Day 134(+135?) | Dry Lightning

[stormsinbraids]

Who: Tris, Briar, Rosethorn, and EVERYONE IN BASTION. Yes. All of you. Including the dragon. They will find you c:
OPEN
Where: All over the bastion. There will be a note on the monument, then Tris/Briar/Rosethorn may just come find your character (If that is all right-)
When: Day 134, (135 if needed-)
What: After the events of that gathering and the arrival of one of their teachers, the Winding Circle mages think everyone needs to meditate. Its a good idea. It will help. Really. And no, they don't plan on giving much of a choice.
Format: Will match!
Warnings: Will edit if any are needed!


It starts with a plate of cookies (The ones Tris pretty much always makes), and a piece of paper stuck out by the monument. The paper shows a figure, with an upset face and leaking lines of some sort, then the figure settled in a circle in what should be a fairly standard meditation seat, then the figure again, although this time with a smile and no leaking lines. Completely clear, right?

It gets a little more vague. This looks like the shape of the Bastion, with a bunch of figures in it. One even looks like a dragon. The figures are all inside a circle right after that. Is that clear? No?

Well, there are three mages looking to talk to the residents of the Bastion today. Tris, Briar, or Rosethorn can explain. And they intend to explain to everyone why its a good idea.


(OOC: You can : Pick a location and a mage (in the headline) if you prefer one, or just a location and whoever is on will jump at you.

Comments

[vinesinskin]

[Oh look, it's the one guy who Tris called him about because of a plant! Time for explaining. While eating cookies because cookies are tasty.]

Hey. Do you know what meditation is?

[He could've sworn the drawing was clearer, but looking at it again...Maybe not.]

It's what the drawing was supposed to be about, but...I guess isn't not that clear, huh.

[It made perfect sense to them earlier! But he supposes that not everyone knows Tris sparks lightning when she doesn't meditate.]

[freedom_engineer]

Oh, I thought it might be something like that.

[Colin actually did. He's used to warning signs and pictograms depicting telepathy, so these signs weren't all that far off, at least for him.]

Meditation is certainly pretty common where I'm from, between the priesthoods, the mages, and all the telepaths.

[He gives Briar a grin.]

So that's what this is all about, huh?

I actually wanted to track you down a little while ago, but... well, coming back from the campus was a bit of a pain.

[He sighs, and waves that off.]

But that can come later. I'm interested in seeing what the meditation exercises are for.

[vinesinskin]

It's common with mages and temple folk where we're from, but anyone can do it. Back before we knew we had magic, one of our teachers told us that everything has magic, even if it's only the magic of life.

[He grins back.]

We're hoping it'll help everyone handle things better. Whether they have magic or not. It usually helps calm Tris and it does wonders for our powers, so it should help everyone get things under control.

If you really want to find me, try a garden during the day. I'm usually weeding, eating, or making medicines here. And usually weeding at that.

[He pauses, eating a cookie.]

Do you know how people meditated in your world?

[freedom_engineer]

Universe, actually.

[Yep, time for a bit of brain break.]

Across two dozen inter-planetary species, there are just as many popular orders of thinkers and priests. I'm familiar with everything from burning incense and relaxing in a darkened room, to slaughtering an animal and bleeding it out over your face in an attempt to hear its spirit.

Suffice it to say, I find the former much more appealing than the latter.

[He holds a cookie between his fingers, staring at it as if in thought.]

My sisters have attempted to teach me, but their way doesn't work for me. I can't clear my brain. And my own method of relaxing involves immersing myself in computer code.

... That probably doesn't mean anything to you. Um... I basically attempt to understand every facet of a machine from the inside.

[vinesinskin]

[He's somewhat used to people not believing his kind of magic exists, so he doesn't blurt out his first thought -- That can't be true. Colin believes it, so it probably actually is true, strange as it sounds.]

Our way is much more like the former than the latter... [No one in the Living Circle would ever do something like that. Sure they eat animals, but...]

Our way does involve clearing your mind though. First time I did it, I sunk myself into a really nice rose carving while the guy who found us - kind of a long story - told us what to do.

[He sighs.]

When I was teaching my student, [she's fine, she has to be. Rosethorn's here; Evvy has to be safe somewhere] she couldn't do it at first cause she kept thinking about things. Then she almost turned herself into a rock.

[Not his best moment.]

[freedom_engineer]

Yeah, the Mrrshan are weird that way. But it works for them. Their whole belief system is big on ancestors, spirits, and primal power.

[Colin nods in understanding]

I won't pretend to know anything about magic, but... Geomancy, right? My sister always told me that was tricky stuff. Strong, but wild, hard to control, very dangerous.

[Colin crouches down then, and he starts drawing marks at irregular intervals in the dirt with his fingertip. He doesn't even look at it as he works, just keeping his eyes on Briar.]

Me, I just don't do quiet. Every second, I've got some equation going through my head. Solving them gives me clarity, I guess you could say.

[vinesinskin]

The temple I went to school at for about four years, they had gods and goddesses, but they didn't have any sort of afterlife.

[He shrugs.]

They just get reborn after dying.

[Geomancy? Sounds kinda like something to do with the earth...]

My teachers, my mates, and my student, we have what we call ambient magic. Which just means that we draw our power from other things; Sandry got - gets - hers from thread and cloth; Daj' gets hers from metals and fire; Coppercurls gets hers from the weather, land, sea, and sky; Evvy, my student, gets hers from stone. Rosethorn and I get ours from plants.

[He pauses, watching Colin draw marks.]

Is Geomancy what you call stone magic?

If you can convince Coppercurls and Rosethorn that that works for you, they might let you slide. [They'll more likely berate Briar for not trying to convince him instead.]

[freedom_engineer]

Mmm.. close? It's land magic, if I recall right. Reaching into nature, and letting nature work through and for you.

Which is all well and good, unless nature gets pissed at you.

[Each mark is individually rather tiny, but there's a hell of a lot of them. He's notating their conversation in binary, or at least a system of marks and gaps that do the same job]

I don't mind hearing more about it. I've just never been able to get meditation to work the way other people describe it.

... Never did try the blood thing, mind you. But I have no intention of trying that, either.

this is incredibly late, sorry

[vinesinskin]

Huh...Land magic could kinda apply to what I do too, I guess. Since Rosethorn and I ask plants to help the same way Evvy does stones and Tris the weather.

[It's just a bunch of nonsensical marks to Briar, but that doesn't stop him from watching.]

Well, have you ever tried fitting yourself into an equation? That's something that we did the first time we ever meditated. Not an equation, for us, but something nearby that we...liked? It's hard to explain. I fit myself into a rose carving, for example. It might work.