|
Post by Noa on Jan 16, 2021 0:39:56 GMT -6
Another week, another trip to the gym… Avander was sore and unhappy for several days afterward, but he was familiar enough with the process by now that he didn’t make as much of a nuisance of himself as he would have (and had done) before. And on the third day, when Aster called him out to go on a trip to the mansion, he didn’t refuse either, though he didn’t acquiesce with any real enthusiasm.
But then, these trips generally involved training rather than a great deal of anything else on Aster’s part these days, so Aster couldn’t really blame him for being skeptical either. Especially since it was true of today’s trip too.
The mansion in January was a strange place to be indeed. Aster didn’t remember ever having come out here at this time of year. Winter generally made him more sluggish and unhappy, and he generally spent it cooped up at home.
1
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Jan 16, 2021 0:40:14 GMT -6
The lack of activity didn’t do him much good, he knew, but even so, he found himself falling back into those habits every year--- or at least now that he had the luxury of doing that.
He had spent his December in much that manner, doing the bare minimum and leaving the rest to Rabbit to deal with. She was proofed against the colder temperatures, and anyway didn’t suffer any malaise of mood the way Aster was prone to, being a robot. She simply carried on in her usual manner, with a few more tasks added to her roster. He felt bad about this, but only a little. It wasn’t as if she needed sleep, after all, and he did make sure she was regularly maintained.
But come January… Well, he figured he may as well do something with himself, and it had occurred to him that he hadn’t visited the mansion this time of year before.
2
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Jan 16, 2021 0:40:53 GMT -6
He wasn’t in the mood for contending with any of his other creatures, so of course Avander had come with him.
“Damn,” he said, once the two of them got to the gate. The entire place looked like it had frozen over or something. No, maybe that wasn’t quite right; it looked more like glass than ice. And the sky… Aster looked behind him, away from the mansion, and the sky there was all grey and dull with clouds. But within the mansion’s expanse and influence, the space above it was awash in colors, sparkling with more stars than Aster could remember ever having seen in his life.
He squinted. What sort of strange surprises would this place have in store for them? He could only guess. It always had something to do with the local gods, but he wasn't well versed with those, even after all these years.
3
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Jan 16, 2021 0:41:29 GMT -6
He supposed he ought to make the effort to learn, but...
He pushed the gate open, and stepped through. Avander followed behind him. If the Wiurn had any thoughts on the place, he hadn’t voiced them yet, but Aster could sense that Avander was curious, not afraid. But then, if this was enough to make Avander fearful, they had a different problem on their hands. Aster hadn’t put so much work into Avander’s training and upbringing for him to balk at every little thing, given his primary purpose was to be a fighting beast.
But the appearance of the mansion did give Aster something of an idea as to what they could work on. And they would be working on something, just because Aster wanted to make the most of his burst of energy… Or the sudden appearance of some motivation to do anything, which was rare enough in the winter.
4
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Jan 16, 2021 0:41:46 GMT -6
And there was word of a tournament coming up too, though with how quiet the whole city had become as of late, he wasn’t sure as to whether that was still going to happen.
As for what they would be working on…
“Say,” Aster said, turning to Avander, who was still standing beside him, waiting for a cue. “Remember when you learned to blink between places?”
{Sure,} Avander said. {Are we doing something with that? I haven’t forgotten how, if that’s what you’re asking.} There was a touch of defensiveness to his tone. Avander had had some trouble picking up that particular skill. Aster supposed it must have been a strange thing to come into, transforming into a different shape and then ending up with a slew of strange new powers that he had no idea how to use.
The good news was that Aster wasn’t accusing him of getting rusty.
5
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Jan 16, 2021 0:42:00 GMT -6
The bad news was that today’s work would involve more of those strange powers.
“Not exactly,” Aster said. “But… I guess I thought it might be easier to talk about something you already know how to do first.” Avander fell silent, ears canting forward. Despite his usual flippancy, he was more focused now. “When you’re blinking, there’s a moment when you’re… gone, right?”
{I don’t know,} Avander replied. {I haven’t really thought about it.}
“Try it now then,” Aster said. “Blink from here to… say, that tree over there.” Aster indicated where he wanted Avander to land, and the Wiurn followed his gaze. There was a moment’s pause, and then Avander disappeared from Aster’s side to rematerialize where Aster had indicated.
“Right,” Aster said. “That part where you disappear, when you’re between places… You think you can stay there a little longer before coming out?”
6
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Jan 16, 2021 0:42:18 GMT -6
Avander wrinkled his nose in a gesture of distaste… Or maybe confusion. It was hard to tell which, even with their link. Maybe it was both. {I can try,} the Wiurn said, though from his tone, he wasn’t terribly confident that it would work. Still, he wasn’t saying no; he had worked with Aster long enough, and especially recently, to understand that Aster wouldn’t have been asking this of him without a reason. Probably Aster knew something that he didn’t.
“Give it a try then,” Aster said.
Avander did. He closed his eyes, as he was wont to do when he started working on these skills. It helped him concentrate, and these things tended to require a lot of concentration when he was starting out. He vanished… and then reappeared right back where he was.
He hadn’t stayed ‘between’ at all, contrary to all of Aster's hopes.
7
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Jan 16, 2021 0:43:31 GMT -6
On Aster’s prompting, he tried it a second time, and then a third… But all to no avail, and by that point his endurance was also reaching its limit. {This isn’t working,} Avander said, more weary than frustrated. {What exactly are you trying get me to do?}
“Hmm... “ Aster frowned, staring off into space. “I guess this isn’t the right way to go about it, is it? There’s this thing purple drakes can do, where they vanish for a bit. You’re supposed to have a similar ability now.”
Avander blinked, his head coming up as Aster spoke. {Is that all?} Avander said, to which Aster frowned slightly in response. {Those guys… They don’t really disappear. You can still hit them if you can figure out where they are.}
Now it was Aster’s turn to blink. Surprisingly, Avander had some insight on the ability that Aster didn’t.
8
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Jan 16, 2021 0:43:49 GMT -6
Of course, it was his first time trying to teach such a skill, so he didn’t know the specifics… But maybe he should have done his research a bit more thoroughly, come to that. Still, that Avander would know the mechanics of another drake breed’s skills came as a surprise.
“So it’s not really disappearing, huh…” Aster scratched at his cheek with one gloved finger. “That means it’s more like hiding, isn’t it?”
{More or less… Though we can’t do it. Or I couldn’t, anyway, since I wasn’t a purple drake.} Avander stumbled slightly in confusion once more as he recalled his original state as a green drake. He had mostly adjusted to being a Wiurn, but there were still moments where he felt a little displaced, like now. Thinking about other drakes and being a drake specifically probably felt like vertigo.
9
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Jan 16, 2021 0:44:06 GMT -6
But now that Aster had a better grasp on the general principle behind the skill, he could offer Avander some better guidance. “Then let’s try this,” he said. “Remember when you were learning how to stalk? Try doing it now, out in the open. Pretend I’m your prey.”
{You don’t look that tasty,} Avander said, his voice amused and taunting now. He seemed to be in better spirits after they’d talked it out, but maybe it was premature. There was no guarantee that this new way of practicing would get them the desired result either.
Still, training was sometimes just trying different things until you found one that worked. And this one was at least a little easier for Avander to wrap his head around.
“Well, bear with it for now,” Aster said. He watched as Avander got into a crouching position, and began to stalk Aster just as Aster had asked him to.
10
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Jan 16, 2021 0:44:40 GMT -6
It wasn’t a bad attempt, except that Avander usually had cover when he did this, and now that he didn’t, it looked pretty silly. It was hard to ignore the fact that a giant reptile was right there, pacing around you.
As with a lot of beginning attempts, nothing happened at first.
“Try to think about… blending into your surroundings, maybe,” Aster said, after some time. “Look at what you see around you… Try to imagine your own hide looking like that.”
{Ugh,} Avander said. {Thought exercises.} He was pretty well sick of those from all the other moves he'd learned recently. Nevertheless, he made an attempt. Aster stood and waited, as he had gradually gotten used to doing when he was training with his creatures. There were a lot of abilities like this, and he found that he was doing more and more of this kind of training the longer he lived in this city.
11
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Jan 16, 2021 0:45:05 GMT -6
The result wasn’t immediate, but it was rather… dramatic. One moment, Avander was there, and then the next, he was shimmering and… disappearing from sight.
It was brief, but it happened. Avander came out of it looking startled, so clearly he realized too that something had happened. That was good, that it seemed to be reflected as a sensation or something that he could feel. The feedback would hopefully make this easier for him to replicate.
“How about that,” Aster said, grinning at Avander. “Looks like you’ve got it.”
{And now you’re going to make up something stupid to call it,} Avander said, though he rather sounded as though he was trying to cover up how genuinely pleased he was with himself. But, well, a little modesty was never amiss either, and if Avander knew he had done well, that saved Aster the work of heaping on praise.
12
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Jan 16, 2021 0:45:37 GMT -6
So instead he said, “You bet. How about… Ghost?”
Avander gave a dismissive flick of the tail. So long as it was different enough from the other signals he knew, he didn’t seem to have much of an opinion on it, even if the presence of the ribbon now meant that he could actually understand the meaning of it.
“Ghost it is then,” Aster said. “Let’s try it again. Ghost, Avander.” With the rules and some preliminary experimentation established, now came the boring, thankless act of actually practicing the act. Avander took a deep breath, then closed his eyes.
It took him a moment of concentration, but then his hide seemed to ripple and vanish once more. Now that Aster was looking for it, he could see the change cascading over Avander’s skin like a spell. And then Avander disappeared from sight, blending in perfectly with his surroundings.
13
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Jan 16, 2021 0:48:14 GMT -6
Or so it must have been, anyway; Aster wasn’t able to visually discern whether he was still there, or if he had moved. The effect was more thorough than conventional camouflage, and more than Aster himself could contend with, limited as his humanish vision was.
Now that Avander was expecting this to happen, he didn’t startle out of it either. “Okay, come out of it,” Aster said. After all, before they tried anything more significant with Avander in that state, they had to make sure he could stop as well as start at will.
There was actually a little difficulty, but it was early in the process, so this didn’t alarm Aster. But after a moment’s pause, the air rippled again where Avander had been, and the Wiurn was fully visible again in moments.
“Good first try… or second try, I guess I should say. How’d it feel?”
14
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Jan 16, 2021 0:48:55 GMT -6
{Strange, but not unpleasant,} Avander replied. He did have to think about it for a moment. It wasn’t anything he was used to, but he had been doing a lot of things that he wasn’t used to, and especially as of late. What was one more bit of strangeness, in the midst of all that?
“It doesn’t feel tiring?” Aster prompted.
{Well, not yet,} Avander said. Which was fair; something he could comfortably do once might not necessarily be something he wanted to do over and over. And there was no way to find that out except by pushing those limits.
And at any rate, they had more to practice, that was for sure.
“Alright, let’s keep going then. Ghost,” Aster said. Avander dutifully closed his eyes, and after a moment, he vanished.
“This time, I want you to try opening your eyes and moving around,” Aster said.
15
|
|