Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[C S]

"Good, good." Syria nodded as the memories of her fumbling into flight came back to her. It had taken a few days of practice for her to get his part down just right. "Without the essence of a mage's mana flowing through it, a staff is just a wooden rod with fancy ornaments on it. Once you get the hang of it, you can make your staff behave like a pet, how well it will follow you around; and it will listen to everything you say without you needing to say anything."

She let go of the rose-tipped staff and it maintained its stance, balancing impossibly on its other end. Syria whistled, and it twirled itself, then rolled, then spun around sideways. Another whistle, and the staff froze in mid-air, hovering.

"You try it now. After you feel comfortable with that, we'll try getting you used to holding your own weight up with mana!"

[Hopeflower]

Firel's pause only lasted as long as it took him to reach out and take the fork from Dahnae. He slid the bun onto his own plate for the moment and returned the utensil. "I would expect so."

Firel had a mother, absent from the city though she was. He wasn't sure he needed or wanted someone else to mother him. The elf braced for things to become awkward quickly.

[C S]

Dahnae turned her fork around in her fingers and pulled a bun out of the box for herself. As she did so, she said off-handedly, "You usually go into things too quickly. I was worried you would just try to eat it." Dahnae rested the bun on her plate with the fork sticking out of the top.

[The Kingpin]

The girl looked hesitantly at the Mage, nervous over the performance. She'd learn to manipulate magic, but to do something like that? It seemed a bit...elaborate.

Still, she made an attempt. Letting go of the staff, she stepped back, watching the staff as it teetered on its end, tilting back and forth shakily before stabilising a moment later as she focused on the mana within the staff. Manipulate it, as you would the flames, she thought. A short while later, she attempted to make it move. The whistle probably wasn't an actual command but an act done for effect. As such, the girl did not bother with it. Though she had managed to make it balance with little trouble, making it move around was another matter entirely. Rather than flipping as Syria's had done, this one floated off the floor, tilted left, then right, then spun in an uneven wobble that almost struck the girl on the head as she leaned back out of the way, the instrument dropping to the floor again. She looked at the Mage with no small measure of embarrassment, reaching for the staff as it began to float once more.

This was going to take more effort than she thought.

[Hopeflower]

"I'm impatient, not stupid," Firel pointed out, using his own fork to tear open the bun and let the meat inside cool faster. "And you're one to talk about rushing into things. I've heard about your deliveries."

[C S]

"Daaven wasn't built in a day," was Syria's note of wisdom for the initial hiccups. "Remember your channeling exercises? For things like these, they are invaluable. Just reach deep within yourself and draw out your spark!"


"The city is big. I am small," Dahnae countered decisively. She gingerly pulled her fork free from the bun in echo of some fairy tale she may have heard in her long travels, then poked at the baked exterior pensively. "Not my fault if I think so fast, everything else seems slow."

[The Kingpin]

Beshayir nodded, attempting once more to flip the staff. And again, it teetered dangerously, once, then twice, evening out on its third spin and stopping, more or less horizontal, and more or less at waist-level. And again, the Apprentice flipped the staff, and again, it teetered unsteadily, though noticably less so than the first time. One flip, and stop. Two flips, and stop. After several attempts, she had gotten the hang of controlling the staff. A small smile voiced her pleasure at the achievement. Maybe I'm not a complete failure at this after all.

She tried mimicking Syria's earlier demonstration, willing the staff to twirl, then roll, then spin around sideways. It went well up to the end, where, instead of spinning around, the staff flew sideways, smacking the girl in the gut, only kept from winding her by her hands, which managed to catch the instrument before it inflicted the full force of the impact on her ribs.

Okay. So maybe I was wrong about that earlier thought.

[C S]

To that, Syria responded, "I'm sure more than a few men and women hit their fingers trying to hammer in the nails of the walls." She smiled, patting Beshayir on the back. "It happens, and it can be painful, but if they didn't let that stop them, then why should you?"

[The Kingpin]

"Didn't they usually let their fingers heal first?" joked Beshayir as she pushed the staff away for her, letting it levitate. Once it was far enough from her, she tried again, slowly.

At first, it started to drift sideways again, but after a few moments of focusing, one end moved ahead of the other, and after that, the other end started spinning opposite the first. It wasn't perfect. The staff was drifting in a wide circle and in uneven directions like a top, but eventually, it stabilised enough that it seemed, for the most part, to be spinning in place.

[Hopeflower]

"It pays to slow down sometimes," Firel replied absently, cutting a piece of the bun off with the side of his fork. He blinked when he realized he'd just echoed their teacher, and added a little dryly, "It pays to listen to Viho, too." He speared his bite of food and ate carefully, wary of burning his mouth.

[C S]

"I think you're starting to get it," Syria observed after seeing a few moments of maintained activity from Beshayir's staff. The spin was stable, and there was only a hint of a bobbing motion to it. The young mage in the making had taken her first definitive steps towards not having to walk to where she wished to be. The Daavenian cocked her head, hummed as she contemplated how she was going to prepare Beshayir for holding herself up, then snapped her fingers.

"Ah ha!" Syria applied a gentle downwards nudge with her own mental power that made the staff lurch. "Try to balance your magic against mine. It should give you an idea of what it takes to keep yourself airborne," she explained. "I'll keep on pushing down, you do your best to keep it level despite it."



Dahnae stopped pestering her poor bun and looked to Firel across the table questioningly. "Is this not slow enough for you?" she wondered out loud. She bit her lip, looking just as worried as she did when she feared for the well-being of her nose; as if the thought of being any less than what her current state was pertained to a level of being she had never experienced up to now.

[The Kingpin]

The young elf nodded, adjusting the amount of force she put into the staff to match Syria's downwards push. It was a struggle, at first, the Daavenian Mage a lot stronger than she was magically. But she knew she would get there in time. She always did.

[Hopeflower]

Firel paused mid-chew, reminded himself to finish and swallow, and echoed, "For me?" He shrugged, a little uncomfortable. "So long as I can follow your logic, it's fine." He didn't tell her that she was difficult to predict even for a mind-reader. Prediction came with familiarity, not magical ability. Reading a mind was one thing. Knowing a person well enough to judge how they would react to things beforehand was a different playing field.

[C S]

The bout increased in increments. A gentle nudge was what it began as, and as Beshayir drew more of her mana to meet Syria, the more resistance Syria offered. It pained her a little to do so. It seemed like the most unfair thing, asking the child to match her only to raise the stakes again and again, making her struggle against this escalating test of endurance. It was the fact that she did so without complaint that kept Syria committed to the task.

After reaching the limits of the forces expected, within reason from Syria's own flying experience, the mage eased off, lessening her push and the effort Beshayir needed to exert until they were both more or less at a resting state. She gave the elf a moment to recouperate before saying, "I think you can try hopping on and holding yourself up, now." Syria leaned on her staff and looked on intently.


"This is as slow as I can go, I think," Dahnae said flatly, growing distant from the conversation from her introspection. A version of herself where her thoughts were buffetted by indecision and uncertainty was an alien, disconcerting thing to the girl. It was as potent a shock to her system as a housecat wandering into the vast, open world, unknowing and unprepared.

Firel watched as Dahnae's worry over slowness became a subtle anxiety.

[Hopeflower]

The young psychomancer shrugged again, more easily. "You might surprise yourself one day." He took another bite of breakfast, wondering if this counted as the strangest conversation - and meal - he'd ever had with someone. It came close, but he supposed the day Viho had taken them out for lunch with Dahnae stuck as an ocelot had been weirder.

[C S]

Dahnae nearly sank in her seat. "Nuh uh," said the jungle girl with a shake of her head that had her chin turned up at the end of it. Even with her conviction set, she was still anxious. Her leg tingled with the urge to tap her foot, and she could feel her body coming loose. Things were in-between changes, and a familiar twinge in her ears told her they were just about to turn long and tufted.

She picked up her fork, opened her mouth wide and shoved the bun in.

Astonishingly, Dahnae kept he whole thing tucked in a cheek and began chewing.

[Hopeflower]

Firel wrinkled his nose at the display, but left her in peace to eat for the moment. The gods only knew what he'd do if she started talking with her mouth that full. His usual temper was beginning to stir, threatening to rear its head, and he firmly stamped it down. Dahnae meant well in all of this, even if her table manners could use some work.

[C S]

To her credit, and the ease of Firel's nerves, Dahnae did not even try. Occupying her mind with eating did well to settle her nerves for the brief duration of the silence, but it was brief. The reason why made itself apparent when Dahnae put her fork in the box to pull out another bun. When she went to take a mouthful, a more reasonable one at that, Firel was privy to a jaw lined with many sharp, very inhuman teeth. Dahnae kept her ears as they were, but something had to give.

[The Kingpin]

The young elf, at this point confident she could carry herself with little trouble, didn't hesitate to do as she was instructed. She remembered how Syria herself rode the staff in an urban location; side-saddle, and did the same. It was almost natural, so frequently had she ridden this same staff as a passenger, yet it was also surreal to be the power behind the instrument this time. It sunk a bit when she first sat down on it, the elf not wanting to send it flying upwards from under her by overcompensating. It soon evened out again however, once she was used to her own weight and how much she needed to exert to counteract it. Before long, she was hovering in place, her boots two feet off the ground, and her face curled into a wide, excited grin. She was flying!

[C S]

"I think you could do with this more than myself right now," said the self-taught mage. In about the same amount of time it took the words to leave her mouth, she undid the fasteners of her hat with her green glow and moved to place it upon Beshayir's head. The laces came around under her chin and looped about with each other, tying a neat bow. The lenses of the affixed goggles sat over Beshayir's eyes, and Syria couldn't help but think back on days long ago. Was this how she looked like when she finally stopped bumping into tree branches in the jungle? Possibly.