|
Post by Noa on Oct 4, 2020 17:31:10 GMT -6
It was an admirable first session. Aster had no idea how much progress they had made that day, beyond setting up the basic premise of this exercise, since he had nothing to compare it against. But tomorrow he would be able to use Nightshade’s performance tonight as a baseline for comparison, and the more sessions they had, the more data he would have for that purpose.
And there was something to be said about not everything being accomplished in the course of a day, of course. Training took time, especially something that Aster wasn’t used to teaching, like this. He didn’t think Rabbit managed it in a short span of time either, when she had taught that crossbreed of hers to do it either.
They were back, of course, the next day. A city wasn’t built in a day, but it wasn’t built without diligence either.
41
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Oct 4, 2020 17:31:23 GMT -6
Nightshade didn’t seem apprehensive about it, which was good. His experiences yesterday weren’t enough to turn him off from the idea of doing this again, apparently.
It was the same setup as it had been the previous day, with treats hidden around the garden area. This time, Aster didn’t give him one to start, but he did point out one of the hidden treats. Having already gone through this the day before, Nightshade picked it up pretty quickly from there, and set to hunting around for treats pretty much immediately.
As with the previous day, he had a pretty good success rate when he still had enough light to see by, but it was a lot harder for him when the last of the sun’s light was gone from the sky. But Aster thought there was a little improvement; he found more of the treats than he had the day before, and more quickly too.
42
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Oct 4, 2020 17:31:49 GMT -6
They could call that progress, then. Aster didn’t know the mechanisms by which it was happening, exactly, but Nightshade was apparently improving at this. It was satisfying, if not a bit strange, to see, but the creatures here had a wide range of capabilities, and this should hardly be the strangest of them.
So he continued with this course of training, and on the third day, Nightshade improved a little more… And a little more on the fourth. By the fifth day, Aster started hiding the treats in more difficult places, and bringing Nightshade out later, so that it was already pretty dark when they started.
The changes proved to be a little too much at once, and for a time Nightshade didn’t find any of them. Aster began to wonder if he had pushed the Wiurn too far when Nightshade did finally come up with a treat.
43
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Oct 4, 2020 17:32:06 GMT -6
Aster praised him thoroughly for that one, and thereafter the Wiurn found three more in such quick succession that Aster thought he might have been faking his difficulty at first as a ploy to get more rewards… But Nightshade’s performance stayed erratic for the rest of that session, and in the end Aster decided it was probably just the Wiurn being thrown off his rhythm or something.
Fortunately for them both, Nightshade’s performance evened out after that, and his improvement became incremental but steady again. They kept at it over the course of a week and a half, and by the end of that time, Nightshade seemed perfectly capable of not only finding the treats in the garden, but navigating in the dark as well. It was a natural side effect of gaining the ability to see, Aster was sure, but it was still nice to witness further evidence of Nightshade having developed the skill, or maybe the ability, to see in the dark.
44
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Oct 4, 2020 17:33:04 GMT -6
Especially since his own eyesight remained steadfastly the same. He had plenty of things that Nightshade didn’t, of course, but this was one thing he wasn’t ever going to be able to overcome with practice. Maybe magic, or some sort of device, would be able to rectify it, but for the moment he supposed there were worse things that he could do than rely on a Wiurn to guide him.
But for what it was worth, it was also probably best that it was Nightshade doing it, and not Avander. Nightshade he could trust not to do anything stupid, but Avander would almost certainly have taunted him at least a little, if not used the opportunity to pull some sort of prank.
"Alright, big guy, let's go home for today," Aster said, urging the Wiurn out of the garden. Maybe they would come back tomorrow, but then, maybe they wouldn't.
45
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Oct 6, 2020 3:49:13 GMT -6
The next day, Aster came back to the garden with Nightshade in tow. He didn’t really have any plans, just… it was something to do, he supposed. And he might conceivably figure it out while he was there. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing that had ever happened to him.
Nightshade was perfectly happy to come, given the way that garden trips usually went. But as Aster had nothing in mind immediately to teach the Wiurn, he soon decided to try his luck doing actual garden work, which meant Nightshade was left without the attention that he so craved.
Nightshade grumbled about it, of course, but Aster was used to brushing it aside by now, and Nightshade had grown used to… well, to being brushed aside. It sounded bad, but there it was.
Looking for something to do that wasn’t actively planting, Aster turned his attention to the fencing.
46
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Oct 6, 2020 3:49:24 GMT -6
What little there was left was in such a state of disrepair that it probably wasn’t even doing anything at this point. Rather than try to repair and rebuild around it, it was probably best to just… remove it wholesale, and install some new.
That was easier said than done though. Even in the poor condition it was in, it was some work to get it out of the ground or torn down. Aster was no stranger to hard work, but he didn’t have an axe on him, and while he did have a shovel - left there from the work of a previous day - removing the posts from the ground took no small amount of effort.
He kept at it as long as he could bear though, and by the time he took his first break, he was sweaty and breathing hard. When he did take breaks, he ate a little, and played with Nightshade a little too.
47
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Oct 6, 2020 3:49:50 GMT -6
He hadn’t taken the Wiurn out here just to ignore him, after all. And while Aster couldn’t pay attention to him every moment they were there together, fresh air and a little room to roam had to do Nightshade some good, right?
What did Aster want to teach Nightshade next anyway? There was a lot they could do, but there wasn’t a lot of time left before the contest, and Aster wasn’t sure where else they could go with Nightshade’s skills. To be honest, he still wasn’t sure he understood the holidays in this region, so… there was always that problem. What was Vai Min Mur, anyway? They didn’t really have anything like that where he came from.
… He supposed if he was really curious, he could always find out by researching it, but he wasn’t quite curious enough to do that.
48
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Oct 6, 2020 3:50:46 GMT -6
In the meantime, there was, as there always was, the matter of the garden’s disrepair. He looked at the mess of old fencing and old briars that had piled up around the area, cut down over the last few days of work as well as the work he had put in over the course of the day while taking down the fence, and decided maybe what he wanted to do was just set the lot of it on fire.
There was no one to stop him, so Aster began setting about doing just that. He gathered up the things he wanted to burn, armful by armful, and began to deposit it in an empty space in the middle of his garden plot. The whole plot had at least been cleared, and he had done enough plowing that there was only bare earth now, rather than grass that might have caught alight.
49
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Oct 6, 2020 3:51:46 GMT -6
Once he was done piling burnable debris, he could even make a ring around it with some of the rocks that he had dug out before, to make a proper fire pit out of it. Or almost a proper one, anyway; not bad for something impromptu at least, and not very liable to cause damage.
Nightshade watched him with some interest, not really understanding what it was Aster was doing at the moment. When it involved and engaged him, he paid more attention, but as it became steadily clearer that this was Aster bustling about on his own, Nightshade decided to go off and find something else to do. He had, at last, learned manners enough to know that Aster wouldn’t humor him if he decided to bother Aster at his work. This had taken some doing. Nightshade craved interaction to a degree that Aster had rather underestimated at first.
50
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Oct 6, 2020 3:51:58 GMT -6
What had manifested initially as an unusual degree of friendliness and calm turned at one point into something like neediness.
It really made him wonder exactly what sort of history this Wiurn had had, to have turned out this way. As far as Aster knew, it wasn’t as if Wiurns were known to be especially social creatures.
Still, it had been too much of a nuisance to let him continue on in that fashion, so Aster was glad that Nightshade had stopped. Aster was left on this occasion to work in peace.
Even so, it took him some time to move all the things he wanted to burn into a neat pile at the center of the field. That was mostly because there was a lot of it, and one armful, even from a fully grown man, was hardly an impressive amount when compared to the sheer volume of things to be transported.
51
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Oct 6, 2020 3:52:23 GMT -6
It was just as well that Aster had nowhere to be that day, he supposed.
Eventually, however, he did manage it, and what he managed was a pile the size of which would create a bonfire for the ages. Stepping back from his handiwork when it was done, Aster second guessed himself for a moment. It was much larger than he had thought it would be. As he was building it, he hadn’t really been paying attention, more absorbed with the task at hand, his focus too narrow to take in what exactly it was he was actually building. Only when he was stepping back from it did he finally appreciate the scale of it, and begin to wonder if he had bitten off more than he could chew.
If all of this went alight at once… Would it really be alright, even with the precautions he could take?
52
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Oct 6, 2020 3:52:45 GMT -6
And yet, it felt like sort of a waste to have to take it apart after he had already built it up. He took another look at the cleared area around it, and figured it would probably be enough. He never did mind a little heat himself…
Though now that he thought about it, it might prove to be a bit too much for Nightshade. The Wiurn wasn’t fire resistant, and Wiurns were cold-blooded to begin with, so exposing one to too much heat at once was probably not a very good idea.
He would do this another time, then.
But the thought of burning something was in his mind, and Aster felt like he could be allowed a little wanton destruction, surely. Not a big bonfire, perhaps, but some small fires. He eyed the pile, and took a few of the longer fence posts, staking them into the ground.
53
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Oct 6, 2020 3:53:00 GMT -6
Nightshade was watching him again now, maybe because the pattern of Aster’s activity had finally changed. More likely because he was hoping that change might signal an opening for him to nag some pets out of Aster. The thought amused Aster, even as he had no real intent of entertaining the Wiurn just yet, unless the Wiurn was in the mood for some fire displays.
Not very extravagant ones, of course. Aster hadn’t had his fire node for all that long, and he wasn’t grown terribly proficient with it just yet. But he could make some small sparks, and now he called these forth. The old fence posts were dry enough. Surely he could set it alight without that much work.
It took a few tries, but he eventually managed to nurse a flame that licked up with growing hunger at one of the fence posts. Aster watched it with satisfaction.
54
|
|
|
Post by Noa on Oct 6, 2020 3:53:48 GMT -6
He had always liked fire; it had been a friend to him, mostly, when he had been younger, and as a child who had always wanted more warmth rather than less, he found it hard to think of as a harmful force. He knew full well its destructive power, but even then, the impression remained. And there was something mesmerizing about the flames themselves, the way they moved, dancing and wavering and turning everything beneath them to blackened husks.
Once he was sure that the fence post was good and lit, and also not in danger of spreading fire anywhere it wasn’t supposed to, he moved on to the next fence post and did the same.
It got easier as he went along, lighting them on fire. He had just lit a third aflame when the fourth nearly burst apart in a fire that Aster had nothing to do with.
55
|
|