Welcome to Gaia! ::

Lancaeriel nodded again. "If you would like, I can look through some of my books and notes," she offered. "I know I've done something like that before, though it has been a while, admittedly."

She laughed softly. "Still."

As she recalled, it was all about connections ...

Lancaeriel pursed her lips as she thought about how to explain it.

"Not ... enchanting an object, no," she said slowly. "It's manipulating the connection between two or more objects."

She stepped away from the house and took a seat on the ground next to Miyuki, tucking her skirts close around her legs comfortably.

"Think of it this way," she began. "Everything, living and dead, has a relationship with everything about it. The more obvious connections are those we recognize as our senses: appearance, smell, sound, feel, and taste. They aren't the most common, but they are the ones we use to describe things around us. But there are many more types of connections, more than we could ever imagine."

She paused again to think of some examples. "Such as ... well, magnetism, or ... electricity. They're not well understood and most people dismiss them as fancy, but they are real, and how they work depends on the relations between two objects. And most connections are not static, they're constantly changing, or trying to change."

She blinked and looked at Miyuki. "Are you with me so far?" she asked cautiously.

Lancaeriel nodded and resumed her explanation.

"Everything has some kind of connection, whether it's attraction, repulsion, or indifference," she went on. "Arrows and quivers, wood and leather ... they have a relationship of indifference towards each other. Most would say no connection whatsoever, but they are not me."

She grinned. "Permit me to read up on my old notes, and I will help you with the manipulation, shall I?"

"Absolutely," Lancaeriel beamed. She rose to her feet again and brushed off her skirt. "I think I'll take my books to the park today, it's such a beautiful day. Perhaps by lunch I'll have what you're looking for."

There were a few hours before then, after all.

As Miyuki had suspected, Lancaeriel had indeed lost all track of time, and she was sitting in the park on the grass near some children playing ball, her books and notebooks open on the ground in front of her. There was only a slight breeze, but her papers, made of a heavy vellum, were not blowing around.

The noise of the activities around her didn't seem to bother her in the least: indeed, it seemed as though she didn't even hear any of it. She was attracting curious looks, but no one bothered her, either too shy or else recognizing that she was busy.

Lancaeriel sensed Miyuki's approach, so when the girl spoke it didn't startle her. She simply smiled and looked up from her reading.

"Lunch," she repeated softly, as if waking from a dream. She took a deep breath, exhaling it in a sigh, and then laughed. "Oh, Miyuki, what would I do without you? Honestly, you look after me just as well as my husband always did. He would always bring me meals, make sure I didn't forget to eat ..."

She trailed off, reminiscing, until she remembered where and when she was, and then she smiled again. "Are you going to join me?" she asked, closing up her books again.

"Well, thank you," Lancaeriel giggled. She stacked her books together, and then she turned her full attention to the basket Miyuki had brought.

"By the way," she added, opening a napkin and spreading it on her lap, "I think I've found what you were looking for. A way to have the arrows return to the quiver after they've left it."

She paused, her expression turning solemn. "There is a catch, though ..."

Lancaeriel waited until Miyuki was finished setting out the food before she reached for a fresh-from-the-oven-that-morning bun.

"You would have to choose a period of time to elapse before the arrow returns to its quiver," she replied. "Too short a time, and it may return before ever hitting its target, especially if the shooter is trying to simply threaten someone and prevent a fight from taking place. Too long a time, and they will run out of arrows before the first ones begin to return."

She reached for a knife and cut the bun in half so that she could add some of the cuts of meat and cheese.

"There is another option, a more practical one in my opinion," she added before taking a bite of the bun.