2020-11-29: Teach Me, Miss Elly!
- Log: Teach Me, Miss Elly!
- Cast: Gwen Whitlock, Elhaym van Houten
- Where: Kilika Jungle
- Date: 11/29/2020
- Summary: At the suggestion of Citan, Gwen receives super secret Ether resistance training! Which would be useful if Gwen actually had any abilities to begin with. So why did the doctor call for Gwen to learn this? Elly may not have found exactly why, but she did find ŝ̢͖͕̣̹̪̒̐̃̌̓̚ö̷͓̝̞̩̫̰̆͊̂̂̽͂́̕͠m̵̥͉̗̗̤̽̇̌̓̒̌͗͋͗͘͟é̴̡̖̻̯͍̝͕̽̿̔̾͂̍̂̉t̵̨͚̱̺͍̝̺̜͈̅̔̈́̀̕h̸̜̤̘̠͆̒͐͛̑̂̈́́͘͜į̧͕͈̜̹̱̩̫͇̄͂̃̈́͛͌̽͛n̴̡̢̞̱͖̝͔̳̩̲̍̽͐̂̈́̾͝ǵ̺̘̣̥̭͉͙̳͙͒͂͌̚͢͝ ḑ̛̣̤͚̯̥͕̿̿̏̈͑̿̏͞a̴̢̝̗͖͙͎̮̮̘̳̓͒͊͊̔̏̒͂̈́ŕ̭̜̗̠̺̃̄̐̈̄̌̄͝k̶̢̟̭̰̹̮̰̟̽̑̔̊͒̄̏̓̌̓ ä̵͓̠̳̞͇́̔̑̓͌͋̀͐̾͘ṇ̛̱̮͈̞́̃̌͊̑͜͝͡d̵̼̣͚̭͎̠͓͇̅̃̆̅̈́̚͢ n̟̹̫̝̤͒̉̄̄͌ó͓͍͉͚̟̻͎̗̲̞̊̒̆͗̋̽͝i̸̧̛̬̯͔̜͓̗̭̱̤͐̈͒͋̉̕s̙͔̯̲̱̤̒̀͆̀̇͌̋͜y̷͕̭̰̳̹̑̍̽̀́̌̕͡
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Soooo, Citan said something about, uh, how there were things, that you did, when you trained with ether? I think it was mindfulness, or, ways to help sharpen my mental skills. I mean, I can't do Ether in the first place, sooo."
That was the assumption Gwen worked on, as she and Elly walk into the jungles of Kilika. Shooing away a fly that attempts to find purchase on the exposed side of her cheek, Gwen continues. "I dunno what Citan told you, though. It's, uh, really confusing and a little embarrassing! But it turns out you guys were right, when you met Setanta. They're actually kind of nice, once you get past the hairpin anger, n' the pride, n' the fact that meeting them in a dream is a little safer than how it went when they got out. But, like, they were lonely." She rubs the back of her neck, underneath the protective cloth of her neckerchief. ".... I got no idea how that'll turn out, but maybe it'll be neat!"
There's also the other side to this experiment: the blue-eyed assassin, Isiris, who might as well exist without a name to begin with. It is that part that Citan had called on Elly's help for, in order to help strengthen some element within Gwen that could be crucial if she was on a tipping point mentally, a situation that could end with her giving in to whatever logic Isiris may present.
For what defense would a Lamb have against things they've never had to deal with?
"I dunno if Citan had something specific in mind, but if you can't think of anything, we can just go get a drink and call it a day. Think of it as 'experiments time'." She even wiggles her fingers by either side of her head as she says this, which devolves into having to slap a part of her neck.
Coming to a clear spot, Gwen plants her hands on her hips, looking around. "... This what you have in mind, Elly? Or maybe we can go by a stream nearby. I've seen people go by waterfalls to relax."
what exactly does Gwen think Elly will be doing
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
INSERT MOOD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJhAyg2LTEk
Elly nods along with Gwen's explanation of the situation with Setanta. She is wearing a sun-dress as she has habitually done around here, supplemented with calf-high boots normally worn for wading in shallow water and a loose cotton jacket of undyed khaki cloth, probably to keep off thorns and so forth. She also has a straw sunhat on, though it is somewhat moot this far in.
"Do you know... I remember when we met... or at least, when I think we first saw each other," Elly says, though with a tone of reminiscence. The path leads down to a relative clearing, perhaps one that was made by a Fiend or a large and sleepy reptile some time ago. Elly plants her metal staff and leans against it, gazing into the woods.
"No," Elly says. "I wanted to teach you... the basics."
"And this place is so vivid and rich and... and wonderful... that I thought it would put you in a good mood. (And if anything did get out of hand, we're not going to be near where anyone lives... I guess I shouldn't have said that part aloud.)"
Elly coughs lightly into her hand with the substitute finger. "I'm going to start from space one. First, I want to ask you a question. Are you familiar with the idea of, um." A pause, and she then says, "'Visualization.' Sorry, I had to reach for the word."
Elly starts making scrapings in the ground with her staff, as if she's drawing a diagram. It seems pretty simple - a square, with two lines in the middle to make four squares. Now she's putting + and - marks in them. Though in the right proportion this could make a truly legendary image, it seems illustrative of... something.
It's kind of complex.
"Because 'visualization' is where Ether - the magic that I use, and that I was trained with - begins and ends. And from what I've read, there's something similar with Symbology and Crest Sorcery and probably whatever back-house doublesauce the Spirans are using, and I would bet a hundred gella you would find the same with whatever it is the Guard does. And!"
Elly finishes drawing her design. "Even if your 'ether response' won't let you generate effects, the method CAN help you disrupt INCOMING actions! ... At least, that's the principle. You've probably noticed that it seems like people who use magic are able to come through magical attacks more effectively, right...?"
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"When you and Setanta first me--" Gwen's freckled cheeks tinge pink, suddenly conscious of the nervous nature of her chatter. Though, what is there to be nervous of? "Or did you mean, when you and I first met?" She carries on this note regardless of Elly's answer, her gaze growing thoughtful as they walk through the jungle. "Come to think of it, wasn't that the first time you met Fei, and also Va-- oh?" Gwen takes a closer look at her surroundings as Elly confirms that this would be their 'classroom', as it were.
A clearing, the soft brush of dried leaves crunching underneath their boots, the peek of a blue sky overhead in the cracks of the canopy, the songs of distant birds with feathers as vibrant as the geometric designs on her Spiran tunic.
The basics. "Ah, right, right." Also away from where people could be peeking. She raises two thumbs discreetly. "(Right, right.)"
"Visualization? Yeah, do that all the time!" Gwen tilts her head as she watches Elly draw with her staff, squinting her eyes just so. ".... like... tic-tac-toe...?"
Nono, this would be the worst game of tic-tac-toe ever
Gwen clears her throat. "Seems simple enough. Using the power of the mind to overlay your mind's will on whatever you're... thinking. Right." She claps her hands together. "So if a thunder bolt was comin' at me, I disrupt it! With my mind."
This is Elly saying this, so Gwen will just take her at her word.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"Yes! Us," Elly says with a smile.
And then she says, "That's the general idea, right. But, when you put it like that, it's like this picture Fei showed me, something that's some kind of an artist's joke..."
The camera swings upwards...
https://i.imgur.com/hJA9ekf.png
That's what Elly describes!
... and the camera swings back down...
"And you have the question of, how DO you disrupt it with your mind?" Elly says, tapping her own forehead with a fingertip. "So this diagram here is the system that I was trained with. It isn't the only one that would work... but it's simple, and it's flexible, and it's in use by Gebler. I suppose that by telling you this, I'm teaching you one of their greatest secrets..."
Elly is not sniped at this.
"We consider these four elements by two factors each. You see how it's a grid here, right? Down this side is transformative or disruptive - as in, does it alter the world, or does it just move? And over here, we have static versus dynamic - does it change in itself, or does it remain the same? (Keep in mind that these are based on the things it's easy to perceive with your natural senses.)"
"Fire is dynamic and transformative. Plus, plus.
"Air is dynamic and disruptive. Plus, minus.
"Water is static and transformative. Minus, plus.
"And Earth is static and disruptive. Minus, minus.
Elly pauses for a moment here. "Disruptive here is a little confusing... but, if you break up a rock, it's just two rocks now, right? Similarly, air is the same everywhere, outside of local exceptions. If you were to open a tank of compressed air that was colored blue, it would make a big blue cloud, but eventually it would fade and dissipate - at most, you might have made the air very slightly blue around Kilika, but even that would eventually fade."
"Now you may be wondering what any of this has to do with anything," Elly says. "Here is the big advantage of this system."
"Most incoming 'spells' will be like one of these four elements, right? It can be a little vague, and I know Lily, for instance, has something that wouldn't map to this chart at all. But a bolt of lightning - that's air," Elly says, tapping that quadrant, "at least by this system. "And if you think of these as sort of... simple settings... it's a lot easier to go 'ah! minus minus!' rather than 'Let me remember the counter-spell'..."
"Do you want to try it out?"
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Sooo. Like the joke about how to learn how t'ride a horse!" Gwen raises a finger. "Step 1. Get on the horse." Two fingers. "Step 2. Ride the damn horse."
It's a joke because this process would likely get people killed, but that's just Badlands humor for you
As Elly begins her lecture, Gwen leans in, lured by the tantalizing lure of military secrets. "Right, right, Gebler secret." She places a hand over her chest. "It's safe with me, no worries. A courier never looks at her packages!" This was meant to comfort Elly. Thankfully, there are no sniper bullets to test the power of Gwen's claim, somehow.
Fire, Air, Water, Earth. Gwen nods at each, the pale red of her curls bobbing slightly with each motion. But, just where is lightning?
But, Elly already has the answer. "Lily's magic is... yeah, it's really somethin', is what." She clears her throat, casting away the visions of fire twisters and explosions. "So it's like a four part rock paper scissors, huh..."
This was Gebler's secret? It seems so simple. Surely--
"Ah, try it out?" Gwen's voice squeaks as she looks back up at Elly. "... Sure, why not."
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"It's got a lot of nuances... if I were to try to train you completely up to Gebler levels it would probably take over a year," Elly says, soberly. "I thought about writing a guide to the basics, but... I'm not sure I could do it well. And Gebler would probably, ah, react really badly... so don't let on that you know this too much, alright? It's not dangerous in itself, just..."
"Okay! Go grab a tree branch," Elly says, pointing, "and then I'll try to hit you with lightning."
...
"It's going to be a really, really teensy beensy bit," Elly adds. "Like umm... that... the thing that you get when it's dry out and you're wearing flannel and touch a door handle. This is just to help you learn! A lot of this will make more sense if we do it this way... like riding a horse."
does this have anything to do with riding a horse elly
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
As Elly reveals her timeline, Gwen waves a hand. "Oh, nah, that's not necessary. I'm pretty sure to be a Gebler I'd need to have some Ether ability, right? Besides- yeah." The whole 'Gebler is actually a dangerous
"...Though I guess, that does make me wonder, if y'don't mind my askin': does everyone on Solaris become part of its military? Like, it's a requirement, or something." Gwen's question seems honest enough, but there's something in the way she taps her fingers together, as if tip-toeing a potentially delicate subject.
A subject called 'you don't seem like the others of Gebler that she's met'. But this too could be attributed to a small sample size, as Gwen mentally counts the number of actual Solaris types she's actually met. Or fought. Or actually found out that they were from Solaris.
".... It's too bad, though. I think you'd do a good job, judgin' by what I've seen so far." Gwen says this as she grabs a nearby tree branch, with her right hand, complete faith in Elly's teaching practices.
That is, until Elly finishes her sentence. "--ah?" The courier tilts her head, blinking, then looking to the hand she has on the tree branch. "Well, uh, should I use my right hand or my left hand? Because there'll be a big difference!"
this is not exactly like riding a horse, no
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"Oh, no, not at all," Elly says. "It's just that the Gebler forces are the ones who engage with the surface, for the most part." That's doing a lot of work, isn't it. "There's huge numbers of people of all classes in the home country. They're just mostly doing, well..."
Elly spreads out her hands. "... the sort of things people do anywhere."
"I don't really fit the usual mold of people who join Gebler," Elly continues. "I did it because... well... I had reasons that are really silly now, I suppose. But if I hadn't done so, I would still be there..."
She claps her hands. "And not here, with you!"
BATTLE THEME!
"You're right," Elly continues, "given your arm. Maybe I should use ice instead. That's probably going to be more comfortable, and if it gets too rough we can just stop for a minute, since it's so steamy... you'll warm right up, right?"
Elly then narrows her eyes...
The air rustles a little. There's a faint breeze. Is this because --
> teeny tiny Hydro Dribble
-- yes! A burst of blue light, really more of a flashing sparkle like a reflective blue item twinkled in the sunlight - and what amounts to a generous hailstone flies at Gwen!
1
"That was purely to start off," Elly continues. "Your next step will be to try and visualize a presence in front of you - a sort of zone that any attack would have to travel through - and since a lot of this is going to depend on your own interior imagination, I can only give you general pointers. But! I can do this for a long while, and I can keep it to be pretty much the same."
"Tell me when you're ready!"
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"... Oh." Gwen dips her head one, then twice, seeming to just now realize the bigger scope of what Solaris 'is'. "... So it's not just this floating city, huh... I figured it had to be small, since we never see it in the sky, but I guess, with the technology Solaris has, they could just go invisible, or do a mirage, or somethin'." She grins. "No that much different from the likes of Kislev or other places, I imagine."
And Elly goes as far as to answer Gwen's hidden question in full, something in that simple answer that makes Gwen smile.
"I can respect that, really."
But there's no time for touching background music, it's BATTLE THEME TIME
"Oh, I didn't mean it like that, it's just..." She trails off, shaking her head. "It don't matter. So yeah, ice! Perfect, I'm sweatin' like a hog." She even pulls on the front of her tunic for effect, which brings up the fact that Gwen is, like usual, mostly covered up, just in fabrics that better suit the climate, much like Elly's sundress. "Bring it on!"
She holds her hands up, ready for the arctic blast of refreshing cold, anddddd
Well, her reflexes are good, judging by how Gwen's first instinct was to bat the hailstone aside with her right hand. "Oh, uh, oops," Gwen squeaks, looking like a puppy that had just dunked itself in the water bowl instead of drink from it. "My bad."
But that was the beginning, thankfully. "Okay, right. Let's try again! Visualizzzee--"
The right arm twitches as the second hailstone happens, landing against her chest. "Ah right, let's keep going. Visualizeeee--"
3. *bat* "My bad! Visuallll....."
4. *phip* "--A desert! Ah no, that was too late."
5. "Heat!" *phip* "... I suppose I should *think* it, not just say it."
6-
And so on. It's just like riding a horse, only the horse is tiny, and is flying, straight at Gwen--
*phip* "Ah, damn, I got distracted there."
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
pwip
pwip
pwip
pwip
pwip
"I'm going to do the next few every time I count to four," Elly says. "One, two, three, FOUR"
pwip!
And so on, and so forth.
There are approximately thirty of these little things before Elly breathes out and leans against her metal rod a bit. "I think I need a break... These aren't hard, but it's tricky! How do you think you're doing?"
A few moments later, Elly has sat down, cross legged, and opened up a small basket containing riceballs with a salty-sweet fish filling. "Eventually, you're going to find all of this to be instinctual," she says. "But it's like doing something over and over until you internalize it. You have to start somewhere!"
As she unwraps the banana leaf that is containing these delectable treats, Elly pauses - and then asks, with a sort of delicacy, "I did wonder, if you don't mind me asking you. Dr. Uzuki asked me to teach this to you - or at least demonstrate it. I'm glad to do so... but I am curious why he asked me, in particular. It would seem that if you needed to learn to defend yourself against magical attack, there might be easier ways..."
SOMEONE remembers her days in intelligence schools.
<Pose Tracker> Gwen Whitlock has posed.
"Yeah, sorry." Gwen laughs, as they settle down. "N' those look delicious! Mind if I snag one or two?" She doesn't seem to mind as Elly eases into that one question, even looking mildly surprised. "Oh, he didn't tell you? Though, I guess, he *is* a doctor."
She reaches out past Elly, and-
It should be heat, the presence that leaks from Gwen in that instance, behind the smiling, freckled face. Something behind the eyes, the sleepy color of pale blue slate, but is it that color?
Something with chattering jet feathers, behind the doll of the faceless courier, the blue-pink of her freckled pale skin now a genuine bone white as the world is now monotone, the color sucked out of all. No smell of vinegar and seasoned fish. The landscape is a matte black, as if this world collapsed in the passing shadow of something else.
There were words, at the end of a tunnel, but they fade, too far to decipher, like the placid trickling of murky water.
There is another series of sounds, however. A distant melody, if Elly cared to strain her ears, but before she could have the chance to, if she even wanted to--
It looks in Elly's direction, the iris a brilliant shade of cornflower blue.
The world tilts sharply, then rights itself, like a picture frame being knocked by a distracted maid in the middle of dusting, who pauses to correct their mistake.
Excuse the mess. All is right, now.
The only I here is you.
And Gwen, reaching for a riceball, delicately collecting one in her gloved hand, pale short red curls jostling as she settles back, the blush of color back on all the sun smiles upon.
"... So that's the gist of it, really." Gwen waves her riceball. Her second riceball. "Don't worry about it. I think Citan was just desperate for ideas. You helped me plenty. At the very least, I owe you lunch, n' that's not a bad deal, right?"
Just like riding a horse.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"Oh absolutely," Elly says. "Just don't gulp them down, alright? I don't want you to 'get hooked'!"
This seems to amuse her in excess to the depth of the wit. Elly may be becoming some kind of a fisherwoman weirdo. In addition to the teacher... but...
... something...
Elly's eyes gleam in their violet-blue as she gazes towards the black plain and she smells the feathers and sees the shadow. For a moment she thinks with surprise: An eclipse? But could there be such a thing as a total eclipse --
Music is playing -- the world jerks --
And Elly squeezes her eyes shut.
Inside of her head something rings. She has the subtle sense which she has felt once in a while of a gear turning, of a mechanical thing happening. It is not a moment which she has ever thought much of. Do not people at times compare their thoughts to clicking machines, or to abacuses? To the computers that are known in ruins and in Solaris? To feel a moment as if a thought or something similar to a thought were machinery in operation is perfectly natural. People wouldn't make that analogy if it weren't natural, right?
Elly then opens her eyes, and she laughs. "Well, if it won't put you out... I'd be glad to accept your offer. But right now, I think the sun is getting to me a bit."
Or at least, A sun.