[EP] Progress (OTA, Corbie or Curnen)

[st_oneswidow]

It was almost December, but the day was still more than warm enough to spend outdoors. So two girls were out in the sunshine, one fair, one dark, aware and amused with each other’s efforts but not particularly paying attention to each other.

Curnen’s fingers were starting to remember what to do with a guitar, though they were still incapable of being fancy. Sitting on the lawn with Rob’s guitar in her lap, she played anything that came to mind. Her sixth fingers were a bit lost, but it did sound like music at least. It would be some time yet before she could really play again, though that didn’t bother her much. If it meant she was scraping herself back together, becoming a Tufa again, it didn’t matter. And besides, the singing was always the best part. She wasn’t sure why this song, since there was no wind and rain, but in many versions of this same song there were two girls colored rather like the two of them.

There were two sisters came walkin' down the stream
Oh the wind and rain
The one behind pushed the other one in
Cryin' oh the dreadful wind and rain

Johnny gave the youngest a gay gold ring
Oh the wind and rain
Didn't give the oldest one anything
Cryin' oh the dreadful wind and rain

Corbie meanwhile was busy setting things on fire again, but this was different fire. Or at least it was for her. She and Regina had been practicing creating fire and putting it out. She set a circle of protection around a small stone, using what she understood of Cabaline theory to keep the spell literally grounded. And then she proceeded to do her best to destroy the shit out of that rock by throwing fireballs at it. It gave her something to aim at, gave her more than one thing to practice at a time. She was getting better at aiming and her ward was holding.

She stopped only to take the ward down and set another one, larger this time, on her knees in the road with a piece of chalk.

Comments

[st_ockandbarrel]

As Percy crossed the lawn, he stopped to watch the blonde girl's work. He was not particularly knowledgeable about either music or magic, but the precision of stone circle was enough to draw his attention in a way that the lovely voice of the dark-haired woman did not.

For several minutes, he merely stood, sipping from the mug of coffee that had been the reason for leaving his room in the first place.

[st_rikingblueeyes]

It took Corbie some time to notice that she was being watched, absorbed as she was in getting her circle right. Wards, she was discovering, came to her fairly naturally. It still took a deal of focus for her to do it well. The music served one purpose she hadn't considered, providing a signal that all was well and nothing was out of place.

When she was pushing to her feet, though, that was when she caught sight of Percy. Kash had pointed him out to her, but she'd been far too shy. She began squirming almost immediately. "Uh. Hi."

[st_ockandbarrel]

"Did the rock deserve it?" Percy sipped his coffee again and walked a bit closer to examine the circle.

[st_rikingblueeyes]

That made her blush faintly. "Not exactly. Just if I screw up, rocks don't burn." She nudged herself straighter and continued. "Also it's part of the theory I was taught. Air and glass for working, gems for focus, rock for grounding, water for cleansing." And wood of course could play any of those roles, which was why Cabalines weren't fond of it. Corbie had been fascinated, though, seeing more opportunity and flexibility than fickleness.

for Corbie

[st_rummer]

Music was coming back to Curnen bit by bit, and Coby couldn't be happier about that. He did glance up at the sky for any sign the clear and sunny was on its way to being replaced with wind and rain, but things looked good. He gave her a wink, but followed his curiosity to the blonde opposite instead, not noticing when he began to hum softly along with Curnen.

He watched the cutie call up balls of fire – different from Jag's maybe, but that was just a guess – and throw them at a rock in a circle of smaller rocks inside a larger circle drawn in white. "That's a neat trick."

Re: for Corbie

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Curnen smiled in answer before returning her attention to her fingering.

Corbie's head popped up from the work she was doing redrawing the ward on the pavement. She sat back on her heels and smiled sheepishly. "Thanks? It's a fairly new one, I don't completely trust my aim yet."

Re: for Corbie

[st_rummer]

"So this is what, target practice?" Cool, and probably a better idea than trying to wing it if the need for fireballs arose. Coby wondered if she'd been at that meeting the other day for the fighter types. She looked too sweet for things like that, but looks could be deceiving.

"I knew a guy, could do all kinds of shit with fire. Turned the heat way up once when a bar fight turned nasty."

for Curnen

[st_raighttovampire]

Caroline followed the sound of the music and the singing. She didn't know the song, but she liked it. It was moody and dark, traditional in a way that felt both familiar and unfamiliar. The scene of Corbie practicing magic didn't faze Caroline and she left her to it - that was more Regina's department. Caroline's was, among other things, making sure that things didn't get too boring around here.

She still didn't know much about Curnen, which was unusual for her. So she sat down in the grass near the woman and listened to her play. When the song ended, she applauded. "Are you learning to play?"

Re: for Curnen

[st_oneswidow]

Curnen smiled and tucked a strand of her long dark hair behind her ear self-consciously. "Kinda. Relearning. My sister taught me when I was small, but it's... been a while. Lost the knack." It was true enough.

Re: for Curnen

[st_raighttovampire]

"You have a sister? Older?" Not that her younger sister couldn't have taught her but it would be strange. "I don't have any siblings. My dad's boyfriend has a daughter though, so that's something at least." Not that they were particularly close. She went to birthdays, if she could make it, but that was more for her dad than anything.

tag Corbie

[st_huntermom]

Mary turned the corner, drawn to the area from music, but when she came around the woman drawing on the ground caught her attention first. The ground around it seemed to be scorched which seemed a little weird.

"Do you... need some help?"

Re: tag Corbie

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie looked up at the question, then sat back on her heels when she realized the question was for her and not the girl with the guitar. This lady was annemer, that she'd stake money on. She looked a little puzzled. "No'm, I'm fine."

Re: tag Corbie

[st_huntermom]

"Are you sure?" Mary eyed the scorch marks again, but the girl didn't seem to be in distress.

For Corbie

[st_oriedqueen]

"Why fire against rock?" It was a typical teaching question, rather than an un-pleasantry. If anything, Regina seemed in better spirits lately, her smiles reaching further, her eyes brighter. "Excellent use of a containment circle."

Re: For Corbie

[st_rikingblueeyes]

The girl's head popped up from the work she was doing. "Rock don't burn if I fuck up," Corbie answered honestly, and only a touch cheeky. The praise had her positively glowing.

Re: For Corbie

[st_oriedqueen]

"Rock doesn't burn even if you don't 'fuck up'." Only the slightest emphasis on 'doesn't' and 'fuck up' displayed Regina's general impatience with poor grammar and coarse language during instruction (and life). Corbie had earned her respect a city and half a lifetime ago. But Regina was still Regina.

"If you wanted to destroy a rock with magic, what would you do?"

For Curnen

[st_ingofthehundred]

Kash had worn himself out with talking. Vax. Percy. Molly. Vex. Pike would happen sooner or later. Talking was exhausting at the best of times but when the one person he most wanted to talk to was the only one he couldn't (well, he could, but she wasn't answering except inside his head), it made him want to be a monk.

Since it wasn't his shift in the clinic, Snow didn't need him in the stables, someone else was minding Trink, and Kash wasn't feeling up to training Molly right now, he'd decided to go for a run. It was something he'd learned here that they didn't do at home. It helped him clear his mind.

So when he jogged near the girls on a parallel path, he wore bright green sweatpants with the Madonna Inn crest at his hip (better green than pink), and carried a t-shirt he'd pulled off rather than marinate in his own sweat. The leather cord he'd stopped wearing daily was bound around his head to keep his sweat-damp hair back, and the length of it lay braided between his shoulder blades.

He was worn out from talking, but the sun and the snatches of Curnen's song felt good on his skin.

Re: For Curnen

[st_oneswidow]

Corbie had been using the music as a gauge of whether or not anything around her was worth her paying attention to, and the brief pause made her look up.

She went pink immediately. "Ohhhhh mercy."

She didn't call attention to herself, though, throwing herself back into her magic to recenter.

Curnen did though, and upon stilling the guitar strings lifted her voice and called out, "Aren't you dying in those?" For a girl from Tennessee it wasn't bad out at all, but it was still a warm day. Sweatpants seemed like an overheating disaster waiting to happen.

Re: For Curnen

[st_ingofthehundred]

"Only of embarrassment," Kash countered, slowing down to cross the untamed ground between the paths, and then jogging in place near Curnen but far enough away not to sweat on her guitar.

"Calling a storm down on our heads?" Since he'd decided she was some sort of bard, it wasn't an idle question.

For Curnen

[st_everybodylives]

River was idling her day away with a book, and feeling not at all guilty about it. She hadn't really found her place here yet, despite having been here nearly a year and had been contemplating ways she may be able to add to the day to day upkeep of the inn without much success.

So she read, and sipped her tea and when she heard music filtering into where she sat she got up to investigate. She found the source without any trouble, and waited for the song to end before she spoke.

"You're good."

Re: For Curnen

[st_oneswidow]

"You're kind," was Curnen's immediate reply, knowing that her playing was rusty. But even her rusty playing sounded better than most non-Tufa people's rusty playing. It was her singing that would always be her strength, even when she had her fingers back in working order. She would have to figure out her littlest fingers on her own, no musician could really teach her what to do with those.

Re: For Curnen

[st_everybodylives]

"I'm really not," kind was not something anyone had ever called her. Of course she was also not generally thought of as honest either.

"Would it make it easier to accept the compliment if I amended it to, I enjoyed your playing?"

For Corbie

[st_abby]

For what it was worth, Vax was looking better than he had done, since he'd screwed things up with Kash, and screwed himself up in a knot about his lack of a love life before all that. Not to say he wasn't uneasy still, but he was out and about at least. In a way, his having fixed things with Cashew and hearing of someone else's troubles had made him feel better equipped to sort his own.

He wanted to do it right though, if he could. And he'd been so slow to make his move (any move) that he thought it wouldn't much matter if he waited a while more. But they had limited resources here, so he'd need help to do it as he'd like.

Which is how he ended up searching around the grounds specially for Corbie. And when he'd found her at what looked like a ritual something, it struck him she'd been working some magic or other last time he'd seen her, too.

"Playing hopscotch?" He offered it lightly, from over her shoulder where he'd stopped to watch.

Re: For Corbie

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie probably would have laughed that off if she hadn't been thinking fairly recently about how people sorted her into the "kid" category. As it was, she looked over her shoulder at Vax and arched an eyebrow. Not without humor, but not laughing either. "Trying out some warding spells, actually."

Re: For Corbie

[st_abby]

"That sounds complicated," he admitted. "Wards have always been trouble in my line of work. Mostly some of us get blown up a lot until they run out of magic."