ORIGIN

Tahi-shei mimicked her relaxation by laying down with his legs tucked just to his side, providing a strange picture -- an almost lion-and-the-lamb picture (or, rather dragon-and-the-lamb), with a canine and a deer perfectly relaxed in each other's presence. Giggle wasn't aggressive to Tahi-shei, though, and thus far he had no reason to distrust her, so he didn't think twice about being so exposed near her. But more importantly, she was talking theory, and if he'd had hands Tahi-shei would have been writing notes.

He loved talking theory.

Giggle had his full attention as she explained that, while diverse, all magic was ultimately the same. "Like light shining through a crystal?" he asked. "White light goes in, but it splits out into all those colors? Even though they're all different, they're still light and they come from the same white beam." And that made sense -- he'd reasoned out something similar with learning his electricity spell.

Her explanation gave him pause. He'd... well, he'd pushed his will into fungus before, he supposed. Willing it to grow more than anything, but he'd managed to manipulate Fungal Wake into fun shapes and colors (albeit a bit crudely). It stood to reason that what Giggle was talking about was just a more difficult version of that. He nodded a little bit warily, willing to let her try it -- he did trust her, of course. It's just... well, handing over any part of your willpower to someone else was a little bit scary.

His ears pricked up in alarm. "Are you sure it's okay? I can try that thing you told me about earlier, where you take fungus out, if you need it?" He knew that the rules of spells sometimes changed when they backfired. And then, because he wasn't sure if she'd been joking or not about not being a good teacher -- "Magic is fickle. Believe me, I know," he said, laughing a little. But her question gave him pause. He supposed he could... try?

Tahi-shei squinted. "I've never done it before, but I can try." He focused on trying to see... well, the fungus, he supposed. Spores, mycelium webbing out, hell -- even a little bit of mold. Anything that could indicate a spell had been cast. He followed her eyes and squinted, noticing what he'd initially thought was just dust. "That sounds like something I'd have to meditate on," he admitted, because that was how he'd learned spells previously, "but I can keep trying, if you want."



@giggle

She shook her head, hastening to reassure him. "No, no, I'm fine. It... isn't in the target, see. It's--usually inhaled, or simply by being near them. Those that go inside--well, those are usually the 'eating' kind and we'll not do that in practice. She grinned at Tahi-shei.

"Just give it a few minutes to wear off. So what's this about light, and crystals?" she asked, bemused but interested; "I've never seen that happen, before. White comes out in other colors?" She hoped for clarity; it was interesting, if confusing. Why would it do that-? How did more colors come into being just from white? And where did one get white light to begin with--or did Tahi-shei mean just the general light of the caves? No; maybe light-magic, like Kera's-?

Giggle thought about this, but after awhile pushed it aside. "As for meditation--whatever works for you! I'm not your master, just a guide. If there's a way you wanna do things, we'll do it that way." Truth be told, she was glad to have someone here who wanted to learn; even her own children had mostly gone their own way, and there weren't (in Giggle's mind) enough Gembound with knowledge of the fungus, these days.

She was ready to try the magic again, at least, after her own had worn itself off. "Right, ahh... I'll try that again, with the fungus." HIM, not ME, she thought with rough amusement, directing the thought at the fungus itself. It was useful practice for her, too, she realized: thus far she'd mostly only had a chance to practice it on lessers, which was... less than optimal for a real situation with actual threats.

She sent the fungus out again, for Tahi-shei, directing it more carefully this time--and when she felt it taking hold, she began to explain. "Now, with these spores--this magic--you should feel yourself sort of... ahh, unnaturally at ease with me. As though everything I'm saying makes sense, right? Even if I did something terrible, or foolish, you'd be likely to blithely go along with it. It's just the fungus, though. The reason I show you this firsthand is so--and I hope it works!" she interrupted herself, with a hoarse laugh--"-but it's so you can get an idea of something that can be used for defense, as you want, without real violence. It can protect you, turn enemies into... well, not friends, but not-enemies--but only briefly. You'll only buy yourself a few moments to make your case, calm them down, offer something else or start another defense--whatever. I'll let it go, now," she added, releasing her hold deliberately, letting the power of the fungus fall away; "but you should get the idea?"

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@Tahi-shei

Tahi nodded at her, glad that she was okay. But, at her question, he nodded. "Yeah! I'll make sure to show you sometime, 'cause it's really pretty." He'd seen the way light could interact with a stray crystal, or even another Gembound's stone. However, her mention that meditation was an okay way to do things was something of a relief to him. "Okay, cool. That's how I've learned all my spells so far, except the one I knew how to do when I was born. I kind of just... knew that one. The one with making mushrooms," he added, in case that was relevant.

Giggle warned him before she cast the magic, and Tahi watched her carefully. It was a sort of slow, accidental thing -- without even really noticing, he was far more relaxed. He'd already been engaged in what she was saying, but he felt more inclined to agree with her, and nodded along as she talked. Once she drew attention to it, though, he blinked a little. "Huh...! That is a strange feeling." Not a bad one, though. He shook himself a little when she released it, like trying to snap himself out of drowsiness. "That would be really useful. How do you make it happen? I want to at least try your method. Oh, and how did you learn how to do it?"


@giggle

"I'll hold you to that," she answered, good-naturedly; not only blind agreement, either. She was curious about this crystal-light thing the deer spoke of.

"As for how I learned..? That's an--interesting question, I guess, because what you're asking me, even if you don't realize it, is how I always learn!" She offered a short, brash laugh, flopping down onto her chest to lay sphinx-like, thinking.

"It is useful, though, isn't it?" and she sounded admiring, perhaps of the magic, or maybe proud of herself. "But yeah... as for learning? I guess I always had the touch, the... ability to interact magically with fungus, and from there it's a matter of finding the right spores. Testing them, seeing what they do. I'll give you an example," she added, glancing around, until she found the right ones.

"Awhile ago there were these... lizard things," she explained, nodding down to the ground, nudging her nose against it. With her magic, a small carpet of reddish-orange, rather carrion-looking fungus, with dry and spongy pads, sprang up. They reeked of carrion rot. "They came after me--mindless predators, I think--and one of the things I'd seen them try to do was eat this fungus, one I'd never seen before. It smells like meat, and you might not think much of that but it attracts predators. So they tried to eat it! But it tastes terrible!" she added, with a cackle. "I remembered them, for later; took those spores with me and followed 'em. When I found a bear being attacked by the same shitbag lizards, I grew the fungus on him--and he musta been real confused, maybe thought I was attacking him, too, but there was no time to explain! The lizards got a good mouthful and figured he tasted as terrible as the stuff they'd bitten off before. And that was that; he drove 'em off without much more trouble."

She lapsed into thought, for a moment; into memory. That had been years ago, now: so long that it had been before the void, which was a period Giggle thought of almost as its own epoch. 'Before the Void.'

"So, long story short? Trial and error," she explained, with something like a smirk.

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@Tahi-shei

Tahi-shei considered how she learned, and thought about it. Okay... well. He'd watched her make spores that could alter your mind...? He concentrated on spawning spores, adding in a "alter the mind" effect on the end like he might make his mushrooms glow or turn pink (which he still hadn't been able to do). He cast magic alright, but unsurprisingly, it was the wrong kind. He opened his eyes to find a small cluster of morels straining towards him as though they wanted to take root in his stone and never let go.

I suppose they do, he thought. "Uhhh... that didn't really work. Want to try meditating with me?" he offered. "I can guide you through my process, if you want." What was his process? "Usually I think about what I want to do from, like, a philosophical perspective -- how I might manipulate my magic. I tend to think about the ethics of what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, what I want to impact. I might cast a few other spells to get myself warmed up, and then I start trying to cast the new spell. It tends to take me a couple tries to guide the magic properly, so misfires like that one happen, but eventually I always get it."


@giggle

Giggle was a little taken aback at the offer and explanation, purely because of its foreignness to her. She'd heard of various ways to learn magic, but this-? It was strange to her.

"You can show me, if you like? I've never heard of it, before; who taught you how to do this?" The hyena pushed up, polite and attentive but not particularly invested, as yet, in this whole 'meditation' thing. "Or is it something you came up with yourself?"

In theory it seemed sound; magic was so much, after all, about thinking what you wanted to do and imposing your will on it. Tahi-shei's description seemed, to her, like he was just... thinking harder.

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@Tahi-shei

He shrugged. "I sort of just... always did it. I've always liked to meditate on my magic; I guess I've always known there was something more than what's in front of me to it. A... an extra place maybe? Or maybe just, the other strands of time all sort of bundled up together. Sometimes when I do it, new spells come naturally. Sometimes I have a specific goal. More often, I think of half of it and let Fate do the rest. Like, with my electricity spell that I learned? I wasn't sure what I would get. I was just trying to cast electricity, and now I can interrupt spell casts." Assuming he knew a spell was being cast, anyway. That was harder than it sounded, though someone could generally make an educated guess.

"Just watching me meditate wouldn't be all that interesting," he admitted. "But if I'm explicitly learning or practicing spells, I usually go to Polaris. If you'd rather, I can just... come back tomorrow and tell you if I figured the spell out or not? And probably show you!" he grinned. And then, a quick addendum -- "I mean, if you're okay with it. Obviously." No bullying, remember?


@giggle

Her dark eyes widened abruptly--not at the meditation, but at the sudden, inadvertant explanation Tahi-shei had given of Giggle's own view of magic; nearly, in fact, a better explanation than she'd given him herself. Her outburst, then, was enthused. "Yes! Another place! That is--maybe a better way to put what I was trying to say. Magic is everywhere, all around us yes; but almost another plane. And I know there are other places, other planes;" she added--and, after a brief, but suddenly grim, pause, she finished, "I've been to one." It was more quietly said, and she quickly shook her head, pushing the topic away. "Maybe this meditation is your way of drawing closer to the magic that threads through everything. The... world-of-magic beneath the world that we know."

At his offer to leave and come back, Giggle laughed: a short bark of amusement. "No, no! Guide me through it. Let's see how you do this; I'm always interested in learning more--as everyone should be," she added, a little pointedly, for that was a lesson in its own right.

Then she settled in to wait, attention on Tahi-shei. "Will you explain what you're doing, or do I just--watch?" she asked, after a beat, just to check.

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@Tahi-shei

His eyes lit up. He was glad that he'd struck a chord with Giggle! It was nice to know that the pair of them were firmly on the same page. His ears flicked down in concern when she mentioned she'd been to another plane, briefly. It seemed like something sad to her, rather than an exciting opportunity for more knowledge--! But Tahi would return to that, he supposed. For now, he settled into a comfortable position.

"No, I'll guide you through it," he said gently. "It would be rude to just make you watch, I think. The first thing I do is get into a comfortable position, 'cause I might be here for a while." Tahi breathed in deeply, and then out again. "Then I take deep breaths, and focus on them. I narrow my focus to just my breathing and a thought or two, and then... sort of nothing at all." A few moments of silence passed as he moved himself into this state, and then enough out of it to speak. "Then, I just... let whatever comes to me, come to me. Ideas, usually. Like..." He dripped back into a place of limited consciousness.

And began to consider.

"What do the fungus see?" he said out loud, instead of just in his head. "What links them together? Are they all one, or are they different? What magic connects me to them, and why is it distinct?" He shifted again. "Or maybe the magic is vaguer, gentler, less harsh and specific. Maybe it is something flowing and varied like rain over stone, or stone itself, or Stone." Another pause, then, meaningful this time. A consideration. "But... all Stone is linked through magic. The Spire, and the black Oil to which we all return... so what is to fungus as magic is to Gembound? Water? Substrate? Or maybe... it's the Other."

Tahi's eyes blinked open, and he felt a little... out of it. "Umm... then I usually try to cast a spell," he admitted. "The more-mushrooms one." He thought about it, and a halo of bright, proud fungus surrounded him in the glowing blues and whites of Orion. An impressive display -- but maybe he was showing off a little bit on purpose.


@giggle

She listened, watched, and learned. Quiet, attentive.

The first thing that struck her, almost at once, was that she knew of this... state. This way of melting away, of settling the body and losing the mind to the world around her. But she didn't call it meditation, and it took several moments of quiet, pensive thought, of observation, to come to the right word.

It wasn't 'hard thought.'

It wasn't, even, focus; it wasn't concentration, or dreaming.

No; it was communion. And the realization of this widened her eyes, lighting their dark depths with interest. Tahi-shei was, in dropping away into this state, communing with the world around him, with the magic threading through it all--as Giggle did. At least, this was the way that she saw it: comparing it to her own method, her own long hours of placid, half-conscious thought-streams.

His burst of magic, at the end--the fungus flowering and fruiting across the floor in a bright and brilliant ripple--turned her black lips up like a humanoid smile.

"It's impressive. And though you call it something else, it's what I often use; I would call it communing with the fungus, with magic, with the world around me. I think it's much the same--though you've... hm, not standardized... ritualized might be a better word. You've created something of a ritual around it; I bet it helps you fall into it more easily. I just dream, like that... awake, thought-dreams--whenever I have nothing to do."

Giggle gave an amused, rough laugh. "But it works. For you, for me. And your magic's clearly benefitted. Is it normally that strong?" she added, eyeing the mushrooms over.

"There's something else I can show you, now, if you like? With these mushrooms' spores," she added, turning and offering a nudge of her paw to a nearby cluster of pale-stemmed, brown-capped, rather unimpressive-looking mushrooms.

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@Tahi-shei