhaps a flirtatious one, but Estrellir had probably realized that such a thing was very far and distant from the student's odd mind. No, this was a moment of learning like so many others that he had, his eyes distant as he lightly examined the texture that was uniquely hers. As a medical student, he could appreciate the wonders of all the different bodies that the gods had painstakingly crafted for them. Was that how it went? He couldn't remember the details from his religious studies. He furrowed his brow, head tilting to the side, thoughts turning to the intelligent woman in front of him.

He winced a bit as her hand tightened, but shook his head at the spark of apology that appeared in her stare. Her words made good sense and the sudden tightening of her grip had only been due to intense focus. Only her and her hands? Only her existence?

Matthew led djed trickle into the sphere of focus he had formed, welling it up from his stomach and burning it in the back of his throat.

Estrellir's aura lit up before him, made of sharp angles and cool silvers and light blues. It tasted like steel and smelled like chalk, all things that he was familiar and comfortable with. It did not dance in the air with wild abandon like most did, instead it was contained and controlled, orderly and oddly fashionable. He did not focus upon it or try to meld with it, feeling it was a private thing and leaving it that way. Instead he used it to aid his focus and concentration, eyes staring firmly at hers as he simply meditated upon her very existence.

"Your hands are soft, but textured. The scales are an odd sensation upon my fingertips. Your eyes are a dark violet, a unique color. Your cheekbones stand out, giving a unique angle to your face. The air tastes of salt." Matthew blinked, realizing his concentration had wandered. He furrowed his brow once more as he realized his mistake, tightening his circle of focus, narrowing his existence down to an existence that only included her and her touch, her and her aura, her and the words that danced lightly in the air between them.

by **Estrellir Konrath** on June 4th, 2014, 9:03 pm

Estrellir was oblivious to the beautiful and rich colors and other impressions she provided to his senses, nevertheless she appreciated the lightness of his touch and the soft texture of his skin. He wasn’t pushing or putting pressure on her, just being there as if guided by her words. His hands felt oddly dry and disconnected though, a result of lacking the webbing between the fingers she was so familiar with.

When he spoke in reply to her musings, the natural consequence was for her to focus on his words and expression. His face was as still as Silver Lake itself until his concentration wandered and the wrong words found a way into speech. To Estrellir, they didn’t sound wrong though. Air stood between them, wasn’t air part of their little bubble? The question wouldn’t linger in her mind long though, drifting away quite naturally.

Similar to what Matthew was doing, she began observing his form and noticing details. “Your eyes are like the sky in summer. Your hair’s drying and almost black, but only almost. You’ve a light tan and your skin feels warm and soft, but dry.” That little word slipped out before she could stop it, yet she didn’t flinch. At that point in time she’d already immersed herself into quiet and calm observation enough not to notice contradictions and unspoken meanings. That included words of disapproval as well as compliments or even affection. She focused on their little exercise, the rules they created within it, so much that she forgot everything else.

Easy to hypnotize, wasn’t she? Her family had called her ‘headstrong’ on more than one occasion. Once she set her mind to something, Estrellir got obsessive. At that moment it was meditation. Still very fresh as a concept, it intrigued her to no end. A significant part was, of course, the pleasure of practicing with a likeminded individual.

A moment of silence formed between them. Images and disjointed memories were floating through Estrellir’s mind during that time. “Shall we close our eyes?” It was a suggestion, nothing more, and she’d observe if he did it before following suit (or not). She’d seen her sisters and blue brothers do it while meditating, thought it silly and careless… but in the mindset she was in and with hands to hold onto, she was willing to try it.

by **Matthew** on June 5th, 2014, 9:50 pm

Dry? That really threw him off, though he forced his mind to stay away from the obvious rabbit hole that he could dive down with that one. He didn't take her words as an insult, but instead saw them as a hint about something he could improve on. Matthew was painfully unaware that it had everything to do with his lack of webbing. He would instead ponder the advantages of rough-textured strong hands and soft ones, and what sort of men and women would like what sort of hand.

But that was a rabbit hole, as he had already noted.

He nodded at her suggestion, his summer sky eyes slowly closing. With sight suddenly taken away from him, her aura transformed and readjusted to what senses he still had available. The taste of chalk still danced on the edge of his tongue, and now the sound of dripping water rang in his ears. Her aura expressed itself in a rather unique way and he latched onto it, using it to help his meditative state. When he had closed his eyes, he had turned his surroundings into darkness. That had effected the image that he had construction within his circle of focus. Latching onto the sound of water allowed him to recenter himself and begin again, reconstructing the scene that they existed in from scratch. Remember the existence and then focus on it. Matthew furrowed his brow and dipped within himself, retreating to the mental library that he had long ago created.

When his voice came out now, it was clipped and hurried. It was precise and clinical, abandoning any form of tone for efficiency. "Surrounding sand, circle in sand, five pebbles and three shells between us, hands touching, webbed fingers dry fingers." He stroked the blank canvas in his mind with a brush, rebuilding the sphere they shared. "Salty, cool. Fit, boyish, but feminine face and hair. Violet, ivory, long. Left hand marked. Patterned scales."

He went to a place that he rarely went to while in Mura, but a place that seemed appropriate given the circumstances. He quoted words that had been scribed into his immediate memory, a thick plain leather-bound tome within his mind that was constantly scrawled in, scrubbed clean, and then written in again. He paused his hurried words, instinctively assuming Estrellir would catch on, giving her time to verbally rebuild what they had lost when they had closed their eyes.

by **Estrellir Konrath** on June 12th, 2014, 7:55 pm

When Estrellir closed her eyes, she immediately listened to the sound of waves softly lapping against the shore and stone. The lake was outside their little circle, but once her sense of sight was terminated, hearing leapt up and took its place immediately. Fortunately, Matthew’s voice brought her back to where she was supposed to be.

His words, so much like painted colors and shapes, left an odd impression in her mind. Of course, memory provided her with a rather clear image of what was before and around them. Sand, the circles he’d drawn, their hands she could still feel, two living, breathing bodies facing each other. That was what she’d lost by closing her eyes. There was more though and the Konti thought it odd that he’d recreate what had slipped out of perception and became mere echo.

Salty and boyish. Amusement manifested itself through a momentary twitch in her hands. Realizing the mistake, she took a deep breath… and then another. Once she trusted her voice, Estrellir joined in the poem he had begun to craft, but focused on different things. “Impressions fluid and ever-changing as water… warm dry hands as anchor in the stream. A husky voice, very close. Hot sand and salt. Gold… a lot like golden light.”

With a mild frown, she wondered where that’d come from. The human just felt like gold to her, perhaps due to his tanned skin. Whenever she tried to picture him, that color popped up. Did he see her the same way, in colors and textures? Estrellir wasn’t sure where to go from there… if she was doing it correctly. All she could hold on to was his voice and words.

by **Matthew** on June 18th, 2014, 9:51 pm

Gold? That one made him pause as well, an eyebrow arching above one of his closed eyes. He had first been impressed about how she had made something of a little poem out of her remembered perceptions, but then she had voiced some perceptions that he hadn't quite perceived himself. It was interesting how the world could be seen in so many different ways. He assumed she was talking about him since the poem seemed to be describing him in a sense. Then again, she had mentioned sand, and sand was golden. No, perhaps sand was more of a tanned color? He hummed a bit to himself, but then remembered that he was supposed to be meditating. He was focusing, he was existing only within a specific sphere of reality that his meditating mind was slowly constructing.

"In theory, can a meditating mind be used to perfectly recall memories?" Since they were phrasing what they had seen of the other before their eyes had closed, wouldn't it also be a simple task to recall the world around them while keeping their minds sharpened and focused? Matthew slowly rose, giving her hands a soft tug as he did, letting her know that he was slowly lifting himself and giving her the option to follow along. "Sand, soft grains under our feet... surrounding trees, but a body of water... this way, correct?" He painted more onto the mental canvas that his meditating mind had created, brow furrowing in concentration. A wrong step or an incorrect memory could lead to him stepping onto something somewhat painful. There had been some seashells scattered about, hadn't there? For a moment he wondered why. Wasn't this body of water completely inland?

He was distracting himself again. When it came to meditation, it appeared that he was his own greatest enemy. He nipped at his lower lip and waited to see if his partner would develop the scenery around them any further, provided that she was willing to play along with his whim of an exercise.

If so, he would use her own addition to his mental image to further develop it and then step closer to the body of water, wondering if he could maneuver the environment with focus and memory alone. Certainly a unique use for a meditative state, and one that somewhat pushed against the idea that one had to be sitting perfectly still.

by **Estrellir Konrath** on July 15th, 2014, 7:38 pm

The corners of her mouth twitched as his low hum joined the sound of gentle waves. For a moment she expected a melody, but then the hum died away, disappointing her. Estrellir was ready to weave another thread into their loom of impressions and words when he asked a question.

Her brow furrowed slightly before she relaxed it again. Did thinking about questions constitute a part of meditation? Wasn’t one supposed to think as little as possible? That was what her blue brothers did. If she used it to reflect on things, it should involve thinking though. “It could certainly be used to sharpen the mind and its capacities.” Her tone carried something ritualistic, turning a simple question and answer into a bit of a ceremonial. It was her way of staying in the flow of meditation. They’d created their little bubble meticulously. It’d be a shame to destroy it too soon.

The sand rustled between his feet before Estrellir felt the tug at her hands. She followed, although she had to fight confusion. The next words cleared the unspoken questions. He was trying to recall what he’d seen earlier. An experiment, perhaps. First her steps were hesitant, but then she passed Matthew.

Tugging at his hand like he’d done with her before, she led him towards the water. The part of the shore she had chosen was quite flat with no rocks or bumps of earth cutting into it. She remembered the steps to the water, not by number, but instinctively. Perhaps the Konti was more familiar with the lake. After a certain amount of steps, she stopped. Wet sand gave way under her feet without getting stuck between webbed toes.

“Here it is.” Slowly, Estrellir bent down, eyes still closed, to feel the water between her fingers. At the same time, she was curious what her partner would do next. He seemed more eager when it came to exploring the unknown. No trace of doubt or suspicion. The bubble expanded.

by **Traverse** on February 10th, 2015, 4:18 pm

Estrellir

Experience:

Meditation 5
Observation 5
Socialization 2
Teaching 2

Lore:

Matthew: A Handsome Male Human
Matthew: A Strange Calculating Mind
Meditation Technique: Focusing on a Singular Object and Describing it
Meditation Technique: Letting the Mind Wander, Speaking Without Thinking

Matthew

Experience:

Auristics 1
Endurance 1
Meditation 5
Philosophy 2
Rhetoric 1
Seduction 1
Swimming 2
Teaching 2

Lore:

Estrellir: A Slightly Shorter than Average Konti
Meditation Technique: Removing Surrounding World Piece By Piece
Meditation Technique: Focusing on a Singular Object and Describing it
Meditation Technique: Letting the Mind Wander, Speaking Without
Latching Onto Estellir's Unique Aura in Order to Aid with Meditation
Noting a Parallel in Estrellir's Personality to One's Own

Additional Notes :

Flashback Treading White Waters