Work Text:
Through time and deliberation, Margaret had fashioned herself a productive enough area to study. It couldn’t be in her room (the aim was so she wouldn’t go back to work during bedtime, which ended up failing regardless), nor in any public spaces. Instead, she found a small room along the western wing, her desk sitting right across from a large stained glass window.
She knew this room now perhaps even more than her own bedroom - for the last year, it had remained her studying chambers surrounding crossing her Protection threshold, and the time within seemed to blend into a barrage of memorization and writing. It was pressed upon her from a young age that not only was physical training integral to mastering all 7 Ways, but mental training as well. What was inherent talent without truly understanding it, after all?
A solid and functional Protection spell, remarked one account that Margaret could recite by now, draws on the caster’s understanding of volume within and around the space, as well as the physical characteristics of things bound of This Earth that the caster knows intensively. This will inform the structure of the emerging magic as it is mentally crafted. If one has created a shield, for example, will it have the visibility of glass? The flexibility of wood? The density of firestone? If applicable, perhaps even observing the interlocking mechanisms of one’s own scales? One must turn to the study of This World and the Next and come to their own conclusions.
Margaret closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, not realizing until then that she had been holding in a breath. She massaged her left palm, as it cramped from annotations.
If she was telling the truth to herself, a part of why she had thrown herself into her studies to this degree despite comments from Ahlaam and Taavi was to quiet her worries. Perhaps if she could understand what she was supposed to, become who she had been working to be, the stresses of the old would be understood and done away with.
But her study did not shut out the ceaseless prattle of her thoughts - it only clashed with them.
Will I ever truly know everything they say I will? …Dakkar was always so much more adept at Protection, she thought wearily. I wish I could talk to him about it.
She slid down into her chair and stared out through the window. Through the clear sections of it, she could see that the sea was calm today. She hoped it was for him, too.
Since he had left, the court went on as usual, but there was a distinct… disruption amongst them. Kal and Taavi were in the Institute almost as much as she was in her room. Ahlaam’s smile was clipped, even Sia’s penchance for protection had grown….
And Father….
Margaret had noticed the rift growing between her father and her brother for quite a long time. From his letters, she was grateful that Dakkar found the separation healthier for him.
But even after he had left, the circles under Itzal’s eyes only grew and the tone of his voice remained humorless.
With the work that both of them had to do, it had been hard to talk about it… or anything, for that matter.
The silence that echoed through the halls left her with a gnawing in the middle of her stomach that she couldn’t quite place.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the bells from the clock tower to the east, chiming the time of 4 o’clock.
Gates, she thought in surprise as she stood up. I nearly forgot.
She rushed downstairs and out through a pathway past the courtyard.
Though their team training had lessened in the year since Dakkar’s departure, Margaret’s individual practice with her Ways had stayed consistent.
It was really one of the only times they saw each other anymore.
Itzal awaited her on the green overlooking the bay, his arms outstretched.
“There you are.”
“Sorry, Father, I’ve been so wrapped up in my studies, I hadn’t noticed the–”
“Of course, of course, you don’t need to be sorry to me! I know just how hard you’ve been working for this kingdom. Prove it to me, hm?” He patted her on the back without looking back at her. “Let’s start with some drills.”
The drills were about concentrated focus on one Way at a time - only her Protection could be used.
When the siblings were younger, Protection drills used to be like a game. One of them or their parents would toss a soft ball or play projectile into the air, and one of them would try to repel it back with a shield.
It had now gotten decidedly more complex.
“Shielding from one angle is one thing, but when you’re in an especially intense environment,” Itzal exclaimed by her side as the simulation began to circle around them like a spiralled dome. “You are going to have to keep your awareness of all sides! Are you ready?”
Margaret nodded, steeling herself.
A series of projectiles began to swarm out of the sky, cerulean barbed arrows of light. Her hands up around her head, her limbs of light quickly crept and looped around each other to create a curving, shifting mass of a Protection. It certainly came easier to her now, the shield an extension of her body as she blocked the arrows, yet without the aid of a combined defense it still carried hints of warbles, ridges along its edges.
Left, right, left, check up, look around, switch positions, check left…
The arrows became more plentiful and with fluctuating direction.
“Good motion, yes, keep it up, move with your core. Concentrate, keep up your form, pace your breathing, you cannot get tired out here.”
Right, left, up, guard, check…
Her hearts beat faster as the flurry surged around her. She was able to keep up the pace physically, but her mind couldn’t stop racing. There were a million things to think about all at once, and it wasn’t helping that everything she had studied and everything she had been feeling was coming back to her in a loop in her head.
“Can we take a minute… to stop? I’m not as adept at this as Dakkar is by myself–”
“Get him out of your head, Margaret. Look at what you are able to accomplish on your own!”
As he spoke, things seemed to speed up. The shield’s ridges became more pronounced, her hits became faster and more erratic.
“You don’t need to rely on anyone else.”
The shield felt less like a protection and more like a slowly encroaching mass. The translucency of it became darker as it began to build up more layers within it. The ridges started to turn more into spines. The back of her head throbbed with ache.
“Erase the doubt from your head and LOOK at who you are becoming!”
“FATHER, STOP IT!”
Her shield blasted apart into shards that shook the construction of the illusion itself. Itzal’s eyes were wide as he took down the simulation.
Margaret let out a shaky breath as she looked down at the ground. For a moment, she felt like a child.
“I’ve just… had a lot of mental work today. Is it alright if we take a walk for a moment?”
There was a moment where neither of them moved.
Itzal nodded.
They took a path carved out of one of the hills and walked down to the shoreline. Margaret walked along the side closest to the surf.
The wind grew from a wisp to a brisk breeze. The sound of it was a nice reprieve.
After what seemed like a long bout of silence, Itzal looked out at the waters, eyes distant.
“Do you remember?” Itzal said at last, and at this he softly smiled, the first smile she had seen from him in some time. “The boat races around the peninsula. People from across the Clans came to watch. Your mother had to stop you from running halfway down the beach to see who was winning.”
Margaret allowed herself to smile at the memory too.
Her mother had tried to get the twins to settle down by talking about the Searchers that were in the contest that year, a friendly challenge to keep their skills sharp and celebrate their voyages. What might it be like, the siblings wondered, to travel to the other islands, explore the vast mysteries of their World!
And even as they remained put in their seats, they strained their necks to look around the hook of the peninsula to catch a glimpse of the first bow to come across it. As a child, Margaret liked to find shapes in the rocks along the water, and declared that the cracks and crevices on the outer cliffside looked like a face.
Looking out over the bay, she could see now that the right eye had disappeared from years of weathering and the mouth made more of a grimace. Yet the sun cast its rays over it anyway, reflecting off the water in dappling ripples.
“I think the races should be starting up again soon,” she said, one of her fingers wrapping around a curl of hair. “I haven’t been following them as closely, but…. It would be nice to see them all again.”
“Mm,” her father assented, his eyes still miles along the beach. She could see they were slightly bloodshot, small slivers of gold surrounding his pupil.
He cleared his throat and gestured up to the hill. “We should be getting back. We can readjust our practice and go from there.” He paused for a moment, sighing. “I’m sorry you didn’t feel like you were ready for that level. I wanted to bolster your confidence.”
“I understand. I just–”
“You are far better than most, Margaret. Never forget that.” And at this, he turned towards her, though his eyes seemed to look through her. “I know you can do it. Okay?”
Margaret looked back up at him, that too feeling like a performance. It wasn’t about the workload, she wanted to say. The gnawing remained. But she nodded.
“Okay.”