rogueinladysclothing | A turn of magical events [Tagging Viatorus]

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A turn of magical events [Tagging Viatorus]

It’s late when the text message arrives. Sometime after Midnight, if Viatorus can make out the clock on his phone through sleep-laden eyes.

I did it. I did it!

A few minutes later, a second text message follows up the first.

Are you awake? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. But if you’re up, can I see you? I need to show you!

Normally, Amelia would be much more respectful of someone’s sleep schedule, but tonight is not a night for that. Not now that she’s used magic, not now that she’s figured out how to keep from burning her notebook to ashes while she writes down everything she’s thinking and feeling in the moments the magic happens. Viatorus encouraged her to learn, to face her fears, and now she wants to show him that she has.

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"Good." There's encouragement in that one small word, gentle, upbeat. "Can you feel... an energy? Inside you, buzzing near the surface, perhaps? Making your nerves tingle or the pit of your stomach feel strange?"

"Ahh..." Her brow furrows a bit as she shifts her focus from her breathing to what's actually happening inside of her. That strange electric, almost buzzing sensation he spoke of is present and all at once it's almost too much for her to handle as she tunes into it. Her fingers tingle in an almost painful way and her arms shake under the added strain of keeping still and pushing through the pain. Breathing becomes more of a chore, but she fights to stay calm. She can do this. She has to.

"I-I can feel it - the tingling - and it... it hurts. Why does it hurt...?"

Viatorus frowns. Hard.

"It shouldn't hurt." The honest truth as far as he knows it. He resists the urge to take charge and try an energy exchange or to personally help. Instead he tries to get them back on track. "Step away from it. Leave it alone, leave it be. Focus on your breathing again. On your muscles and bones."

Breathing. Focus on breathing. She can do that. "I'll try."

Relaxing, at this point, isn't happening. Being that she's so good at lying to herself, Amelia attempts to focus on her breathing and convince herself that it doesn't hurt, that it's just a new sensation and nothing more. Her face scrunches in pain for a few moments longer before she's able to push past the worst of it. The feeling is still strange, but at least it's not so noticeably painful anymore. As it subsides, she tries to relax herself again, but it's not nearly as effective this time around.

Slowly, she smooths out the features of her face, but there's still a hint of pain in the way she clenches her jaw a little too tightly. "I'm... I'm all right." Not quite, Amelia. Try again. "I'll be okay." Better.

The frown only gets deeper. It's a sign of how unused to this she is that she acts as if he can't feel it. A swell of irritation washes through him, but subsides just as quickly. He hates that she lies to him, to herself, so easily and so frequently, so adamantly. But part of the swell of energy isn't his, he knows it. Pushing it aside, he continues on.

"I want you to focus on the earth. The ground underneath us, the ground that the soil in your hands came from. Feel it, connect with it. It's vast, and stable, and calm." He waits only a second. "I want you to imagine the light of your magic connecting with the earth. Feel how it feels. Learn from it."

Even with her eyes closed and no way of sensing what he's feeling, she knows he's frustrated - and she knows why. She's heard all of the things people say about her behind her back thousands of times over.

She's too hard on herself. She's too focused on others. She's never happy. She always assumes and acts on the worst instincts. She's selfish, rash, immature, and a general pain to even be around.

She understands and sees all of it.

...but that doesn't make it easier to push away from it.

Here, now, though, she wants to, more than she ever has before. For him, she'll stop fighting herself and actually try.

She takes a slow, deep breath and focuses first on the dirt in her hands, then slowly moves her thoughts on to the ground beneath the apartment they're in. No need to worry about where exactly the dirt came from, only the ground itself. She tries to tap into that stability he spoke of, to use it for herself. It's an odd exercise, but she slowly feels something inside of her change. The tingling subsides, though it doesn't entirely fade. What pain there was fades away completely and she finally relaxes again as it all starts to feel... normal, in a sense.

Still, she wants to make sure she's not completely messing this up. "How do I know if I'm doing this right?"

The smallest smile breaks the seriousness of his unhappy thoughts. How familiar that question feels. It reminds him of younger days hoping to master his techniques and impress his tutors. He's a little kinder that they were.

"You'll know," he assures her. Clearing his throat a little, he nods. "Trust yourself. Do you feel like you're doing it right?"

She opens her mouth to question him further when she thinks better of it. Her focus shifts back to the dirt in her hands and she slowly realizes that tingling has completely faded away from her. It's not gone, but has moved into the dirt instead. Everything feels easier now, much more controlled. No more pain, no more struggles. It's all comfortable without being overly so.

There's something else tugging at the edge of her understanding that she can't quite place. Her mind senses... something outside of herself, but she isn't sure what. Her brow furrows momentarily as she tries to parse it, but any frustration she might feel fades away under a sudden wave of exhaustion as everything normalizes inside of her. She sways heavily to one side, struggling to stay upright.

"I think I must be doing it right," she says with a small laugh. "I don't feel out of control anymore and I'm tired as hell."

"Good." Encouragement seeps back into his voice again. Gentle coaxing now that they've gotten somewhere more productive. "I want you to do it for as long as you want. As long as you feel the need to. You'll know when you're finished."

A pause before he quietly continues, "And then I want you to focus on your breathing, on your body again."

There isn't much more of her left to give to all of this, but she keeps her focus on the ground until she's certain she's about to pass out. When she pulls back from that, she finds the exhaustion is still there, but less present, as if she'd really left something behind in the earth in her hands. It feels more like she remembers exhaustion feeling, more normal, and that makes her feel a little better about all of this.

When she's back to focusing on her breathing, she nods slightly in his direction. "I'm all right now."

"Good," he repeats again gently. "When you're ready, in your own time, you can open your eyes and put the earth back into the box. Then you're done."

He'll wait for her to follow his instructions before he says anything else. It's only once she's opened her eyes and looks more present that he smiles. "How are you feeling?"

Slowly, Amelia opens her eyes and looks up at him. After giving him a tired smile, she places the dirt still in her hands back into the box and then shifts so that she isn't sitting on her feet anymore.

"Better. Much better." She gives him another small smile before covering her mouth as she yawns. No need to mention that she's tired - that much is obvious. "Thank you, for helping me."

"It's the least I could do. I'm just glad I could help."

His smile widens and he gets to his knees in a clunky, awkward fashion that's only made worse by how lanky he is. Once he's up, though, he offers her a hand. "The spare bedroom is just through here. It has an en suite that you can use. And if, somehow, you set something on fire accidentally, my wards will wake me up and tell me, so I can help."

Normally she'd push herself to her feet, but the hand up is a necessary thing right now. She tries not to pull on him too much when she takes his hand and gets to her feet, but it's hard not to cause him to stumble a little. He's not exactly as strong as she is, after all, and her exhaustion only adds to how she handles her own weight.

"Hopefully it won't come to that," she says with a sheepish smile. As she takes a few steps toward the guest room, she motions for him to be on his way to his own room for the night. "Go get some sleep, Viatorus. I can manage until the morning. Promise." No lies this time, because she's certain she's about to pass out in all of her clothes. "Good night."

He'd mention that he has to tidy up except he's fairly certain she'd insist on helping him. Instead he fidgets and nods. "I will. Good night, Amelia."

And then he'll wait for her to leave before tidying up the few things needed for their ritual. It's not long before he's heading to his own room to get some rest.

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A turn of magical events [Tagging Viatorus]

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