Innocence and Avarice [closed]

[Goodfellow]

On being addressed, he calmed himself to respond.  There was something odd in her manner just now, though he was himself too given over to the excitement of her success to catch on to it.

 

"Heh, heh--eh...yes, Miss Joz?"

[Zhavi]

For a moment, the giddiness returned. She swooped one of her arms out, mimicking the sound the bolt had made when it hit the rocks. She giggled, sobered, let her head hang down. Looked back up. "What's it make me, now I can do that?"

[Goodfellow]

Lolo tilted his head to the side, his hand on his chin.

 

"Well, it makes you an arcanist, I suppose.  Or at least, it does once you can do it more...er," he droned off momentarily.  More what?  Instinctively?  Immediately?  Reflexively?  Fluently?

 

"...well, more naturally."

[Zhavi]

Zhi lifted her hands in order to rest her forehead on them. Her wet shirt had settled into the crevasse left by the upward push of her shoulderblades. If Zhi could have seen herself in that moment, she would have labeled the sight pathetic; lack of meat on the bones proclaimed incompetence. At least, that's how it was on the streets. You were underfed, you were poor. Gutterborn. She'd tried to leave that life behind her years ago.

 

Arcanist.

 

Arcanist.

 

Something in her wavered.

 

"Huh," she muttered, closing her eyes against the backs of her hands. "Tell me. . .tell me how ye became an arcanist."

[Goodfellow]

Unnoticed by Lolo himself, his hand came to rest on the outline of the book in his pocket as he turned and looked back towards the city.

 

"When it became clear that I had reached something of a plateau in my personal studies, I made a very particular purchase, a collection of codices and compendia and other books of the like, and decided that my studies would proceed more...efficaciously were I to enroll formally in a course of study with other and more learned and accomplished arcanists than myself."

 

He turned back to Joz and continued, "True understanding can never be fully reached with the efforts of but one mind."

[Zhavi]

Zhi's curiosity was piqued when he mentioned personal studies, but before she could ask he said something else. Something very important. She let her ears go slightly back and sideways; a sign of being at ease for miqo'te.

 

"A collection? Why'd ye do that? Will I need to?" Her words came slow and languorous: her apparent curiosity stifled by the release of pent-up tension her success had provided.

[Goodfellow]

"Hm?  Oh, no, not at all," he responded, continuing with nary a thought.  "My acquisition thereof wasn't really of any aid to me.  It serves me now more for...erm...inspiration than for any practical purpose."

 

He was still palming the outside of his pocket.

 

"There is simply so much to learn in this world.  And learning it is its own purpose, as often as not," he added pointedly.

[Zhavi]

"Inspiration?" Zhi peeked up over her hands, resting her chin on them. She watched him. Her eyes were wide with curiosity.

[Goodfellow]

Lolo considered Joz and decided that something was off.  Was she simply enervated or was it aetheric exhaustion?  He would have to try to teach her Aetherflow at some point.

 

"Those books--my books--were the final cause of me...re-purposing my life; without them I'd still be in Thanalan, running my company full time, traversing the desert routes endlessly and struggling alone to grasp increasingly obtuse theorems and principles of arcanima."  A short pause, and then, "I'm much happier now."

[Zhavi]

Lalataru was really making it difficult. Zhi'd heard about him acquiring the book Galleon wanted, but there was no way to directly bring it up, and he wasn't being as talkative as she wanted. She couldn't be sure that the books he was talking about were related to the single one she sought. But, if she could just keep him talking. . .

 

"Ye changed yer life 'cause o'books?" Zhi's voice was raised in mild incredulity. Books were not exactly prized in the lowtown.

[Goodfellow]

He nodded vigorously in response.  Placing his hand fully into his pocket he turned on his heel and said, "Oh yes, yes, of course.  We can work around your limited capacity for letters just now, but eventually--soon, in fact--you will need to learn to read much more proficiently." 

 

Then more quietly, almost reverently, "Books, Miss Joz, represent everything.  They are our best connection to all the things we could never discover or think ourselves and they allow us to climb higher and higher on the shoulders of the great minds that preceded us and to carry their theories and formulations further even than they themselves ever dreamed."

 

He pulled a smallish blue-green tome out of his pocket and brandished it before her for effect.  "I did not simply change my life for books; books, in short, change the world."

[Zhavi]

Somehow, Zhi managed to maintain her expression. She drew her eyebrows down, pursed her lips, and eyed Lalataru. "If ye say so. . ."

 

The book was viewed with a hesitant interest. "That what ye use t'do -- " she jerked her head towards the rocks.

[Goodfellow]

Lolo lowered the raised book and gripped it almost bashfully between his hands.

 

"Yes, among other things," he responded.

[Zhavi]

"'Other things?'" Zhi put on her best trying-not-to-look-skeptical face. "Like what?"

[Goodfellow]

"Whatever I could, Miss Joz.  Knowing what those other things might be, how one might advance, that is the work of books and of teachers.  It's why I read so much, and it's why I enrolled at the Guild," he replied with a slightly dismissive chuckle.

[Zhavi]

Dead end.

 

"Oh." She paused and looked down, suddenly awkward. "Will that be me some day?"

[Goodfellow]

"That, Miss Joz, depends entirely on you," he said before raising his hand to delay any commentary on her part.  "I don't mean your aetheric potential," he continued with a gesture toward the rock, "you've demonstrated that sufficiently for a novitiate."

 

He pointed at her chest and added, "I mean your commitment."

[Zhavi]

Zhi's mouth had been open, but at his gesture she snapped it shut. She pouted in silence, pushing herself up and brushing herself off down her front. There were a few grass stains, and everything was intolerably damp. "Ain't got nowhere else t'go," she muttered, crossing her arms. She stared fixedly at the ground. "I aim t'be a good student, Master Lolotaru." She sounded almost sulky.

[Goodfellow]

A look of concern, or consternation, dimmed Lolo's countenance.

 

"But don't you see?  You're already becoming a good student.  I don't think for a moment that I made you do that," he said with a wave toward the rock.  "You did that, Miss Joz.  I merely showed you how."

[Zhavi]

"Hm." Zhi sighed. Her voice was small. She'd returned to being meek and timid. "Nah, I jes. . .nevermind." She turned away from Lalataru, digging the toe of one of her overlarge shoes into the ground. "What do we do now?"

[Goodfellow]

"Can you do it again," Lolo asked.  "Can you cast Ruin again?"

[Zhavi]

Zhi snatched up the notebook and grease pencil from the ground, opened it up, and started trying again without another word to Lalataru. Her face was set in concentration, though the line of her eyebrows and the grim way she pulled her mouth to one side proclaimed something else going on in her head. It took her several more tries (her expression gradually smoothing) before a spark left her fingers. It fizzled out shortly after it materialized, leaving Zhi to stagger sideways. "Oh," she said. Her legs braced wide, and she bent to put her hands on her knees. The notebook and grease pencil were clutched awkwardly in between.

 

Her eyes had gone wide. "Shit, that -- it takes th'stuffin' right out o'ye, it does." She sounded as if she'd been winded, or someone had gotten a good punch in under her ribs.

[Goodfellow]

Lolotaru nodded.  "Pay attention to that empty feeling.  You've been full of aether your entire life, you just weren't aware of it.  Now as your depleted reserves regenerate, you'll feel it.  Focus on the flow of it inside you, now that you know what to look for.  Awareness of and familiarity with one's personal aetherflow is of paramount importance to any arcanist."

[Zhavi]

"O-oh." There wasn't much that could surprise Zhavi when it came to all manner of activity in the city itself, but this was wholly outside of her area of expertise. This was something new, something she'd never known existed within her own body. She got a funny look on her face: tucked in her chin and looked down at her own body as if she might see a new growth forming. "What's it. . .sposed t'feel like, then?"

[Goodfellow]

Lolo looked down at his palms.  "Er...well, you're enervated now--tapped...er...tired and dry, in a way.  As your aether supply refills it might feel like inflating, like waking up, perhaps."  He furrowed his brow and thought hard.  His own aetherflow was as familiar to him as the palm of his hand, as natural as the pumping of blood in his veins or air in his lungs.  "As you begin to feel less like you do now, and more like you did before, the details, the background of that shift in the way you feel is what you'll be looking for."  He paused before proceeding, "You know how, when you're very tired and very quiet you sometimes here your own breath or heartbeat in your head?  It's not dissimilar to that...er...sort of."