Playing in the Mud
Atia Doreilas, Written by Renee
Posted on Thu, Sep 9, 2010 01:04 am
Like many of the novices around her, Atia uttered a startled shout when the earth beneath her feet abruptly began to shift and move, making the idea of standing nearly impossible. She fell, as did every other novice, throwing her hands out in front of her to keep from planting her face in the torn up land. It took her only a moment to realize that it had not been the Mistress of Novices who had channeled, and as she brushed dirt from her once-pristine white dress, she shot a glare at the Asha’man.
It took a moment for all of the novices to regain their footing, and once they had, Atia focused her attention on the chests, as instructed. Her eyes widened slightly as she watched Candace’s weaves spring into existence almost instantaneously, whipping around one chest after another in an intricate web that she could barely comprehend. All she knew was that Earth and Spirit were woven, in a net so fine that she couldn’t discern individual threads. It was all done so quickly that Atia lamented her own meager ability to channel – she would never be that fast!
Again, the earth erupted around them, whirling and twisting in the air, and for a moment Atia was rendered temporarily blind, as were many of the other novices. When all was clear, it became obvious what had been done: all the chests were now gone, vanished beneath the earth where they had sat, buried.
“…your task for the first part of the lesson: to retrieve them.” Well, that was no surprise. Frowning, Atia considered the piles of dirt, wondering how so much damage could have been done so quickly. Wondering if she would ever be able to do anything that resembled the mess Candace Sedai and Asha’man Corbin had just managed in mere minutes.
“Watch carefully.” That was Candace Sedai, and Atia focused her attention on both sets of weaves – first the thin thread of earth that would be used to search the ground for a chest, and then the spiraling cord that would be used to draw it up. It was almost too fast for her to follow, but the Mistress of Novices made sure to demonstrate the weaves again and again, ensuring that the female novices were able to see it.
Finally, they were left to unearth a chest on their own, and Atia moved away from the clump of novices, choosing her spot carefully: at least ten feet away from anyone else around her. She had experienced enough random disaster from other novices channeling to have learned that the only strength in the power she could control and depend on was her own.
The first part was the easiest – Atia drew a breath, and with it embraced saidar, channeling a fine thread of Earth that she sent plunging into the ground, dragging it back and forth like a fishing line. The tingling sensation that occurred when Atia discovered her chest was a feeling she catalogued and stored in her memory – she had no idea what Candace Sedai had woven, but she was fairly sure it had something to do with wards, which was a skill she had not yet been taught. She doubted she would be taught how to make wards, not until she was at least Accepted.
Satisfied, she pinpointed the position of her chest, and added a second thread to her first, carefully wrapping it around. It was less precise than Candace Sedai’s had been, of course. The threads were far thicker, for one thing, and the coil she had created looked thick and unlikely, but she drove it into the earth regardless.
The fountain of dirt that shot into the air startled Atia so badly that she lost her hold on saidar, cursing underneath her breath as she stood – burning red with embarrassment – in a shower of dirt and debris. It took her several moments, and a good fifteen deep, calming breaths, before she was able to embrace the Source again, reweaving the thick, odd-looking cylinder.
Once again she pushed it into the earth, albeit more slowly, and found herself grinning with satisfaction as the chest became visible, some twenty feet down. Carefully, she ‘looped’ the double-threaded weave around the chest, mentally tying a knot to make sure it held, and slowly, patiently drew the weave back in, walking backwards without realizing what she was doing.
The end result was the same as Candace Sedai’s had been: a chest, covered in dirt, unearthed and lying in the midst of a catastrophic disaster zone. Grinning like an idiot, and exhausted with her own efforts, Atia released saidar, moving to lean against the chest she had unearthed, apparently oblivious to the fact that she was now covered in dirt.
In reply to Part One: Under the Ground[show]/[hide]
Candance and Corbin stood together as novices began to gather, talking quietly between themselves until they were interrupted by each new arrival introducing himself or herself to Asha’man Corbin, and greeting Candance Sedai with the respect due to an Aes Sedai from a novice. The Mistress of Novices was pleased to note that of the novices that had arrived so far, none of them were sitting down on the dirt piles they had gathered around. Instead they had broken down into small clusters of boys and girls, milling around and chattering excitedly.
The novices were always excited when they were at a channelling lesson; being able to use the One Power was something that they always enjoyed and always wanted more of. If it had been up to them instead of Candance to set their schedules and lessons, the Mistress of Novices was confident that they would fill their time with considerably more channelling lessons, and considerably less time spent in chores and study.
Most of the novices had arrived on time, if not early, which Candance was pleased to see, although not overly surprised. No novice would dare to arrive late to a lesson that was taught by the Mistress of Novices herself! Well maybe some novices would dare; some faces that Candance knew should be here were not here yet. But they would not wait for them: Candance detested not keeping to her schedule, and she refused to be thrown from it because some had dallied over their morning meal for too long.
“Right,” she said calmly, drawing everyone’s attention to her instantly so that all eyes were on her, “I think we’ll begin. Those that aren’t here yet will just have to catch up on what they’ve missed.”
Candance noticed that some of the novices had become drawn to the chests she had placed on the soil and were milling around them, trying to determine what they were there for. She offered them a smile, thinking that they would enjoy the tasks she would have them doing today in the lesson.
“Come and gather over here,” Candance said loudly, dragging the small clusters of novices together into one large group that gathered around herself and Asha’man Corbin, looking at them expectedly. “Wonderful. Well, welcome to you all to this lesson, both Asha’man Corbin and I have some very interesting things to teach you today related to Earth.”
Suddenly the ground beneath them began to rumble and shake, the novices shouting and screaming in alarm as some were knocked off their feet, their arms flailing wildly about as they reached to try and grab onto someone to stabilise themselves. At the centre of it all, Candance and Corbin stood upright and unruffled as the earth around them continued to tilt and shake, until almost all the novices were on their bottoms. At least she had pulled them all over to the grass, so they wouldn’t have to worry about dirt stains on their whites. Well, at least not yet.
“As Asha’man Corbin has kindly demonstrated, Earth can be a powerful element that can have quite severe, direct effects.” Upon realising that it had been the Asha’man that had threw them so easily to their feet, some of the novices blushed as they pulled themselves up. One of the girls even brushed her robes indignantly, flashing the Asha’man a dark, furious glare.
“As well as being powerful and obvious, Earth can also work with subtle mechanisms. Today we’ll be teaching you a bit of both; you won’t be able to do anything as severe as Asha’man Corbin has for some time yet, but the basic principles that we teach you today will serve as a foundation for your learning with this element, so that one day you may be able to do what Asha’man Corbin has and more, if your strengths lie in that direction. Now…watch the chests.”
Candance pointed out the ornate treasure chests that she had lined up in a straight row to the novices so that they were all watching them as she embraced saidar, allowing the One Power to flood in. She looked across to Corbin and he gave a nod to signal that he was ready, and was holding saidin.
Candance took threads of Earth and Spirit and wrapped them around the chests in an intricate weaving of a cage to cover them. It was a complicated weave that would ensure that the chests would not be damaged in what they were about to do, and would also serve the novices to help them for this part of the lesson. The Aes Sedai and the Asha’man worked quickly together, each of them working on half of the chests until they were all done. Some of the novices were looking hard at the chests, but Candance knew that the weave would be too intricate for any of them to follow yet. Once they were done, Candance took thicker threads of Earth and pushed them into the ground, suddenly ripping them up so that soil erupted from the ground in a small explosion that was mirrored to its right by Asha’man Corbin.
Both of them continued to throw random threads of Earth at the large patch of soil, in no order but so the area was in a constant turmoil of churning and exploding soil. The threads ripped the soil up, pushed it down, and swept it from one side to another until finally it finished a few minutes later. It took several moments for all the dirt in the air to settle, and two of the novices who had been standing too close to the show had to brush the dirt from their hair.
“We don’t expect you to be able to do anything so dramatic yet,” Candance said, pulling their attention back to her, “but you may notice now that the chests are gone.”
What she said was true; where once had stood the chests was now an empty field of messy piles of earth. The entire field was turmoil now: mounds of Earth rose up in peaks and fissures ran deep into the ground, dirt trickling into it.
“The chests have now been buried; some of them will be quite deep I imagine. This is going to be your task for the first part of the lesson: to retrieve them. Watch again, carefully this time because this is the weave you’ll be using to find the chests.”
It was a much simpler weave this time, a thin thread of Earth that Candance wove through the soil, sweeping it back and forth, up and down as she looked for a chest, Asha’man Corbin doing the same. She quickly found one; as her thread passed through one of the cages that she and Corbin had wrapped around the chest she could feel a tingle pass through her, alerting her to its presence.
“The weaves that Asha’man Corbin and I placed around the chests will let you know when you brush your thread of Earth against a chest,” she explained, “and once you’ve found a chest you’ll need to pull it out of the soil. Watch carefully again.”
Two threads of Earth were required for this weave. The first was longer and thin, and the second thicker thread was wound around the first thread from top to bottom, circling around it diagonally. This was the weave that Candance pushed into the ground, and the dirt was pushed out of the way, pushing itself up and out as if the weave was drilling into it. She aimed it at the chest and when she felt the tell-tale shiver that ran through her, she hooked the bottom of the weave around the thread, tying it back onto itself so the chest was picked up in the loop. With a tug, she pulled the thread and the chest clear from the ground so that it was sitting on top of the soil.
“You need to push the thread into the ground and when you find your chest again, which once again our weave will allow you to feel, you’ll need to wrap your weave around the chest like so–” she showed the female novices what she had done, this time with the chest out of the ground so they could see “–and pull it out to you.” The chest slid across the ground to stop at her feet. Now that it was out of the ground she could have done the same with a simple thread of Air.
“The second weave is a bit more complicated than we would normally show you, so if you can’t do it just call one of us over and we’ll help you with it. Each of you has a chest buried under there that you’ll need to find. The ground is large enough that you can all try at the same time, but don’t fight over the chests!”
OOC: Yay, Part One! =) So have your novice have a go and if they fail that’s okay, Candance or Corbin can pull the chest out for you. At least 500 words this time, please, since you have two weaves to write about. Part Two will be up on the 15th! Oh, and if your novice tries to open the chest, he/she will find that it’s locked! ;)
