Open Post: This Is Where The Magic Happens

[rememberettersberg]

A new notice has appeared on the welcome table and at several well-traversed locations around the mansion and its grounds. It invites residents to stop by a certain summer house (which has recently sprung into existence on the shore of the lake) if they are interested in the discussion and/or instruction of magic.

Should anyone's curiosity take them in that direction, they'll find Nightingale there with a pot of tea always on the go and a rotating selection of snacks and nibbles. He's started to cultivate (heh) a small library of his own - important texts in the history of his magical tradition, textbooks for the study of a number of dead/archaic languages, and a growing pile of his own notes.

He'll be delighted to catalogue the differences (and similarities) in the way various worlds practice magic, conduct experiments to see if they can use each other's traditions, and (in the case of Laertes and anyone else that seems like they might be a fit candidate) begin some basic magical instruction.

Closed.

Comments

[timebethine]

The force of attention required for this work is excruciating. Time and again, Laertes opens and closes his hand, but his mind slips away to some other subject--the declension of lux, the inscription on his ring, the sound of the tea kettle singing. The forma grows clearer the way a sore tooth grows clearer when probed with a curious tongue.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad isn't looking for Nightingale on purpose -- he's just wandering by the lakeside, with a book about Welsh flora, looking to see whether he recognizes any of the plants growing by the water's edge. There are tall phragmites turning to fluff, which he trails his hands through, and celandine down in the mud, and pickerelweed, which he's never seen before.

When he sees the summer house, and recognizes that it's new, he comes to the door and looks in curiously. Although he's nowhere near as miserable as he has been, he still gives a faint sense that he's haunting a place, dressed in white and pale as a ghost at the window

[rememberettersberg]

Nightingale nods, jotting a few things down. "The specifics may be different, but I see many similarities between our practices. I suspect we would be able to learn each other's methods."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji appears faintly startled, but only for a moment, his features smoothing again afterward. It is difficult to imagine a man older than himself learning to cultivate for the first time, but then, many of his assumptions have been turned on their heads recently. "Do you meditate?"

[rememberettersberg]

Eventually, Nightingale claps him companionably on the shoulder and steps away to make a fresh pot of tea. "It might not feel like it, but progress is being made," he tells Laertes cheerfully.

"We'll take a break now, then I'd like you to continue trying for the next couple of hours without me demonstrating for you. You can stay here or go wherever feels comfortable - just be sure to have water nearby. A common beginner mistake is to produce heat as well as light and you'll need something to douse your hand if that happens."

He pours them both tea, making Laertes' strong and sweet without discussion. He'll need the energy boost. "This first spell is the most difficult to achieve. Nothing concrete may happen for a good while yet. Until it does, practice for several hours a day and come back to see me every day or two so that we might refresh your memory of the forma."

[timebethine]

He takes the tea without complaint, and although it's sweeter than he had expected--he prefers to take bitter coffee with Sagramore--he appreciates the way the milk cuts through the sharpness. "How long did it take you, to make your first light?" he asks.

[rememberettersberg]

Nightingale is used to a housekeeper who announces herself exclusively with eerie silent lurking. He looks up from his book almost immediately and smiles in an encouraging sort of way.

"Ah, hello," he says, then hesitates, unsure what name to use. He recalls that Claudius had mentioned Laurel as well as the two he was already familiar with. "What should I call you?" he asks at last, gentle.

[rememberettersberg]

"Meditate?" He laughs a little, shaking his head. "I can't say that I do." He looks as though he'd like to leave it at that, but admits, "my mind is not a quiet place."

[rememberettersberg]

"I honestly don't recall." He grins. "I was eleven years old and it was more than a hundred years ago." He does know it was far quicker than average, but it doesn't feel right to mention at this point. "My apprentice, Peter, took several weeks. And has progressed remarkably well ever since."

[timebethine]

Laertes eyes him up and down with new admiration. He'd noted in passing that Nightingale was handsome, a distinguished older man much to his tastes; now, that handsomeness seems less luck than miracle. "More than a hundred years! What salt or wine do you sleep in, that you should be so well-preserved?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"Galahad," he says, after a slight pause. "Galahad again."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji sobers, if that is even possible. "Meditation is essential for cultivation." He watches the glassily dark surface of his tea, and takes another experimental sip. "Meditation allows for the gathering of qi and the formation of a golden core."

[rememberettersberg]

"It's as much a mystery to me as to anyone else," he admits, shrugging. "I reached almost seventy aging in the usual way and then slowly began to grow younger. I think the process has finished now, I've looked like this for some time."

[rememberettersberg]

"I can understand that." Different routes to the same state of mind, where the energy is there for the taking. "What is a golden core?"

[lightbearinglord]

In order to demonstrate, Lan Wangji sets his teacup down. He hovers a hand over his own abdomen, indicating roughly the location of his lower dantian. "A store of qi required to pass a certain level of cultivation. The body is used as a crucible to forge the core. High cultivation is impossible without one." His own burns, steady and bright, at all times, feeding his spiritual power.

[rememberettersberg]

"You're welcome to come in, Galahad. There's tea in the pot and some nibbles strewn about the place." A slightly awkward pause. "Are you well?" Nightingale feels very guilty for not following up on the memory situation properly.

[rememberettersberg]

"That's fascinating." He reaches for his cane, leant casually against the wall behind him, and holds it aloft for Lan Wangji's inspection. "I think this would be my equivalent. The metal core is forged by magic and imbued with the same. It allows me to channel much more energy than my own body could handle."

[lightbearinglord]

Although his posture is always straight, Lan Wangji manages to give the impression of straightening further to inspect the cane, intent and interested. He is quiet as he studies it, and then he asks, "What happens if it is destroyed?" Keeping the store of power outside of one's body strikes him as dangerous.

[timebethine]

"Are you subject to other mortal wracks? Disease, or wounding?"

[rememberettersberg]

"Nothing terrible. The power within dissipates and the staff itself becomes mundane. It's more of a... a conduit, I suppose, between the practictioner and the great unknown, though it does store much magic within." If Lan Wangji touches the staff, he might find it to be humming with energy and the melange of sensations that signify Nightingale's magic - metronomic ticking, rough fabric, fresh mown grass, and behind all of that, the fierce heat and clanging percussion of the forge.

[rememberettersberg]

"I was shot last year," he says, unconsciously touching a spot underneath his collarbone. "Not for the first time, so I do have some basis for comparison. I was struck down and recovered in the usual human way of things."

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." Lan Wangji does, then, touch two careful fingertips to the cane. He shuts his eyes for the space of a moment and considers the feeling of that energy. "A golden core is not easily destroyed, but it is irreplaceable." Save for extreme extenuating circumstances, but that is not his story to tell.

[timebethine]

"I'm glad of it. Not that you were shot," Laertes hastens to add, "but that you recovered."

He finishes his tea, then sets the cup aside and bows. "My thanks, Nightingale. I'll practice as diligently as ever I may, and hope to vindicate your faith in me."

[rememberettersberg]

"Perhaps, then, our traditions are too far apart after all." Nightingale smiles. "Thank you for indulging my curiosity nonetheless."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji sits back. "My interest is undiminished." If they cannot teach one another the practical applications, then so be it. The theory is still potentially fascinating.