Summary: Cerin investigates further Innocence's unusual Essence-wielding capabilities.
XP:C1, S1
< A Hole In Your Mind | Sol Invictus Logs | Any Questions >
Spring approaches the door to Innocence's room as quietly as he can. ::I think she may still be sleeping,:: he thinks to Cerin, standing a few feet away. He knocks softly.
Innocence There is no immediate response from the chamber within.
Spring ::Maybe we should come back later.::
Cerin ::Does she normally sleep this late?:: he questions, as he idly listens for the sound of anyone breathing within the room.
Spring ::It varies. She was working on some Charms until quite late last night.::
Spring begins tiptoeing away.
Innocence Cerin can hear steady breathing loud and clear within the room.
Cerin ::She does indeed appear to be asleep::
Spring ::I am sorry to take your time for no purpose.::
Innocence Cerin suddenly hears a shift in the breathing rhythm.
Cerin ::Oh, no. It does appear that she is waking:: He knocks lightly on the door once more.
Spring glances back with a certain look of dismay on his face.
Innocence "...hold on just a second," a faint voice says from within the room.
Cerin is content to hold on just a second.
Spring is less content but sees no useful alternative and does so.
Innocence After a long moment, Innocence opens the door, her eyes visibly still a little sleepy but her hair entirely unmussed, and her outfit -- a simple white robe, trimmed in gold, blue, and black -- falling elegantly around her as if it had been designed only for such a purpose. "Hi."
Spring "Good morning."
Spring "This is my friend, Cerin the Wolf. Cerin, Innocence."
Innocence "Hi, Cerin," she says, and blinks once. "Would you like to come in?"
Cerin "Greetings, Innocence," he says with a respectful nod. "I would, yes," he says with a small smile.
Innocence steps back and lets the Solars step into her room. It is just barely appointed in any way; a simple bed, table, and chairs fill a part of the room's relatively sizeable floor, while mostly empty shelves are just slightly used to hold a few basic tools, three books, two changes of clothes, and a large number of pieces of fruit.
Cerin is doing his best not to stare at the essence as he steps into the room after her, taking a seat in one of the chairs.
Spring takes a seat as well, picking up a piece of fruit, then glancing at it uneasily.
Innocence "So... what brings you here this morning?" She casually brushes her hair over her shoulder and selects an apple, which she begins to eat with relish.
Innocence Cerin's eyes play over Innocence in what, from any other viewer, would be the most casual of glances... but for one with the perceptive abilities of the Wolf, is far, far more.
Innocence What he learns from even that brief, cursory glance is already quite unusual.
Innocence Where normally his sight allows Cerin to see the unique Essence codes that identify every being by their precise extraction and state of empowerment, here the code for "human" is qute clear -- but the space describing the nature of her Exaltation is filled with null value, like a ledger zeroed out after all business is concluded.
Innocence Where with most Exalts, Cerin's eyes could measure the precise delays between motonic actions, chart the resistance potentials of the inner cyclical structures, count the free-flowing motes within the system in order to gain a rough estimate of just how powerfully the target might command Essence,
Innocence here Cerin sees only a free-flowing system with almost nothing in the way of resistances at all, and motes seemingly appearing and disappearing as needed throughout the motonic system.
Innocence Where normally Cerin would survey out discrete structures of Essence, motes hardened into patterns worn into the universe through repetition and force of sentient will, and model the reaction their shape might evoke in the outside world to learn the nature of an Exalt's current Charm use, here Cerin sees tiny flashes of fluid Essence motion that slip in and out of being at a moment's subconscious notice:
Innocence a tiny swirl of Essence righting a misplaced strand of hair here, a brief localized aura amplifying the crispness and juiciness of the apple at the exact moment of a bite there, a tiny audible glamer that seems to warn Innocence just as a rock is about to roll from her shelf so that she can turn,
Innocence seemingly unconcerned, and let a momentary flit of agile magic bend her hand into just the right place to catch it...
Innocence All this from but a cursory glance, of course.
Spring ::Any thoughts?::
Cerin It is perhaps fortunate for Cerin that his quite immune to surprise, or the cursary glance would have turned into flat out staring within moments. As it is, he manages to watch it all with a sense of wonder. ::She is ... interesting.::
Cerin ::How hard have you pushed her?::
Spring ::I have not put her in danger.::
Cerin "Spring asked if I would like to meet you," he says, his voice betraying signs of excitement, an excitement which is also leaking out into the Unity he shares with Zahara.
Innocence "Oh." She looks over at Spring. "That was nice of him."
Spring "I am glad you find it so."
Innocence finishes her apple, and the core seems to vanish from her hand as if it was never there. "So, now that you've met me, Cerin the Wolf, what do you think?"
Cerin "That you have given me much to think about before I can even begin to answer that question," he says, after a few moments thought. ::You saw that, Spring? She is not using charms.::
Spring ::I saw that I could not see her charms.::
Spring ::If you say that they are not there I will trust your judgement.::
Spring ::What, then, does she do?::
Cerin ::She uses Essence.::
Spring ::Yes, but how?::
Innocence giggles very slightly at Cerin's statement. "And I have yet to learn basically anything about you!"
Cerin ::Directly. Hmm, how to explain ...::
Cerin "What can you tell by what you can see, with essence or without?"
Innocence looks at Cerin with a rather adorable look of fierce determination.
Cerin ::Ah, yes. A charm is like one of your martial arts kicks or throws. It is a specific series of movements, codified and passed down, moving through well plotted channels in reality. She merely attacks, as it were.::
Spring ::Hmm.::
Spring ::A natural.::
Cerin ::Or perhaps just a beginner. It is hard to judge at the moment. But she has no channels to move within.::
Innocence "Well," she says, and Cerin sees the momentary flashes of Essence move from her eyes back into her head as she moves from seeing to speaking. "You're wearing clothes that you wear often, but you could still be more comfortable in them; you'd probably prefer a uniform, something more constraining -- or freeing? I'm not sure how you'd take it."
Spring ::If she were a beginner, her manipulations would fail constantly...as indeed they did when I first began to instruct her.::
Cerin ::I meant that in the cosmological sense::
Innocence "Most of your jewelry came from the same person, but not at the same time, so I'd guess you're pretty serious about them!" She leans forward and takes Cerin's collar with two fingers, bending it forward so she can see the reverse side.
Innocence "Your pins are placed very precisely, so they must say something pretty important about you... but they're super old, so it must be something important that you picked up from someone else..."
Innocence She furrows her brow for a moment. "And they look like they're used regularly, and you've got them on your casual clothes, so it's either something you're very proud of or something you consider a necessary burden. Hmmm. Maybe a bit of each."
Spring watches her with interest and a bit of pride.
Innocence She sits back and crosses her arms as if extremely satisfied with her performance thus far. "A sun, a flower, and a blade," she says, "so... some kind of gardener?" She laughs.
Cerin x1;ACTION has been watching, and listening of course, to Innocence as she completes her investigations, watching the motes as they flicker and move, mentally comparing them to both Varanim and Ahina as they investigated things. Mostly though, he is comparing them to how they looked at the start of the exercise, watching if they get more or less defined, if she follows similar patterns towards the end of the investigation, once she has tried t
Cerin once she has tried to read several things. He is smiling faintly in approval at how much she has read. "I do enjoy gardening, yes. That is not the reason for the pins, however."
Innocence 's patterns are quite different from anything Cerin recognizes from Varanim and Ahina's investigations. In fact, the pattern seems almost reversed: where the others would select an approach and then power through until it yielded results, Innocence's strategy seems very much to go with the flow, and even from the beginning to the end of her litany the motes seem to have shifted noticeably in arrangement.
Innocence She laughs in admittance of defeat on Cerin's statement. "Oh, well! I was close, right?"
Cerin "Fairly close, yes. It is not a garden that I tend to, though."
Innocence "No? Well, I'm sure I'll find out eventually," she says, and giggles again. "Thanks for bringing him by, Spring, this is fun."
Spring "I am glad you enjoy it," Spring smiles.
Cerin "I am sure you will," he nods. "What other things can you do with your essence, though, beyond finding things about about my clothing?"
Innocence "Well, I've been practicing," she says, and nods. "So... I guess... different things, really." She looks over at the fruit. "I'm the best at exploding oranges, though."
Cerin laughs, amused. "This I would very much like to see."
Innocence She stands up and adopts a battle-ready stance. "C'mon. Toss one."
Cerin stands himself, and picks an orange up, smoothly tossing it towards her.
Innocence The orange explodes into a fine orange mist in midair, and Innocence fist-pumps in celebration.
Cerin There is already another one in the air as she is fist pumping, as Cerin watches.
Innocence Innocence strikes out her other fist as she sees the orange and a ripple of energy flows out from her arm directly into the airborne fruit, exploding it too -- but in a very slightly different way than the first one.
Cerin nods to himself, and then wraps himself very slightly in concealing essence. Before he throws two oranges at once. As he throws them, he's watching for both signs of tiring and to see if there is any pattern in the motes.
Innocence brings her arms out straight in front of her, fingers and hands outstretched, emitting what seems to be an invisible Essence wave of orange-detonation that destroys both citruses as they pass through it. At least thus far, there's no real evidence that she's grown more tired, or any strong pattern to the motes beyond that necessary to accomplish the tasks it sets out to do.
Cerin "Your skill at destroying oranges is indeed without compare," he conceeds. "May I try throwing something at you a little more exciting than an orange?"
Innocence grins lopsidedly. "Sure!"
Spring ::Be careful.::
Cerin "If you fail to stop this, it will hurt and perhaps bruise, but nothing more. Still okay with that?"
Cerin ::I am rarely not.::
Innocence "Sounds good."
Spring eats his fruit worriedly.
Cerin then sketches the arc of a bow into the air with one hand as he draws back a shining mote with the other, sending the arrow of essence flying towards her.
Innocence gulps in surprise, and seemingly without thinking grabs another one of the oranges from where it rests right near her hand and in a single fluid motion -- not belied by the surprised expression still on her face -- tosses it so that it knocks the Essence arrow out of its path, sending its golden motes spinning off obliquely to the side.
Spring catches the orange and glances at it, then Innocence, with a bemused expression.
Innocence shrugs
Cerin "Very good. What would you have done had there not been an orange nearby?"
Innocence blinks. "Umm. I'm not sure." She looks up for a moment, thinking. "Blocked it with my hair, maybe?"
Cerin "You wouldn't try to explode it?"
Innocence "Well, it's made out of light, right? I don't know if light can explode or not."
Cerin "Most people do not consider the explosive properties of oranges, either."
Innocence shrugs. "I guess that's probably true."
Cerin "Would you like to try and block a second one, this time without employing oranges?"
Innocence "Okay. Sure. Yeah. Let's do it."
Cerin sketches another arc of essence in the air, and sends another diffuse mote of essence hurtling towards her.
Innocence This time, Innocence makes a weird gesture with her left hand in the path of the arrow, and its flight path seems to distort, causing it to miss her entirely and thud harmlessly into the wall beside her.
Cerin "Interesting technique," he nods. "Would you like to try and make me explode?"
Innocence blinks. "That... wouldn't be very nice," she says. After a moment: "And it would make a mess."
Cerin "I am reasonably certain I can evade your attempts to do so, without making a mess of things."
Innocence narrows her eyes. "Ooo...kay. Don't blame me if this goes wrong, please!" She squints "menacingly" at Cerin and waves her hands in front of her ooga-booga style, and within a moment Cerin is exploding.
Cerin watches her form her attack with interest, taking note of the ways the motes flow and shift, curious especially as to if it is in any way influence by the fact that it is him, and not some orange that is exploding. And then deftly (and metaphorically) sidesteps the consequences of being exploded.
Innocence "Hm, that's funny," she says. "I definitely exploded you."
Spring "Yes. Good...work."
Cerin "Indeed you did."
Innocence grins.
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