In this cold water - Printable Version

Lamia tilted her head, trying to understand that word. She could not say it. Magic magic...magic was the word, she could hear it in her head but her limited vocabulary did not include it. So, in just a few moments, she decided to make her own word. Tenzin said it was her life-force, a natural part of her, and it was elemental. So she combined them into a simple word that groaned in the water, a word that roughly translated to "life's natural element" but to her it meant magic. She smiled again, happy to have overcome this small barrier. "Magic," she whispered the new word. "Breathe water from air. Magic will do this?"
She wondered if it was possible to do that down here in the water. But there was no air here...how could she breathe water from air? She could only breathe water here. It was very confusing to her and it gave her a mild headache. She shut her gills and covered her vents with her hands and tried to focus. Take in water, through her skin maybe, because how could she drink air through her gills? But after a few moments it wasn't working and she had to release her vents and open her gills again so that she could breathe.

A little disappointed, she looked back down at Tenzin. She frowned as something nagged at her. A big beast in the water, behind water-like-rocks. And he knew more of her then she knew of herself. She swam up back close to Tenzin's eye and pressed her hands against the barrier. "Tenzin...you are down here beneath much water and behind water-like-rock. Why? Why are you here? How are you here? How do you know so much?"
"Speech"Thought

"Yes," he answered. Watching carefully as she seemed to try it, he figured he'd let her discover some of it out on her own—such as needing to use that outside of the water, rather than in. She swam closer to his icy home and asked about him, and for a moment he was quiet as he considered how and what to answer.

"Ice," he said first. "The water-like-rocks, the cold ones, that is called ice. It is frozen water." As for why he was here, how, and how he knew so much... "This is where I live," he said simply. "It is easy for me to sleep here, under the muffled rush of the waterfall. I am not always here, sometimes I do leave." And how did he know so much? "There were only twelve of us in the beginning," Tenzin recalled. "We have been here for thousands of years, and we will always be here. And so, we know, from the beginning to the present, all things." His tone was a mix of disappointment and sadness.

Ice, she repeated. That was something she did know how to say and the word tickled the water, sparkling like crystals of ice. She felt across the smooth, cold surface of the sheet of ice separating her from Tenzin and wondered if she would one day learn to make ice as well. You...your magic...it is water too? It was just a connection - ice was just frozen water and Tenzin lived in ice. Obviously, water magic.

Lamia tilted her head. She could understand his want to live here. It was dark and cold and deep. But he was not a fish. She did not understand that. Did other things besides fish live in water? But that sparked a different question. You...are not a fish. Do you breathe air?
Her big beady eyes widened, almost bulging from her head. Tenzin was truly so old? He knew everything from the past? That was incredible but the concept of knowing so much, of remembering so much, that terrified her. She wanted to shy away from the knowledge and live in her ignorance but she couldn't help being curious as well. Twelve others like you...who? Do they also live in deep waters behind ice? Are any of them fish?
"Speech"Thought

She had questions, naturally. "Yes, my magic is also water, but is specialized in ice," he confirmed, but he did not delve deeper into the matter. He was the father of these water children, the father of Pisces—Tenzin was Pisces. Instead, he simply listened to the rest of her musings.

"Indeed, I am not a fish. I do breathe air," he answered. "For those of us that breathe air, we have learned to breathe the air in the water—it is a part of being a child of the water, whether or not you are born within the water or on land." His body turned and a rush of bubbles escaped him, from under the thin patches of ice that guarded his body; the ice surrounding him began to crack, though muffled in the silence of the deep. "Just as you will learn to breathe the water in the air," he added.

There was a loud crack at her last question and freezing temperatures escaped his enclosed area, rushing upward to chill the lagoon. As he slowly released himself from his comfortable icy encasement, he considered how to answer her question. "They do not live in deep waters behind ice," he said finally. "They are not fish." Larger bubbles broke through now, wobbling toward the surface.

"Let us ascend to the air," Tenzin suggested. "We will practice breathing the water in the air."

Finally, he was free of his meditation chamber and rose slowly to face her, his wings curling around her position. She was so small, he thought; he wondered how big she might become. He had to turn his head slightly to the side to see her well. "This is a current," he advised suddenly, lifting his wings briefly before pushing them downward, creating a dangerous undertow that whirlpooled toward the unending deep of the lagoon.

If Lamia was pulled too far down, he had stuck out a leg to catch her. "Strong ones like this, that fight a current you know, are called undertow. They are very dangerous, so if you swim in other water, you will need to be aware of them. There is a large river at the core of this place, and it has a very strong current. You will need to grow stronger before you swim there." He felt it was an important lesson, likely learned better by feeling and experiencing than by listening to words.

Lamia was, admittadly, a little disappointed to learn that not all of the other ancients lived under water and that none of them were fish. How was she going to meet them if they weren't under water? But it seemed that this part of the conversation was over as a large crack in the ice scared the she-devil and she jerked back with surprise as a cloud of cold water washed over her. She smiled from the feeling and found she rather enjoyed the colder kind of water. But she was more interested in Tenzin, rising from his icy cage, then she was in the rapidly cooling water.

She had thought his eye was huge but it was nothing compared to the full sized creature. He had to be ten times bigger then her. She was barely as big as his foot. She felt a quiver of nervousness and the only thing she wanted to do was turn and swim away, squeeze into a crevice where this horribly big creature could not get to her. But she knew that Tenzin was a friend. He was good. She would not swim from him.

The sudden current that he created with his wings, though, she was very much not prepared for. She screeched with surprise as it slammed into her and she was sent spinning through the water. She tried to tread through the water with her hands, using her tail to propel her, but she was young and weak and could not match the current at all. Something hard and heavy hit her back and caught her. She immediately grabbed onto it, wrapping her long, spindly limbs around it. It was one of Tenzin's legs. She looked up at the bird, her body heaving and her eyes wide and gleaming with fear. At first she was confused. Why had he done that? But his words made sense, then. It was to show her, to warn her. If she could not control herself, if she went to places she was not ready for, she would be washed away. She didn't need any more reinforcement. If the river in the core was anything like that, she doubted she would ever want to go there. Wordlessly, she nodded, refusing to let go of the phoenix's leg.

"Speech"Thought

He felt how tightly she wound herself around his leg and he considered it a firmly taught lesson. The lagoon was mostly still save for the area directly under the waterfall, but other waters might not be as friendly. He craned his head downward to spy her and said, "Hold on." With a rush of strong current, Tenzin pushed with his wings again to bring them to the surface of the lagoon. It was a more powerful force than before, meant to bring them all the way to the top rather than to teach a small lesson. He kept his leg pulled tightly to his body in an effort to minimize most of the undertow.

He breached the lagoon's surface with a rush of water, creating a small flood to surge over the lip of the pool. In a single and smooth motion, he reached out with his free leg to grab the rocky boundary below the water surface, securing his position afloat in the lagoon by the strong grip of his talons.

"We will try to breathe the air," he advised her again, lifting the leg she was hanging onto slightly toward the surface. "It is okay if you do not get it within the first few attempts. It only matters that you try," Tenzin said warmly. "I am here to help you learn."

At Tenzin's warning, Lamia held tighter onto his leg, steeling herself for another current to rush into her face. As his wings lifted she flinched and, all of a sudden, they were racing through the water. She made no noise as the water rushed across her face and watched as the light above swiftly got bigger and bigger until, with a loud splash, Tenzin breached the surface and flooded the shore.

She still remained below the surface of the water, though, and refused to let go of the phoenix's leg, still in a bit of shock from the force of travel in the last few seconds. She seemed frozen, her pupils dilated and her gills flapping rapidly. But the gentle nudge of Tenzin's leg seemed to pull some response. She looked up at the phoenix and carefully, slowly, release his leg. No current pulled her away and it felt very strange to be in still water again.

I...ok. She took a deep breath from the water below before going up and slowly breaching the surface. She tried to press down her gills so she would not be tempted to cheat and tried to focus. It was hard to imagine there being any water in the air at all, it was so dry and it felt weird on her skin. But after a few attempts of trying to take in some kind of water, a tingling sensation started in her chest and, suddenly, a rush was oxygen poured into the vents on her mouth. It was so surprising that she nearly leaped out of the water. Eager, she tried to take another breath but found the tingling sensation gone and only the rough air entered her gills making her splutter. She dipped her head back into the water to breathe deeply again. I did it...I think. But I could take only one breath.
"Speech"Thought

Nervously, he watched her bob on the surface for a moment, wondering if the spray of the waterfall might make anything easier if she were within it—but she had succeeded anyway, barely. Enough to know that she could do it. "That's it!" he encouraged, nodding sagely. "It will be difficult at first, but you may learn tricks to make it easier. If a room is covered in mist or fog—denser areas of water in the air that you can see—you will find it easier to absorb. Such as the mist from the waterfall," he explained, motioning with his head toward the area of the lagoon where the water crashed into the pool. "There is also thicker water in the air, known as rain," he said, looking around Pisces. "It does not normally rain in here, though," Tenzin said softly, wondering if he could call a change in the weather.

It was something he had done before, just not in a long while... he breathed slowly, closing his eyes and focusing on the moist atmosphere within Pisces. It did not take very long for the light to dim as clouds darkened the room with their growing density. And then, a drop. Two. Three—before the clouds burst, releasing a torrential downpour that filled his ears with the sound of roaring rain.

His eyes opened to see Pisces thick with rain, easily flooding the small pools just beyond the lagoon. Tenzin smiled, pleased with himself, then glanced down toward Lamia. "This is rain," he said proudly.

New spell!
This spell is now available for purchase in the shop!

Rainfall
High Intensity Manipulation. Atmospheric moisture is condensed into a rainfall. Experienced users can create anything from a light drizzle to a heavy downpour. This weather will fade more quickly in drier caves, but can last an hour or more in humid locations.

Lamia watched from beneath the water this time as Tenzin spoke, not wanting to try that again for now. But then, as he turned towards the cave, the water began to fall from the sky, the water that he called rain. Fascinated, she raised her head from the water and let the water droplets fall onto her face. They trickled into the vents and she found herself able to breathe. It wasn't a lot of breathing, about as much as the spell she had used before, but it was consistant. The water wet her skin as well and it was easier to feel more alive with the rain falling.

I love it. Her words were followed by a joyful keening noise that sent ripples across the surface of the water. Is this magic? Is rain magic? Can I do it too? She tried to get that same tingling magic to spread across her chest and command it to make more rain fall, but all it did was make the air easier to breath again. More moisture collected on her skin and above her mouth so that she was able to take more breaths without the aid of the rain. Why is it I can only do this thing? Is this the only magic I can do?
"Speech"Thought

Tenzin smiled as she spoke. He loved it too. He nodded briefly before saying, "You can do it, but perhaps not yet." His eyes swept across Pisces and he thought for several moments in silence before looking back down to her. "Not all rain is magic, but I used magic to manipulate it. As you grow, so too will your magical abilities, and you will be able to manipulate water in more ways such as calling the rain or freezing water to create ice," he explained to her. It occurred to him then if freezing pockets of water around her gills would make things easier for her; but perhaps later, when she had grown accustomed to her magic.