Welcome to Gaia! ::

Character: Casseth
Stage: Apprentice
Luck: 19 (+12)
Creature: Kiandri Dragon x 6 | Peisio Dragon x 5 | Aiskala Dragon x 1 (Rolled a 100)
Success Rate: 6 - 100

Win x 6: (25 x 6)/2 = 75 exp
Win x 5: (35 x 5)/2 = (87.5) = 88 exp
Win x 1: (40 x 1)/2 = 20 exp

Total: 183 exp + 12 LUK, gains 11 levels (level 23) with 0 exp left, + 6 kiandri orbs, + 5 peisio orbs, + 1 aiskala orb

Lithian sat still, thumb already poised at the corner of the next page in his book, absently fingering the tip as his eyes scanned the text. Warm sun beat down on him from the side, its neutral yellow light glinting white off of his loose, pastel blue hair — down, for once, since he was taking the time out to read and not intending to go out anytime soon — and the sounds of the market were a distant, easy-to-ignore hum of activity.

He’d spent the early morning with his mother. Training, because though his choice to take the battler’s path had startled her, she insisted that, as a battler, he would know well how to defend himself and work his strength every day. Thoughts of Casseth and the events of the previous day flit often through his mind during that training session and after it. Watching his mother bend the earth and sling it — swift, harsh, and unforgiving — at him as he weaved and flowed between the walls she made made him imagine his friend at every turn, wondering what levels of skill Casseth would achieve, what it would be like to watch him fight in earnest. He’d seen it once, of course, but at that point Cas had yet to even choose a weapon, and certainly not his clan yet.

After his mother concluded her training with him, she’d washed and instructed him to stay within the walls of their rented room. Though a pacifist and strong political supporter of peace, she reminded him often while they were down at the ground that all good intentions were worth nothing when faced with a knife. The place was also, in her own words, “swarming with mixed bloods” — far more so, in her opinion, than the last time she’d been down from the Plane — and the numbers worried her as far as Lith was concerned. No amount of explaining that he could take on dragons and didn’t feel he needed to worry about hybrids would have encouraged her, however — and might well have even made her more on edge, besides — so he’d said nothing, silently cringing and nodding visibly to wayleigh her fears instead.

Lithian had spent more time than he had in a long while thinking about the implications of her words. His parents were considered almost radical proponents of peace. Most would label them wildly liberal in terms of race and acceptance. Yet, to her, though they were not ‘animals’ precisely as some would label them, hybrids were still something less than proper people. A sad mistake smeared on a planet filled with those who did not understand how to control their inhibitions. Something to be pitied, but never underestimated. And something to be wary of.

Lithian frowned down at his book, realizing he’d stopped reading long ago and gotten lost again in thought, something he’d picked up the book precisely to avoid. Before he could force his mind back to the text, however, something butted up against his shoulder, and pursed his lips, raising a hand to brush over where he’d been hit. Another bump of pressure interrupted him before his fingers could even finish the action, and he blinked, startled out of his train of thought. Another tap just as his eyes landed on the perpetrator.

A rock…?

Recognition clicked seconds after confusion set in, and his face broke into an expectant smile even before he leaned full out, eyes seeking Cas on instinct. Spotting him, the smile became a grin. A moment after opening his mouth, Lithian thought better of it, pressed one finger to his lips, then held another up to indicate a moment’s wait and pointed down before slipping back inside the window, closing and locking it. A flush warmed his face, pulse already elated, and his smile refused to dip as he tucked a marker into his book, shut it and set it away. After carding his fingers once through his hair and taking a glance to the full mirror in the room and brush waiting beside it, he frowned, but eventually decided against taming it, and slipped a simple corded tie into his satchel pocket before snatching it up, fastening it and his water flasks at his waist, and heading out.

The day before had concerned him, questions like ‘What if his father forbids it?’ ‘Will he come anyway?’ ‘Will I never see him again?’ ‘Will he even inform me if he couldn’t return?’ ‘What would I do if that happened?’ plaguing his mind the full of the day. This, though. This answered those questions — or, at least the most important of them as far as Lith was concerned — and he couldn’t be more elated. After locking the door to their reserved room behind him, Lithian slipped the key back around his neck, tucking it under his tunic, and slipped out the door, immediately heading over to seek out Casseth.

When he found him waiting, he smiled broadly. “You made it. What does this mean? What did your father say? Are you in trouble? Does he know you’re here?”

Lithian smiled, all too familiar with Casseth’s plight — if in a different form — and when Cas eventually finished, his smile flashed into a brief grin.

“I know what that’s like,” he said. “When I was small, my parents would barely let me off of our property, let alone anywhere dangerous. Not that I was itching to go anywhere dangerous at the time. I was satisfied with my books, but…for you, I imagine it must be very frustrating. I’m sure he’s just worried about you. He seems very protective.”

Lithian combed his fingers through his hair absently, thinking as they walked, and then frowning as he noticed again the piles of stares they were receiving. Huffing, he let his fingers fall from his hair and hands hang at his sides.

“I’m not sure what all I could teach you,” he went on, practicing the look his mother gave to those whose opinions she did not value as he met the stares of those watching and then walked on. “I’ve received plenty of criticisms from my own teachers…but maybe between the two of us, we can learn from each other? We should get out of here first, though.” He pursed his lips, eyes on a sneering bystander. “Somewhere out of the city limits where we can have some room to ourselves and you have plenty of earth to work with.”

Lithian laughed as Casseth tugged him off and broke into a run, forgetting the onlookers in an instant in light of his friend’s good cheer. When they made it out and Casseth explained the move he wanted to learn, Lith frowned thoughtfully. Immediately, his mind flit to his own ability that he’d mastered only fairly recently — the peisio equivalent which allowed him to submerge and splice himself into the water itself, traveling at immense speeds — an ability which, while exhilarating, still intimidated him to an extent. But, for it to work, he required a full body of water. Far more than the dribble his flasks could provide.

He hummed, tilting his head and then squinting in the direction the shore would be. They were a good ways off, but they could make the walk easily enough, given they were at a port town. “There’s a rough equivalent to that in peisio magic,” Lith said at length, “but if I’m going to demonstrate it, I need a body of water in the same way you need the earth. We could walk down to the shore if you like?”

He worked to keep the giddiness out of his voice in case Casseth didn’t feel like it, but mostly failed. It had been too long since he’d last gone swimming, and just the thought made him eager.

“It’ll be a lot easier to exercise most all of my abilities there, really…not surprisingly.” He grinned sheepishly. “Plus it’s an excuse to get wet. Up for a walk?”

Lithian blinked, thrown off by Casseth’s apparent shift from eager enthusiasm to wary concern. “You’re sure…?” he asked after an extended pause. A part of him wanted nothing more than to exploit the chance to go swimming among other things, but he hadn’t anticipated Casseth’s nervous, almost on edge response and didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, though he couldn’t fathom why it would.

Casseth waved off the question though and nodded, insisting that it was fine when Lith asked again, and eventually, they started off. By the time they made it to the seaside, Lithian’s enthusiasm had returned almost in full, and he grinned, spreading his arms widely and breathing in the sea breeze deep, holding it in his lungs and shutting his eyes. The ocean was still, in comparison to the full span of his life, a relatively new experience, but one he loved dearly. Like lakes and rivers, he felt at peace with the sea in a way that compared to few other things.

After a long moment spent purely taking in the atmosphere, he hastened to unbuckle and pull off his boots, stockings, belt — along with his flasks and vials — and virtually all the garments above his waist. Vest, top, and gloves he folded gently before placing them atop his boots and belt and then grinning to Cas.

“Come on,” he baited lightheartedly as he took several casual steps backwards across the hot sand towards where the sea was rolling in, crashing gently up over the beach. “It’s far too hot here for so many clothes anyway.” As soon as his heels felt the wet rush of an incoming wave rush up against them and then up, over and past his toes, Lithian’s grin broadened, turning playful. “That, and if you don’t in a moment…” He dipped his stance, flicking his hands out to his sides in a now almost instinctive position as he crouched, gripping to live pull and push of the ocean behind him and then raising up, taking two large snakes of coiling water up with him and leaving them to hover. “I’ll get you all wet.”

Lithian laughed, and then sank his stance again, eyeing Cas calculatingly and readying himself at the challenge in his friend’s words. “I’m sure you can try,” he responded.

With a swift pivot at the waist and an outward draw and curve of his palms, he brought the two undulating pillars of water out in opposite directions, then in, towards either side of Cas.

Lith opened his mouth, smiling and about to comment when Casseth reached for his shirt and started to unbutton it. Whatever Lith might have said froze pre-emptively in his throat. Heat blossoming in his cheeks, Lithian’s tongue refused to budge, and he coughed instead, only belatedly managing to drag his eyes away.

What was the big deal?

He was already shirtless, and gods knew he understood what a guy’s chest looked like. Perhaps it was simply that he’d never seen Casseth so exposed before? Was it even natural to feel embarrassed over such a thing?

Lithian shoved his thoughts away, stamping them out before he could overthink them and dig himself an even deeper mental trench. “I, uh…” He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. But yeah, you um…” His eyes flicked over Casseth’s dark, coal grey skin. Then, he diverted them again. “No problem. You don’t have to. I’ll, er…I’ll just try to demonstrate that move, shall I? Yeah, I’ll um…I’ll do that…”

Mentally cursing his tongue’s ineptitude and forcibly ignoring the increasingly hot burn in his cheeks, he waded further out, and shut his eyes, focussing as best he could on the warm, wet lapping of the ocean against his waist and not a variety of other thoughts that had no business taking up so much of his concentration to begin with.

The ocean.

Push.

Pull.

Flow.

“I only recently figured out how to even do this myself,” Lithian said, feeling as though that disclaimer needed to be thrown out there. “It took me a good while before I got it. But I always found it easiest to perform when I could relate myself to my element. Feel it, what makes it up, and then balance my magic inside my body and pinch them together. It’s almost the opposite of bending your element to your will in some ways. Instead of finding the water — or earth, in your case I suppose — and then gripping it with your magic and manipulating it as you please, you’re convincing yourself and your magic that you are your element. Your physical body is the water — it is the earth — to be manipulated, and then using your magic on your physical self and throwing it into the body of your element in nature.”

Lithian drew a slow breath, spreading his arms to his sides and letting his fingertips rest, like the legs of a water bug, just on the surface of the rippling ocean. One. Breathe the ocean. Feel it. Know it. Be it. Two. Locate your magic. Own it. Use it. Three. He plucked with his magic, focusing its energy entirely on his physical self and shuddering as he felt his body ripple, fading out of sight and melting like an ice statue turned liquid in a moment’s notice.

He sank into the sea, feeling everything like his senses had multiplied a thousand fold: the pumping pulse of a beating fish’s gills, the twitch of a tail, the shiver of long seaweed, the way the water thinned and bubbled as it broke against the shore. The taste of sand. The touch of the sun. The sound of endless, ageless deep beyond all imagining.

And all his to travel.

It was too easy to get lost in this feeling and forget what it was like to be contained in a single shape. When he jerked himself back into his natural form, he was out of breath, though he’d gone nowhere, and had to rub his forearm to remind himself that this was what he was. By comparison, though, it always felt horribly limiting, and the temptation to lose himself indefinitely as the sea itself had teased his mind more than once before he’d manage to remind himself he had things on the earth too. Things worth being tethered to.