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--- sessions:worldbuilding:2019-02-14 [2020/02/23 00:10] – shyriath
+++ sessions:worldbuilding:2019-02-14 [2023/09/18 15:05] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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 She took a breath, then ducked beneath the water again, propelling herself downward with careful movements of her limbs and a slow, vaguely eel-like slithering of her body and tail through the water.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|The instructions were clear enough, but the motion Ilirith proceeded to make was a little... distracting. Again, Demarath found himself in the awkward situation of fleeting, inappropriate thoughts while in the presence of a mentalist.
+Really, of all the things he wanted to work on as far as his chaotic psychology was concerned, 'think fewer embarrassing thoughts' was prioritised the highest. Of course, given other points on the list included 'be functional', perhaps that was in itself something he ought to fix.
+He shook his muzzle as though to clear his head, then took a moderate breath and slipped into the water.
+The immediate peril was that though the previously submerged part of his body had gotten used to the temperature, his head wanted none of it. It nearly opened up his nostrils in a gesture of misplaced, instinctive distress - he willed it aside and swam, a little awkwardly at first, down toward the lake's bed where it was not yet too deep for this to be a foolhardy mission for a beginner.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Ilirith had, quite reasonably, been monitoring Demarath's mental state as she descended. After all, in the event that he starting breathing lake, she'd need to turn around and get him back above the water.
+She noticed his momentary distraction. Though she was too busy, by that point, to peer into his head closely enough to determine what he'd been distracted //by//, she'd gotten the impression that he'd been watching her. Certainly that's what he should have been doing, if he wanted to learn.
+As he made his way awkwardly down, she recalled the other times in recent vigils she'd noticed him peeking at her, as well. She watched him thoughtfully as he matched her depth.
+~Is everything all right?~ she inquired silently, keeping herself down through careful upward motions of her limbs. ~It felt like you saw something.~}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|...yes, //definitely// prioritise 'thinking fewer embarrassing thoughts' more highly.
+At least his startled reaction managed not to turn into a reflexive inhale of water. Ah. //Saw something// was right. For a moment he considered the merits of trying to keep a secret from a mentalist - then swallowed something that had meant to be his pride, but turned out to be a very tiny helping of lake water instead, and pushed against his inner resistance.
+~I'm sorry,~ Demarath thought, as clearly as he could, while still focussing enough on the swim not to get himself turned around. In as much as the subvocalisation could be said to have a tone, it was respectful, not the desperate apology from earlier. ~Just... you.~ Glub, glub.
+Unhappy with splitting his attention between 'finding the right words' and 'learn to swim', he rose for air and to let himself float for a moment, allow himself to focus on what he wanted to convey.
+~...I find you beautiful and sometimes this is slightly distracting?~ By another measure, one could also call it 'very distracting', but, to be fair, he'd managed not to trip or walk right into something yet.
+Of course, no one said that a valiant attempt to be honest would stop him from flushing red in embarrassment, or indeed regretting the whole honesty thing, or further regretting the whole line of less verbal thoughts that had led into the mental conversation in the first place.
+As he floated, he puffed quietly, just a little, mostly to make sounds and reassure himself that he was still in one piece, even though he was telling a //trained assassin// that he was apparently really into her. But again - mentalist. Concealing it might work once or twice at best - and she deserved better.
+~I can work around it, I think, it's just really new for me, so I don't have many mental defences yet, nor even the desire to have any, except, you know, intellectually, because distractions are bad, and you deserve that my full attention is on the subject matter at hand, and--~ Wow, Demarath, you can babble even in your mind.
+~Yeah, so. Sorry about that. Swimming.~ The water didn't seem so cold any more now that his blood circulation had been notched up a gear. He slipped back under the surface, as though it might make him disappear, and tried, a bit unsuccessfully, to stop thinking about the fool he'd likely just made of himself.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Ilirith had started rising partway through his explanation; this had begun from an intention to follow him up to the surface, but had quickly turned into a sudden inability to hold herself down due to her limbs freezing still. Her head bobbed to the surface only shortly before Demarath submerged again - though it was just as well, because from the way her heart had started hammering, her oxygen probably wouldn't've lasted long in any case.
+As Demarath descended again, he received: ~Oh.~ And then... ~Oh.~ And, finally, and more coherently, ~Um. Yes. Swimming. Just, er, practice a bit, okay? I'll... be back down in a moment...~
+Ilirith could not honestly say that certain thoughts about Demarath hadn't already crossed her mind, some of them even before they'd been formally introduced. Well, of //course// not - they were a similar age, they were probably the only two witches in Alvraan that hadn't been killed off early, and who but a witch would be interested in a witch?
+But it had been only an idle daydream, mostly. She had been officially Forbidden from seeking male companionship, for reasons which made intellectual sense, but which had been highly unsatisfactory at this particular stage in her life. And while she had her suspicions about what the Matriarch had intended, when she'd explained that Ilirith would be following Demarath into his internal exile, it hadn't occurred to her that any kind of closeness would be driven by anything other than personality.
+She'd never thought of herself as attractive. Not as ugly, either, but not attractive. She looked like someone had taken a male and stuck status-markings and a female's hips on. No one'd be drawn by that. No one ever had, not that the pool of observers had been that big.
+But //Demarath// thought she was attractive.
+She found it hard to process, she didn't know what to do about that. Had no //plan// for that. Her brain seemed content to lurk in the bottom of her skull and content itself with gibbering bafflement.
+She realized that, even with her face above water, she was still holding her breath. She started gasping in lungfuls of air, and managed to call out, ~Are you, uh, all right down there?~}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|~Yes,~ Demarath thought, clearly. ~Yes, I am.~ It was perhaps a bit more forced than it had to be, but sincere. Aside from the embarrassment he was obviously still suffering, he was quite fine, and learning how to manoeuvre while under water with an admirable speed, especially for someone with such a //messy// thought process.
+~I think I'm getting the hang of this,~ he added - and then broke the surface a couple of metres away from her, snorting, then giving his head a shake to dispel some of the droplets clinging to his brows.
+He glanced at her a little sheepishly from his position, clearly unsure whether to feel slightly proud about that he was learning something, guilty for looking at her when he could be diving back down //right now//, apologetic for having dumped his earlier thoughts on her, and related feelings that all seemed close enough to 'sheepish' to unambiguously settle on the expression.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|"Um," Ilirith replied, while an inner voice shouted at her. //You have words. Use your words.// "Yes. Good. Very good." //Okay, but you have more words that that!//
+Priorities. She needed priorities. First, finish the lesson - she didn't //want// to finish the lesson, she wanted to have a private discussion with Demarath about certain things - but the lesson was happening and needed to be finished, and also she still didn't quite know what to say about the other stuff.
+No, actually, there was //something// she could say. "Hnghlf," she began, cleared her throat, and continued, in a voice that was far more coherent, if ever-so-slightly shrill, "I, er, before we continue, you should know that I'm just, just surprised. Rather than offended, I mean. I need time to think about-" she paused, looking agonized, and then finished lamely, "-about what you said."
+There. She'd let him know the vital thing, and gotten through it looking only slightly like a giddy idiot. The rest should be easy, right? She knew how to stay cool and focused. She'd held off half the royal guards through the bars in a cell door; after the business with Lady Torruth she'd had to escape across a courtyard crammed with guards and gotten through without getting, or giving, a scratch...
+"So!" she continued, with a slightly brittle brightness, "now there's the matter of luring fish. It requires a bit of finesse, but if you get it right you don't even need real bait. But it does require..." //Oh gods, I didn't think this through.// "...a slight lowering of your empathic shielding..."
+It wasn't that lowering empathic shielding was //hard//, as such. You learned to shield as a child and it became a habit, but unshielding took no real effort other than overcoming the mental block. People did it unintentionally all the time, when they got flustered.
+But it was an intensely private thing to do, the sort of thing you normally only did around your nearest and dearest. And in order to show him how this worked, she was going to have to do it right in front of him, and then he'd have to do it to practice, and that would have been fine //except now they both knew he was attracted to her and they'd be broadcasting every last bit of their reactions at each other//.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|'//Time to think about what he'd said//' was a rather uncomfortable phrase to be hearing. By tone it wasn't a threat, but some part of Demarath still felt it might yet turn out to be, and so he found some anxiety stirred into the mix of emotions that he promptly squashed. Fishing. Fishing, fishing, fishing. Focus.
+But the implications of the next instruction were about as obvious to Demarath as they were to Ilirith. At least his own unease was countered by the fact he'd already very plainly stated his feelings just moments ago - it was certainly more embarrassing to effectively be broadcasting them, but it was a manageable level of embarrassment.
+He didn't even squirm.
+He did, however, invisibly press his tongue against the roof of his mouth, in lieu of chewing on it or some other more visible form of anxiety. Maybe now was not the best time for this particular lesson, after all. Maybe it was best if they just moved it to a different day, when they were both less flustered.
+Or maybe he could stop being a coward.
+He let his curiosity battle its way to the surface. "And then?"}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Ilirith, meanwhile, struggled to fight down panic. It made no sense, she wasn't in any danger, there was no risk of death... but, then again, she wasn't much //afraid// of death.
+Making a complete idiot of herself in front of Demarath, now, //that// was something to fear.
+"Many kinds of fish," she managed, "that are big enough for a takma to consider eating are also empathic - they use it to detect prey. The trick, really, is to try to think and feel in a specific way, so that the fish come to investigate you, and snap them up when they get too close. It involves a kind of emotional simplicity - you have to shove most of your feelings off to the side, and concentrate on a select few, simple ones. Hunger, wariness of danger, that kind of thing."
+And she honestly didn't know if she could demonstrate this right now, she really didn't.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Oh, yes. Concentrating on basic feelings like hunger was absolutely on the menu. His mind wasn't saturated with other thoughts of higher, social concern. Inwardly, he found himself sighing, aggravated at how this simple exercise had been sabotaged by his own actions.
+But so what? He'd made it harder for himself than it had to be. Harder didn't necessarily mean 'impossible'. Quietly, he nodded an acknowledgement, willed his unease and embarrassment to subside (partially successfully, at least), and tried to both gradually lower his empathic shielding and focus on basal thoughts.
+He //did// feel some hunger. He could totally focus on hunger.
+Totally.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Ilirith observed with her empathic sense as Demarath tried to mold his emotional profile down into simplicity. She hadn't really expected him to start off without her trying to demonstrate it first, but she felt it counterproductive to protest; if he figured it out on his own, then in theory she didn't need to lower her own shielding at all...
+But there were several problems. The first was that - though he had something of an advantage since his feelings were already known - he was currently being braver than she was, and she had her self-respect to maintain. There were times when taking the easier path was warranted, but surely this wasn't one of them.
+The second was that, despite the clumsy smoothing away of attraction and embarrassment, he still wasn't //quite// getting there.
+Resigned, Ilirith said, "That's not too bad for a first try. But it could do with a bit more refinement, maybe. Here, let me show you..."
+//Think of it like being on a mission,// she told herself. //If you can't control yourself, you'll get discovered and probably killed. Put the emotions aside.// Despite the situational differences, this particular pattern of thought helped more than she'd expected.
+Regardless, to Demarath's own empathy, what was perceived at least //began// with a welter of emotion - cautious hope, wistfulness for the future, severe embarrassment, all tangled up together in thin threads of loneliness - both emotional and (rather darker and hotter) possibly physical. With slow deliberation, however, these emotional layers were peeled away and hidden, eventually leaving nothing but a mild hunger and vague and general interest in her surroundings.
+It was, in its way, impressive. It also left behind the idea that out of the things Ilirith had been feeling about his earlier statement, disapproval and disgust were in no way among them.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Of course, there went his attention. To his credit, he managed to catch his mind as it fell into the surprise caused by the brief insight into Ilirith's feelings, largely fueled by the awareness that he had only gotten a brief insight into them and she was clearly good at shaping her emotions, and his initial impression might simply be incorrect.
+He granted it wasn't very likely, it hadn't been quite brief enough for that.
+He tried to analyse the progression, to do the same thing with his own mental state, but he found his mind was trying to wander down two paths at once - the curiosity about what he had glimpsed and the task at hand.
+...and then some other part of his mind remembered what Zadireth had told him. //Khezri, Seluurin.// His own persuasion, allegedly of //Khezri//, a Kaean. Attracted to new situations and opportunities, resistent to patterns and clear organisation. Was his mind like that? Was that why it felt so //cluttered// relative to Ilirith's clear focus?
+Zadireth had also said '//Some Srians don't get along well with Kaeans.//' Demarath grimaced and willed the clutter aside with a stubborn desire to conform to the task at hand. //I'm hungry. I'm hungry to the exclusion of everything else.//
+Really, that, too, was a new opportunity, depending on how one looked at it. And there was a natural violent churning at the core of //hunger//. He could explore the thought as though it were a new sensation. Perhaps he just had to change his point of view on what he was trying to do - not simplify his emotional state, but find the complexity of a single strand.
+And so that was what he did.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Ilirith watched, trying to keep her reaction limited to a mild surprise lest she inadvertently affect Demarath's mood. It wasn't how she had done it - she wasn't quite sure she //understood// the way Demarath had done it - but his emotional profile was being reduced to one that, probably, was sufficiently innocuous.
+"That's not bad," she felt moved to comment. "Not bad at all. Now you have to try to hold it like that until fish are willing to approach. Let's go down again." She slipped beneath the water once more. Possibly to aid Demarath in his emotional concentration, she seemed to, er, wiggle less on her way down this time.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Fortunately, even if she hadn't restrained her motions, he had found his focus. There was enough of a sense of //hunger// to consciously explore that he very nearly missed any opportunity to parse her comments - but they sunk through enough that he followed her into the water.
+...hopefully the added benefit to this state of mind was that //catching the fish// would come quite naturally, because if he explored the emotion to the exclusion of everything else, there was a real chance he might forget his surroundings for a time. Thankfully his nostrils at least weren't at risk of forgetting it and remained firmly closed.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Slowing their descent as they reached the bottom of the pool, they waited.
+As they remained roughly stationary, the fish that called the little lake home began to approach cautiously as they went about their business. Possibly they were suspicious about something about the way Demarath seemed to be concentrating on his hunger, because some of them seemed hesitant to approach; but a largish eel, unconcerned, traced a long ribbon-path through the water. It passed by Ilirith's head and began moving past Demarath's foreleg.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Moving in water was, of course, quite different to moving in air. There were different resistences to account for, different muscular strains from different postures, and water pressure subtly altered stereoscopic vision.
+But takmar had not gotten the nickname 'Soakers' for nothing; in at least some ways, the water was still their habitat. There were instincts that knew how to correct for these changes.
+Having been unused for most of Demarath's life, those same instincts now whipped him into a motion faster than his conscious mind could keep track of in any detail, his hands snapping for the eel.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Demarath's aim proved to be good,yet perhaps not quite ideal; the long, wirggly body of the eel slid through his grip forsome distance before it was significantly hindered.
+The eel used the resulting slack to double back on itself and attempt to bite the offending paw.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Demarath's paws wrestled with the eel - one hand drew the creature away from his body without loosening its grip, the other let go to snap for the creature's head, trying to prevent it from completing its defensive bite.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|The bite went uncompleted, but the eel wriggled furiously in his grip.
+Ilirith watched, carefully keeping aside the feeling of amusement that threatened to rise to the surface - aside from being unrecognizable to fish, it probably wouldn't help Demarath's confidence. ~Bite it if you have to,~ she told him. It's a lot harder to slip through teeth than through forepaws.~}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Everything Demarath had done so far had been guided entirely by reflexes - and happened so fast that he'd barely been able to draw up any //plans//. The recommendation from Ilirith was accordingly welcome, although it required some wrestling with his instincts, which seemed sure that if he moved to bring his head down, his grip would no longer suffice to hold onto his prey.
+Of course, if he bit fast enough, it wouldn't have to.
+Down went his muzzle, twisting to the side and opening his maw to the waters, trying to clamp down on the serpentine creature fighting for its life.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|With one forepaw gripping each end, biting the eel between them was relatively easy. Demarath's teeth met in the eel's body, which writhed violently once and then with decreasing strength.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|With a somewhat amateurish but still quite sufficient wriggle, Demarath, still clutching his prize with two hands and his maw, made to both surface for air and to placate in the misguided remnants of an instinct that wanted to expose the eel to an environment that would kill it more quickly, even though it was already as good as dead. Taking it to the surface simply felt //natural//.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|As Ilirith surfaced, the eel ceased its feeble struggle; it was either dead or close enough to make no difference.
+The green takma spat out a bit of water, then smiled. "Not bad," she said, "for a first try. In the future, you'll need to practice efficiency - getting in a quick kill, getting it on shore, and then going back. Three adult takmar can go through a lot of fish if they're hungry."
+The eel's ribbon body, expending the last of its muscular energy, made one last ripple, cracking its tail like a slow, wet whip. It slapped Demarath lightly in the face. Ilirith, unable to help herself, made a faint //snrk// noise. "Ahem. Sorry.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Demarath's one eye, despite not directly in the path of the eel's slapping motion, reflexively shut. For a moment, an irritated expression rippled through his antennae, before being erased by the achievement. He had caught something. He had caught it on his first try. As Ilirith said, there was room for improvement, but it had gone much better than he might have assumed.
+Perhaps he could make himself useful after all. Perhaps he could make himself useful //right now//. He deposited the eel in one forepaw to free up his mouth, briefly licking at his teeth, before saying, with some eagerness: "I can practise now, right? See how much food I can gather for the group before I run out of energy?"}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Ilirith smiled tolerantly. "I don't know how soon Zadireth will want to get moving again, so I don't know that running out of energy would be all that good an idea. But certainly, it wold be best if we could get everyone a decent meal if we can, so some practice would certainly be in order."}}