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+--- Thread: Innocence and Avarice [closed] (/showthread.php?tid=6812)
RE: Innocence and Avarice [closed] - Zhavi - 04-22-2014
The first bolt made Zhi flinch. It was fascinating, but when combined with Lalataru's dry lecture, not much to get excited about.
The second? Zhi yelped, jumped back, and hissed all at once as the something hit the wall with a great noise. The fur on her tail stood on end, and it stuck up nearly straight behind her, trapped between her body and the wall as she crowded back against it. It was a threat. It was a warning. It was Lalataru showing her what he was capable of, and what he'd do to her if she pissed him off. In that moment, as she stared at the smoking wall, the mask slipped off. Under it was Zhi, scared beyond measure and irrevocably drawn to the job she'd taken. Lalataru had laid out a challenge. She wasn't craven.
Heartbeat echoing in her ears, she got her expression under control. This time, when she stuttered it wasn't an act. "S-so how do I d-do that? Wi'the -- the aether." She'd heard of aether before, of course, but it had always been an alien concept to her, something other people did. People with power. It'd been beyond her.
The wheels in her mind started to turn. What if -- what if she learned how to do that? What if she became Lalataru's apprentice for true? She could be a big name in Limsa Lominsa, control her own turf and show Galine -- no! Agha, she could show Agha what was what. She pushed off the wall, pupils dilated, and went to her knees before Lalataru. The line between Zhi and Joz smeared as she held her hands up, ears sideways in submission. "How do I do that?" she repeated, fear replaced by eagerness. "Teach me."
RE: Innocence and Avarice [closed] - Goodfellow - 04-22-2014
Lolotaru jumped at Joz's yelp. He whipped around to see a very different girl; a much more honestly startled girl than he had glimpsed up to this point. And he watched as it passed from her face. It was only a moment and it disappeared like a shadow, but he had seen the hint of something else. Defiance?
He quickly, and with great uncertainty, continued his lecture. "That was Ruin, the most basic of the arcanist's designs. It is somewhat crass and it's applications are limited compared to the full battery of arcanima, but it has its uses. Namely, for learning how to draw out the aether. Later manifestations require greater finesse; not so with Ruin." He closed the notebook and held it back out to the girl.
"I don't want you trying to cast it. Not outside of this room, at least. Not yet." His face was such that would brook no argument. "Take the book again and return to the designs. But don't force them so much, this time. As you trace them over again, follow your instincts, your whims even. If an angle seems more pleasing or natural wider or narrower, then widen or narrow it accordingly. If a particularly straight edge seems constricting, then loosen and curve it. If you possess the necessary aetheric levels, then the aether will manifest itself," he concluded and paused. She seemed truly enraptured in what he was trying to teach her.
"Your hair may stand on end, or there may be a slight breeze where there was none, or you may feel warm or particularly energized."
He leaned in and placed the outstretched notebook in her hands. They were slick, clammy.
RE: Innocence and Avarice [closed] - Zhavi - 04-22-2014
Zhi jerked the notebook away from Lalataru without meaning to, and forced a nervous smile at him. "Ain't used t'this," she muttered, ducking her head at him in mute apology.
She couldn't deny her hunger. Dangerous way to feel around a mark, couldn't deny that either. She opened the notebook to a new page, and resolutely bent to the task that he'd set her without quite understanding how she was supposed to let her whims guide the lines. It was so stupid. Zhi had grown up scratching in the dirt same as any other gutterborn, with trash for toys and invention a necessity to stave off boredom. Rules had evolved in and between the city's laws, all unspoken and all enforced with brutality and cruelty. You didn't go there, you didn't mess with him, you watched your mouth around her. They'd grown into her, melded into her bones and grown roots beneath her. All those little unspoken understandings, methods of survival. But, if you'd asked Zhi whether or not she was a follower of laws and rules, she'd have thumbed up her nose, because they weren't rules, not to her. They just were what they were.
So why was it so rutting difficult when given freedom of direction for her to do it? The lines were lines, forming shapes that she could twist to whatever she chose. But warping them, they just turned to scribbles -- not the mysterious symbols Lalataru had produced. There was no breeze, no light touch down her spine. Nothing but her wasted effort. At first she thought she was just doing it wrong, that if she tried harder . . . but no.
Here, Joz's failure was Zhi's failure. It wasn't a competition against anyone but herself, and that made the sting of it all the worse, this thought that she couldn't do something so simple as doodle out a few different lines. Page upon page filled and was set aside, until finally she sat back on her heels and set her palms to her thighs. Her hair hung about her face; she didn't look up from the blank page before her. Her back hurt. Her neck hurt. Her hand cramped. She swallowed something ugly down, and when she spoke her voice was faint. "How. . .long does't . . .take. . .usually?"
RE: Innocence and Avarice [closed] - Goodfellow - 04-22-2014
Lolo watched her at her work and observed her growing frustration. He thought back to his own time teaching himself on the trade routes of rural Thanalan. Long and hot days filled with sand and wind, how he used to study and practice to wile away the time. All his real and measurable improvement had come in his short time with the guild, but he had started teaching himself a long time before and, up to a certain level, his skills felt worn-in and natural. He couldn't even recall the first time he felt the pull of his own aether. His own development had been so hard-earned and gradual that no first successful incidence of Ruin came to mind. Rather he recalled a chain of bolts over time, gradually becoming more fully-formed, quicker, brighter, more powerful.
He sat down next to her. She was clearly anxious and he didn't want to add pressure by towering imposingly over her (insofar as a lalafell can tower).
"How. . .long does't . . .take. . .usually?" he heard her say.
When he had first given her the assignment, a large part of him had wanted her to be intimidated and to scurry off and leave him alone. Sitting there with her in that moment of frustrated impotence, he commiserated and wanted only for her to feel reassured, to not give up on learning.
"It depends on the individual. It took me quite a long time, as a matter of fact," he added. "Much longer than if I had had a teacher." He smiled comfortingly.
RE: Innocence and Avarice [closed] - Zhavi - 04-22-2014
That smile. It was aimed at her, full of understanding and goodwill. Something twisted inside Zhavi as she looked over at Lalataru, and she eased back into Joz's timid nature.
Idiot.
She looked back down at the pages, spread like the ocean before her. Opaque, dangerous. Too dangerous. A long time? A long time, and she didn't even have a guarantee that she would be able to use the power. Her, a gutterborn, using the arcanists' power to rule over the gangs?
Yer such a ruttin' idiot, Zhio.
Hope belonged to Joz and other halfwitted scrags like her. Zhi knew better. She'd learned that lesson a long time ago, and she was much too wise in the ways of the city to go back on it now. Leave off her job? Zhi never quit on a job, not unless she was offered better gil. Would Lalataru's compassion feed her? Would his kindness last past his own needs? No. Of course it wouldn't. He'd already proven he wasn't stupid, and she would just be underestimating him if she paid him the disrespect of thinking him some toothless old scut. All she had to do was get him to drop his guard long enough for her to grab his book, and then hide long enough to escape his wrath.
Her grip tightened on the grease pencil she held, and she nodded. "I'll keep goin', then," she muttered, and bent back to her task.
Gaining Lalataru's trust meant listening to him, and being diligent. So she would keep trying, until she ran out of paper, or time, or he chased her home for the day. She would ignore her body's complaints, and she would finish the rotten job and find out the secrets her employer didn't want her to know. She'd do everything she always did. She'd be ruthless, and practical. Just like always.
But she still couldn't quite smother the little flicker in her gut that wanted more.
RE: Innocence and Avarice [closed] - Goodfellow - 04-23-2014
A thought occurred to Lolo, an idea which would ease the process of the honest student and keep the less honest student under close observation. He did not wish to interrupt her work, but he ventured a question anyway.
"Uh...Miss Joz, you--well--you mentioned that you had been a...er... thief. Past tense, yes?"
RE: Innocence and Avarice [closed] - Zhavi - 04-23-2014
Zhi flinched, the line she was currently drawing veering abruptly sideways. "Err. . .yes?"
RE: Innocence and Avarice [closed] - Goodfellow - 04-23-2014
"Mhmm. So how are you supporting yourself now?" he continued.
RE: Innocence and Avarice [closed] - Zhavi - 04-23-2014
Zhi hunched her shoulders. "Beggin'." Her voice was nearly inaudible. "Scroungin' in inn middens. Couple hours' worth o'odd jobs at th'docks, when they've work." She shrugged, seeming to focus hard on the page before her.
RE: Innocence and Avarice [closed] - Goodfellow - 04-23-2014
Lolo turned his gaze. He had grown up in relative plenty and while his personal wealth had ebbed and flowed in the years before and since the Calamity, being confronted with the reality that impeded the education of so many discomfited him. Staring forward at the wall, at nothing, he spoke.
"Miss Joz, while the comforts of the student are secondary to his or her efforts, yours is hardly a situation conducive to learning. If we are going to determine your aetheric viability, you will need to dedicate yourself wholly to the pursuit. Otherwise, I fear I've nothing to teach you." He paused momentarily before making his proposal, preempting any wet eyes or whimpers of protest which would frighten and discourage his constitution.
"If you prove yourself a dedicated and earnest student, I will aid you for a time. It is the natural situation of a master and apprentice, after all, and I can support the both of us modestly without too great an adjustment. A roof over your head and a full belly will keep your mind and senses much sharper than overlong hours of begging and hard labor."
His speech thus concluded, he again turned his head toward the girl seated at his side and awaited her reply.
RE: Innocence and Avarice [closed] - Zhavi - 04-23-2014
In but a moment Zhi had bent over her legs, prostrating herself before Lalataru. "I'll do anythin', sir, anythin'!"
The position Joz was in was one constructed out of a lack of choices. Lalataru had taken her on, but he could dump her at any time, for any reason. Whatever he said went, and it was obvious the girl had already recognized and accepted that. For Zhi, it was a potential roadblock, but one that wasn't entirely unexpected.
"Jes' ye tell me what's needed, Master Lalataru, an' I'll see it done."
RE: Innocence and Avarice [closed] - Goodfellow - 04-24-2014
Lolo cocked his head to the side and said, "I need you to learn, Miss Joz."Â He straightened his neck and motioned for her to get up. "And any...prostration...is and will remain unnecessary. Now take the notebook, continue your practice, and return to me when you've made progress or run out of paper."
He paused a moment in thought before pulling out another, smaller pad of paper and continuing. "Where do you stay? I'll have a retainer along with some items from the market this evening."
RE: Innocence and Avarice [closed] - Zhavi - 04-25-2014
Zhi pushed herself back up, awkwardness stretching her lips into a grimace. She clutched the notebook to her chest and avoided eye contact with Lalataru. "Yessir. I keeps ta this empty buildin' in Barnacles' Reach." Her mouth twisted. She mumbled, "Best not t'send yer 'tainer in nice garb, sir."
Barnacles' Reach was a cluster of homes and businesses that belonged to the poor in Limsa Lominsa. They clung to the cliffside and spread quickly, giving it the name. A long time ago it had been a nice neighborhood, as such things could be reckoned in Limsa, but the situation had taken a turn for the worse after the Calamity.
RE: Innocence and Avarice [closed] - Goodfellow - 04-28-2014
The sides of Lolotaru's mouth turned down in unfamiliarity.
"Regardless, I will need the building and unit number and a convenient time when you will be home for the delivery. Sometime, say, around six-and-a-half bells?"
RE: Innocence and Avarice [closed] - Zhavi - 04-28-2014
Choking down the derisive laughter was hard. Zhi stayed quiet an awkward few seconds as she worked at strangling the impulse, and then carefully said, "there, ah, ain't no numbers in th'Reach, sir. I'll. . .uh. . ." she made a face, considering. Barnacle's Reach was old, and badly organized. Once upon a time, buildings had names that were well recognized, and the narrow, zig-zagging streets had been also named and counted -- but that'd been before fortunes had turned and the wealth had dried up. New growth had sprung up, built of wood and shoddy hanging bridges and stairways. It was a mess to navigate, perhaps especially because it was vertical as well as horizontal.
"I'll. . .meet yer man at th'edge," she concluded, dismissing the idea of a map out of hand. "It's. . .not a place t'wander, Master Lalataru. I wouldn't want yer man t'get shanked. Yeah, at six-an'-a-half bells -- " she gave him the name of the street that brushed along the edge of the Reach, the one that was easiest to find.