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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 20:18:35 GMT -6
At this, there was a smaller, more reluctant nod. “Then let’s build it up slowly,” San said. “The most important thing is that you don’t hurt yourself.” At least, that was the most important thing now. When she worked with the unit, whenever that might be, the most important thing would always be their objective. After that point, there would be a limit to what he could do for her. The only comfort to be had was that they weren’t expecting much of her; certainly, she wouldn’t be asked to fight.
“Can you try one more time?” San said. Rei nodded readily this time. She lifted off, and then he gave her the signal. “Hover.” The beating of her wings changed in rhythm and direction, and she levelled off into a more or less stable hover.
But this time San said, “Now can you try going a bit higher?”
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 20:19:38 GMT -6
He accompanied the word with an upward hand motion, as though he were pushing her up, though he didn’t actually touch her.
Rei blinked at him, but a moment later, she did as he asked, and beat upwards. San, who was watching her carefully, noted that the transition out of hovering was much smoother than into it. And she already had some grasp of how to gain height, so it wasn’t difficult for her to do, since she wasn’t learning any new movements this time around.
“That’s good,” San said. “Hover again.”
Rei leveled out into a second hover. He didn’t want to tire her out by asking her to hover in place for too long at a time, so he asked her to land not long after. And then, after a rest, she flew up again. “Hover,” said San. “And now higher… Higher. That's good. Now hover.”
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 20:19:50 GMT -6
She followed his cues to the best of her ability. As the session wore on, he could notice her flagging slightly, at which point he called it to an end. There would be time enough to pick it up the next day.
Their next session followed much the same structure: San would ask her to hover, and then go a bit higher, or dip down a little more. The night’s sleep had done her some good, and after working out the initial hiccups, her hovering was much more stable than it had been. They worked on that for some time, then ran some review of the things that she already knew, before San asked her to hover again.
“Good,” said San, when she levelled out. She was almost completely still in the air now. “Higher.”
She had grown used to hearing this, so it didn’t take her long at all to fly further up.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 20:20:05 GMT -6
She stopped after a short distance, however, clearly expecting him to ask her to stop. But San just shook his head. “Higher,” he said.
He was, in truth, a little curious as to how high she could go. He had more or less figured out that she had a cruising height she was comfortable with, from observing her flying on her own; and darting between platforms was a different matter, since she was landing on something. But the room was mostly empty of things now, so it was just the floor and the ceiling from there.
She blinked at him, much the same way as she had done when he had first asked her to go higher, but she went up a little more. “Higher,” San said again, to see what she would do.
Having sensed that something had changed, this time Rei shot upward at a much faster speed than before.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 12, 2020 20:20:46 GMT -6
He hadn’t seen her do it before, but maybe she had practiced it while he wasn’t around to see. She did fly to get around much more now, so San wouldn’t have been surprised if that was the case.
She stopped just short of the ceiling, then looked at him. It wasn’t any expression on her face so much as the timing of it, but it felt rather as if she was asking whether he was finally satisfied. San gave her a slight, one-sided smile. “Yes, that’s good,” he said. “You can land now.”
They practiced her flight maneuvers, going higher included and alternating with the hovering, for the next few sessions. Slowly but surely, her endurance was building up for flight too.
It was something that they would work on over the coming weeks and months, but for the moment, San was satisfied with their progress.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 25, 2020 1:50:16 GMT -6
Now that Rei had control over her flight skills, there could be no putting off the inevitable. The desensitization process was going to have to begin in earnest.
In reality, it had already begun a long time ago. Training so she could operate in the darkness, training so she could tolerate cramped hiding places, these were all a part of it. But up until then, there had been little need to present the idea that she might be in danger, nor to tell her what the ultimate purpose was.
Now, however, San felt that there could be no avoiding it.
“Rei,” he said, sitting with her in the small training room that they always used. “You passed the test. You’ll be working with our unit soon.” She had already met them several times over the past few days, mostly briefly, as her training wasn’t really complete as of yet.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 25, 2020 1:51:49 GMT -6
“I haven’t told you what we do, have I?” San said.
Rei shook her head slowly.
Smiling ruefully, San said, “Were you curious?”
Rei nodded a little.
“I guess it’s only natural, isn’t it?” San fell silent a moment, thinking on his next words. “We… We are the Watchful Ones. We watch the people of the city. We make sure they’re following the laws. If they don’t, we report it.” This was, on paper, the official duty of the Watchful Ones. “If people knew we were watching, they would act differently, so we hide. And sometimes we follow people we think might be breaking the law, to see if they really do it.”
This was as far as he would allow himself to go. There was a limit to how much shock someone could absorb in one sitting, even without the lingering ghost of trauma to complicate the situation.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 25, 2020 1:52:00 GMT -6
He didn’t want to inundate her with uncomfortable revelations, especially about people she would have to work with, or for, soon. To her credit, she seemed only a little tense, in a way that might reasonably be written off as anticipation.
She didn’t need to know about the darker aspects, the political maneuverings and the assassinations. Missions to confiscate goods could still be presented as collection of evidence if they framed it this way. He misliked the need to obfuscate some portion of their purpose, but those who joined the Watchful Ones of their own free will were few and far between.
Rei hadn’t had a choice either, come to that. Not a real one, anyway.
San went on. “It isn’t always a safe job. We hide, we stay quiet, and we know how to get away. I’ve taught you all that, but sometimes you’ll see… things that might be unsettling.”
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Post by Linyü on Apr 25, 2020 1:52:35 GMT -6
He paused, letting his words sink in, before going on. “When we’re working, we can’t stop if we get nervous or scared. We have to keep going. Our teammates will be depending on us, and if we freeze up or run away, they might run into trouble.” They might die, he thought but didn’t say. She might already have guessed, reading between the lines. Rei didn’t show much in the way of emotion, but she was clearly aware underneath all that, and clearly thinking about the world around her.
“We’ll need you to get used to seeing those things,” San said, “so you’re not scared when you start working with us. It’s not going to be nice, but it won’t be safe for you to work if we don’t do this.”
Slowly, Rei nodded again. There was something resolute about her bearing...
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Post by Linyü on Apr 25, 2020 1:53:18 GMT -6
No, perhaps it was simply wishful thinking on his part. But he hoped she would be able to bear through it. She had come too far; surely…
… There would be no knowing for sure until they tried.
“Come on,” he said, extending a hand to her. “I have a bag you can ride in. If you stay in here, you’ll be able to peek out without people seeing you.” It wasn’t the best arrangement, but she would stand out too much otherwise. There was no equivalent for her of simply donning a disguise, not with her size or her wings. Concealment was the only real solution for someone like Rei.
He kept an eye on her as she settled into the bag, and then for the first few steps as he moved off, but when it seemed like she was alright, he turned his attention to where he was going.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 25, 2020 1:53:59 GMT -6
In truth, there was little need to; by now he could have navigated the underground warrens in his sleep. But something about having Rei with him made him a little more wary.
In some ways, this was a special occasion. Rei had not left these facilities since at least her introduction to the unit, and likely longer than that. How long had it been since she had last seen the sun? There was light in the warrens, but there was nothing quite like sunlight and open air.
If it weren’t for the fact that she had been approved to become part of the unit, San would have had to blindfold her. As it was, it felt odd not to take any precautions. She might yet make some attempt to escape, he thought; it was possible she had been biding her time… But even as the thought occurred to him, he thought it was wrong.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 25, 2020 1:54:13 GMT -6
He forced his focus back to the task at hand, and did not pause as they exited the final door and emerged into a narrow back alley. From there, he picked his way into another, slightly wider alley, and then through a number of twists and turns past old buildings of various purpose--- shops, old run down residences, a storehouse here, a warehouse there. Eventually they emerged into a large thoroughfare, bustling with people and carts.
Surreptitiously, San glanced down, monitoring his small charge. Rei watched from her hiding place in the satchel, seemed a little overwhelmed, but… not startled, he noted. He had seen her shaken before, and he knew that this wasn’t it. It made him wonder; they had not worked with her on noise, to the best of his knowledge, nor of crowds. And in the warrens she had been left alone.
But if she had no aversion for these things, then so much the better, he supposed.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 25, 2020 1:54:26 GMT -6
San kept walking. His steps brought him past the cleaner parts of the market district, down into the less respectable sprawl where butchers of questionable repute rubbed shoulders with fronts that only barely concealed their natures as poachers and smugglers. It was, for various reasons, a frequent haunt of Watchful agents, and San had long since grown used to the scent: the sickly sweet of rotting flesh, mixed with the stink of fear, with undercurrents of feces and gods knew what else.
He could almost sense Rei tensing from within the satchel. Maybe it was that he expected this, but he was not at all surprised to find her ears pinned when he glanced her way.
“Be easy,” he said. “We’re just passing through.” For now, that was what they would do, though at some point he would have to subject her to longer stays. This was merely a diagnostic journey, to see what she could and couldn’t tolerate.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 25, 2020 1:55:04 GMT -6
He had promised her that it would pass, so it made him sorry to do it, but in truth they had one last stop to make before they left.
Some of the trade here was live animals. The official government channels kept watch over such trade, as did the Watchful Ones, but there was a wide variety of trade in live beasts that was still within legal limits, and a smaller, more limited trade that was illegal but quietly tolerated. Here, the lines blurred between the two. San charted a path past several such establishments, until he came to one where the cages were on open display. A gap-toothed old man leered at him, grinning and beckoning with a hand. Behind him, a snarling fanged horse tossed its head, chains rattling with its movements as it pawed at the bars.
The weight in San’s satchel shifted.
San shook his head and went on his way.
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Post by Linyü on Apr 25, 2020 1:55:18 GMT -6
He let her out once they reached the safety of their customary training room, and San prepared for the debrief.
“The meat market,” he said. “The creature in the cage. These are the things that frighten you.” It wasn’t a question. He knew. And she knew, too, his purpose in ascertaining this, and what he would ask of her now.
“We’ll go again tomorrow,” he said.
Her gaze was fixed on the floor. She did not like it, he knew, but then how could she? She wasn’t refusing him, however. He softened his own features, putting on a smile. “It is nothing to be ashamed of,” he said. “I was scared too, in the beginning.”
She looked up at him. He inclined his head, as though he were thinking. The memories felt strange, as though they belonged to someone else. He didn’t know when the shift had happened, where the cutoff point was now.
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